Decline
Elliott's career started to fade from the mid-1960s. He moved in 1966 from Anquetil's team to the rival Mercier-BP, sponsored by a bicycle company and an oil company and led by Anquetil's rival, Raymond Poulidor. Elliott planned for retirement by opening a hotel in Loctudy in Brittany. That took so much of his time that he could ride only local races. After promising Mercier-BP that he would make amends in the world championship, the chain came off his bicycle and he finished 15th.
Things grew worse. His marriage to Marguerite, failed. The hotel, too, failed and Elliott lost all his money. To make amends, he sold a story to the British newspaper, The People, telling of drug-taking and bribery. The article went into few details but was enough for him to be snubbed by other professionals. The same had happened to Simpson when he sold his story to the same paper. But while Simpson recovered despite reprimands from his agent, criticism in the cycling press and a threat of dismissal by his team, Elliott's career never regained momentum.
Jock Wadley, who had shared a room with Elliott at the Simplex training camp, said: "I knew times were hard for him but nobody knew just how hard until he had to do that."
Read more about this topic: Seamus Elliott
Famous quotes containing the word decline:
“Considered physiologically, everything ugly weakens and saddens man. It reminds him of decay, danger, impotence; it actually reduces his strength. The effect of ugliness can be measured with a dynamometer. Whenever anyone feels depressed, he senses the proximity of something “ugly.” His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage, his pride—they decline with ugliness, they rise with beauty.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The chief misery of the decline of the faculties, and a main cause of the irritability that often goes with it, is evidently the isolation, the lack of customary appreciation and influence, which only the rarest tact and thoughtfulness on the part of others can alleviate.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)
“Families suffered badly under industrialization, but they survived, and the lives of men, women, and children improved. Children, once marginal and exploited figures, have moved to a position of greater protection and respect,... The historic decline in the overall death rates for children is an astonishing social fact, notwithstanding the disgraceful infant mortality figures for the poor and minorities. Like the decline in death from childbirth for women, this is a stunning achievement.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)