Die Toer in sy moer?

[Groot Lem]

 

Death of Le Tour?

Article By: Dan Nicholl

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:36

18 holes at Zimbali yesterday ? hopefully while most of you were in your respective offices, keeping the economy stumbling along in my absence ? with Adrian Garvey, brought home a couple of truths. Prop forwards and golf are not natural companions. Homeowners don?t always take kindly to errant drives rattling their tiles. And outside of a handful of hardened spectators, Phil Liggett, and a peleton largely made of people no one?s ever heard of, planet earth is completely disinterested in the Tour de France.

 

Playing golf with former sportsmen usually involves talk of sport, and so in between dazzling me with tales of his Springbok career (the older Garvz gets, the better he used to be), the Open Championship (and Padraig?s magical five-wood), Rafael Nadal, a woeful Sharks, Brian Mujati and the Springboks, a ten-wicket win at Headingly, and Pirates-United at the Shark Tank, all came up in conversation. Something big just didn?t pop up, though, and took me until this morning to work out what it was: Le Tour.

 

I?ve watched all of 20 minutes of this year?s race, along with collected snatches from news bulletins and highlights packages. There was a flicker of interest given Robbie Hunter?s leadership of a team that almost passed as South African, but Barloworld?s withdrawal of their sponsorship after the latest drug scandal to hit cycling, I simply don?t have any desire to follow the race. There were a few headlines in the early stages, but only because a Formula 1 star appeared to have made the transition from four wheels to two; turned out it was a different Schumacher, and it?s been downhill from there.

 

For an event that transfixed the planet just a few years ago, the fall from grace has been spectacular. Every second person had a yellow wristband firmly in place; those that didn?t spent a few meditative moments reading passages from ?It?s Not About The Bike? every morning, Lance Armstrong?s tome suddenly the new King James. Cycling was as cool as it got, and the Tour de France was compelling stuff. Mike Haysman used to switch of his phone, cancel his Jerry Springer body-double work and lock himself in his house in front of the television for two weeks ? and the rest of the world followed suit.

 

Armstrong?s eventual abdication was supposed to open up the field to a slew of new champions, young riders eager to charge along the trail the defining figure of the Tour had blazed. With cycling converts desperate to see what was going to happen next, the sport awash with money, and the opportunity for superstardom (and a high-profile relationship with an Olsen twin) up for grabs, cycling, and the Tour, were primed for another memorable chapter.

 

Instead, we?ve had the most spectacular disintegration of a major sporting event I can remember. Cricket had it?s trials with match-fixing, the baseball strike did its best to scupper the Major League. Formula 1 took a ringing blow with last year?s US Grand Prix ? but nothing has matched the scale or duration of the Tour de France?s plummet. The peleton has a handful of recognisable riders at best, every stage win comes with an inevitable cloud of suspicion from a cynical, sceptical public, and coverage of the event doesn?t touch the Armstrong days. German television opted out of covering the Tour after the Floyd Landis debacle, an unthinkable decision a few years ago.

 

The cycling fans, the true disciples who dress up in lycra just to watch the Tour, still hang on devoutly ? Petal le Grange, my Mighty Dodos team-mate, is in France this week to watch. And he?ll have a great time, soaking up the atmosphere, and watch riders who?re still phenomenal athletes, take on a challenge that remains one of the most demanding in sport. Given the opportunity, I?d watch myself ? but not with the keenness I?d have had when Armstrong was leading the way.

 

Part of the decline can be ascribed to the departure of a man who pretty much was the Tour de France for so long. But the race has enough history and prestige to overcome that. What?s pulled it down is the unmitigated succession of scandal ? magnified, perhaps, by the McCarthyism of the French press in their doping witch hunts, but which have nonetheless exposed a sport that appears fundamentally rotten. 2008 was a year to clear the air, to desperately call out to a departing public that faith had been restored; so much for that.

 

The volume of top quality sport that?s besieged us there last few weeks hasn?t helped the Tour?s cause, certainly, but it should command our attention even amongst so much competition. That it hasn?t is more than worrying; we aren?t quite at the death knell, but professional cycling is mightily unhealthy. The Tour de France is too big, too established to be a fringe event, and it deserves prominent status. Or at least, it used to. There?s a repair job needed, and urgently, for it keeps sinking, we?re in danger of losing one of sport?s iconic events ? and that, in the light of the joy that the Tour has brought us over the years, would be a terrible shame.

 

Contact Dan at dan@metropolis.co.za

 

 

 

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[Tumbleweed]

we always view cycling's woes as unfixable. rugger? yawn. cricket? yawn (rhymes with vaughan)...to use the word "shame"....yawn....

[jabbathemutt007]

 

 

Death of Le Tour?

Well if its so dead how come there are so many spectators that those wanting to view on Alpe 'd Huez have to start camping there 5 days before the race arrives ?

 

[DawieO]

The Tour is DEAD? 

 

LONG LIVE THE TOUR!

[Sean Badenhorst]

Nothing like not really knowing the facts to create a story to mislead the misled even further. And the last time Armstrong a.k.a Average Joe's blue-eyed, goody-goody cycling hero, rode the Tour was in 2005. Get over him. Sheryl Crowe did. And to find a sport that's 'fundamentally rotten', look a little further than the only one that's actually trying really hard to clean itself up. Golf writers should stick to writing about golf, which is a game, not a sport...

 

 

[butafly]

did Dan Nichol get paid to write that?

[evanr4]

Would be nice if Dan actually got his facts correct before posting his lame arse story:

Why would Mike Haysman watch only 2 weeks of a 3 week tour?

The debacle at the US grand prix was 3 years ago, not last year.

 

Guess we can take everything he says with a pinch of salt

[Willehond]

Luckily Europe doesn't give a toss whether Mike Haysman or Nicholl tunes in to watch at the far end of Africa.  Here nobody has heard of the decline of cycling or le Tour.  In fact, you can't turn on the tv without seeing bikes and the only diversion is when they show a bit of abseiling (starring John Lee Augustyn!)

 

The sport newspaper here has 16 pages per day devoted to the tour.  The first 16!!!

 

Rugby on the otherhand does not even feature.  Not even an inch.

 

Did I mention I was happy here?  Thought so...

['Sop]

 

To a moderately serious cyclist such as myself, its getting to be a real pain to support a heroic effort, getting all swept up & excited at a plucky guy giving it all to a spectacular finish... then to hear the next day the dude's been found doping.

 

Lamenting that this a curse all pro sports suffers from, just does not cut it with someone like myself who values an honest competitive spirit in my chosen sport.

 

Last year I swore not to again get so involved in the tour de Farce, yet here I am again, suffering yet more disappointment. Next year? At this point I do not even care that much as to who's going to "win" this one. "win" as in: most successful at outfoxing the doping tests.

 

All you dopers can go [perform obscenities upon] yourselves!

 

 

 

 

 

'Sop2008-07-23 14:42:25

[gianni]

 

I stopped reading after the line one.......... drivel

gianni2008-07-23 14:46:32

[Willehond]

To a moderately serious cyclist such as myself' date=' its getting to be a real pain to support a heroic effort, getting all swept up & excited at a plucky guy giving it all to a spectacular finish... then to hear the next day the dude's been found doping.

Lamenting that this a curse all pro sports suffers from, just does not cut it with someone like myself who values an honest competitive spirit in my chosen sport.

Last year I swore not to again get so involved in the tour de Farce, yet here I am again, suffering yet more disappointment. Next year? At this point I do not even care that much as to who's going to "win" this one. "win" as in: most successful at outfoxing the doping tests.

All you dopers can go [perform obscenities upon'] yourselves!

 

If you are a real fan you will find it impossible to look away.  Yes, you will get hurt again. and again. and again.

 

Love it, won't have it any other way!  I won't let a dopehead spoil the sport I love with a passion.

['Sop]

 

I believe nobody is condoning doping (on this forum), but I find the lack of all-out outrage worrysome. It smacks of a "don't ask don't tell" mentality, a nudge-wink attitude. Of course it spoils it when some of the top world riders are found to be doping!

 

Ok, I'm probably over-reacting & you're correct in that the sport remains at its core one worthy of my passion. Yet until such time as dopers are mercilessly and effectively exposed and disposed of, I shall ever be sceptical of the greats' performances.

 

 

 

'Sop2008-07-23 15:18:30

[madison]

This is the problem with the Armstrong era. A lot of new "cycling fans" were created by the hype, only to dissapear when Armstrong retired. Unfortunately to many people who do not know the history of the sport, Lance Armstrong & the tour de France was cycling. The sad thing is that we have had the most interesting tour in years, seven different leaders to date (the most in the tour history was apparently 8) & it all could come down to the final TT. These former fans of the sport do not know what they are missing & maybe it is because they do not actually understand what the sport is about. Does the sport actually need these fairweather fans? I think not & quite frankly the sport seems to be doing well enough in Europe judging by the support on the stages and as was mentioned in yesterday's commentry, the sport may have lost two sponsors, but it has gained three big long term sponsors shortly before the TDF. No one condones doping & i do believe it happens in all sports, but the fact is that no other sport tests as much as cycling does. Lets wait & see what happens at the olympics.     

[Reg Lizard]

After yesterday's racing up the Alp du Heuz I think there's going to be a lot more positive doping tests before the Tour ends. The guys were really putting down the hammer and the way that certain riders responded to the attacks were "super" human.

[fandacious]

Does the sport actually need these fairweather fans?    

 

fairweather fans? the roads up alp d huez were jam packed. as they always have been. and always will be

[fandacious]

in fact... according to phil, in the past you could pitch up the day before and get a spot next to the road. this year guys camped out there a week before the time... seems the fans are more dedicated than ever