Andrei Tchmil versus Jo Planckaert

Posted on by

I can’t understand a word of it. But, you don’t really have to. Tchmil was hard as nails. First he takes a swing at Planckaert. Then he hits the deck. Hard. He gets up only to be molested by some poor old woman who seems concerned for his well-being.

The google translation of the Dutch is:

Jo Planckaert, between 1997 and 1999 with Lotto rode three seasons, remembers many a clash with team leader Andrei Tchmil. Across from Belgium in 2000 – Planckaert had just moved to Cofidis – this happened.

When Tchmil walks across the line, he looks about ready to tear someone’s head clean off. And that someone is named Jo Planckaert.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxhuKHIIW5A[/youtube]

Link in case the embed tanks: http://video.canvas.be/belga-sport-andrei-tchmil-versus-jo-planckaert-fragment-4.

About big jonny

The man, the legend. The guy who started it all back in the Year of Our Lord Beer, 2000, with a couple of pages worth of idiotic ranting hardcoded on some random porn site that would host anything you uploaded, a book called HTML for Dummies (which was completely appropriate), a bad attitude (which hasn’t much changed), and a Dell desktop running Win95 with 64 mgs of ram and a six gig hard drive. Those were the days. Then he went to law school. Go figure. Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

11 Replies to “Andrei Tchmil versus Jo Planckaert”

  2. The funniest thing of that clip is the old leather helmet that Tchmil used to wear. Basically only keeps the flesh from ripping off your skull when you crash….
    Tchmil was a classics hardman, the epitome of old Russian Eastern Block rider…..doped to the gills.

  3. Despite the fact that I am a 90% Socialist/Pacifist/Hippie/Make-Love-Not-War kind of guy, I still love the intensity. These guys wanted to race. They wanted to win. They were all raised in the Cannibal’s school for cut-throats, and it showed.

    Today’s racers are so calculated, so clinical and so freaking blase’ that it is very hard for me the fan to be passionate about them or their teams. I mean, if they don’t care, why should I?

    Today’s climate makes guys like Cavendish seem like thugs. Put Cav in a race with riders like Tchmil and Planckaert… Well, he’d be considered a bit timid… Fast as hell, but timid none the less.

    Thanks for the video Juan Grande. Keep ’em coming.

  4. Amen, Gypsy! Somewhere along the reign of Indurain, somebody went and poured vanilla over the peloton. I enjoy the animators like Chiapucci, Pantani, Cavendish, and even that little Frenchman that could. Without characters, the story line rings hollow.

  5. tchmil was a hard man on the bike no doubt but please dont try to sell me on the, “cycling sissy fights are badass” routine. the dood was 140 lbs, whiffed on some mosquito swat, and hit the pave. is that worthy of analysis / interview? nope.

  7. …the original brothers, willy, walter, eddy, then jo & now francesco planckaert…

    …all pro cyclists & ‘tough’ does run in the family…

    …good point, gypsy…even cippolini, sleazeball that he was, brought great ‘color’ to the sport…

  8. …as for andrei tchmil, there is a mostly unwritten history as regards his original pro squad, ‘alfa lum’…

    …ostensibly, the sponsor was an italian aluminum door & window manufacturer & they had been such with a full italian team including maurizio fondriest who won ’88 worlds in the alfa lum kit but for the years of 1989 & ’90, the italians were gone & a full compliment of 15 soviet riders was signed including tchmil, dimitri konysev & the highly animated sprinter djamolidine abdoujaparov…

    …based in italy, the team’s russians had quite a bit of success over the 2 years as they rode in the awesome red & white striped alfa lum kit but the unwritten part was that the real ‘behind the scenes’ monetary sponsor was the ‘russian mafia’…

    …‘doped to the gills’ ???…sprint like a crazy man ???…willing to strive like never before ???…i’m bettin’ with a ruthless ‘under the table’ sponsor like that, those lads became even more hardcore…

    …i’d love to have a beer or two & hear some of their old cycling war stories…

  9. Next to Stefen Cel Mare, the greatest thing Moldova ever made. After spending several years in Moldova, I understand why Tchmil is a baller. Drunk drivers, crap roads, stray dogs. All these combined make for some true toughness. I remember seeing the Moldovan youths hammering the roads between Chisinau and Hinceste. Pot holes, bad drivers, hill after hill, and some horrible weather conditions. They were a true inspiration for any cyclist. Wanna get fast and hard, spend a season cycling in Moldova. Slava Moldova!!!

  11. Fuck, these guys sure look old given they were Elite Pros just a little over a decade ago. Hope we all age better than them.