As an amateur, Durand won the French team time trial championship with the Île-de-France team . Jacky Durand became a professional cyclist in 1990 with Team Castorama , where he was active until 1995. On April 5, 1992 he won the Tour of Flanders after a 217 km solo ride. In 1993 and 1994 he was French road champion. In 1994 he won the tenth stage of the Tour de France . In 1995, Durand wore the yellow jersey for two days after winning the prologue .
In 1996 he moved to the Agrigel-La Creuse-Fenioux team, where he drove for a year. In 1997 he went to Team Casino. In Montauban , he won the eighth stage of the Tour de France a year later and won the prize for the most aggressive driver. In the same year he was the first Frenchman in 42 years to win the Paris-Tours race . In this race he broke away from a ten-man leading group 23 kilometers from the finish and then won the sprint against Mirko Gualdi .
In 1999 he moved to the Belgian Lotto-Mobistar team. At the Tour de France this year, he fell on the second stage and was almost run over by a service vehicle. Nevertheless, he continued to fight and was again awarded the prize for the most aggressive driver, the “Cœur de Lion”. Due to his fall, however, he was last in the overall standings. He later confirmed that he purposely and actively wanted to come last. He justified this as follows: "It is better to be last than penultimate. The press is always interested in the last." At the Vuelta a España that same year, he wore the yellow jersey for two days.
In 1996 Jacky Durand was banned for eight months for repeated doping with anabolic steroids. According to an investigation report by the French Senate from July 2013, Durand was one of the riders who were subsequently convicted of being doped with EPO at the 1998 Tour de France . The report relied on the results of anonymous but traceable EPO follow-up tests.
Individual evidence
^ Saarländischer Rundfunk (Ed.): Tour de France 2002 . Saarbrücken 2002, p.31 .