Tour de France babble
Jun. 28th, 2004 06:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenayI am a huge cycling fan and on Saturday my annual three week fest of the best cycling in the world begins. Yup, Tour de France is almost upon us :-) None of the other races have quite the drama, excitement or intensity of this race. Watching it is thrilling, terrifying and exhilarating. Last year's penultimate stage had me literally on the edge of my seat, gibbering with nerves as I prayed for Lance not to crash out or lose time to Ullrich. I become a cycling bore for three weeks and even my mother gets caught up in the excitement. I blame father dearest for the obsession - he was the one who kept watching it while I was a kid and agreed to take me out of school when the Tour visited the south of England for two days in '94. Some of my best memories are of bombing along roads at silly times in the morning to follow the race (that year and again in Ireland, '98) while father told me tales of races he'd watched over the years. I'd love to find a video of the '87 Tour because of his description of Steven Roche racing up a mountain in the fog to limit his losses to Pedro Delgado that year. Roche began the stage several minutes behind Delgado and, for some reason, the French cameras (still the only live feed on the race - which is why you'll see all the graphics in French no matter which country you're watching from) were not following him.
Picture the finish line: It's so foggy, you can't see more than a hundred metres. Pedro Delgado appears out of the fog, alone apart from the motorbike/camera guy, and commentator Phil Liggett talks about him as he powers towards the line, certain that he's won the yellow jersey. Suddenly, out of that fog bank, appears Roche. He's exhausted, almost dropping, but he doesn't let up or slow down. Delgado goes over the line first, but Roche is only a few seconds behind him having ridden himself into the group to make up the minutes he had lost at the foot of the mountain. Phil Liggett goes crazy because there was no hint over the radio that Roche had managed it. Roche gets over the line, collapses and needs oxygen treatment in hospital because he's raced so hard up a huge mountain. Despite this, Roche starts the stage the following day and wins the Tour that year. I've never seen it but I can picture it in my mind and it's that kind of effort - that incredible determination and inhuman feat - that keeps me coming back to the race year after year, no matter what happens.
This year I'm going to enjoy my race. I'm excited. I've got a mountain time-trial up l'Alpe d'Heuz that I know is going to be thrilling. I'll be cheering Lance Armstrong to a sixth Tour victory (I hope!) and loving every minute of it. I will probably be a gibbering wreck at various points because it really can be a tense, thrilling race and boring everyone on this LJ with race talk (behind cuts because I'd hate to give away spoilers). I'll be engaged in my usual battle of the commentators with Da (he likes the guy on Eurosport, I'm a Phil Liggett fan and am so glad his show will be on ITV2) and trying not to give anything away if I watch coverage before he does.
However, I'll also be sighing over the riders who have pulled out this year due to injury (especially Vinokourov because he was one of the revelations last year and I love aggressive riders). I'll be gritting my teeth every time someone mentions the lack of David Millar and Cofidis due to doping allegations (no positive test but they allow rumour and speculation to rule?) or the publication of a book of lies about Lance Armstrong. At some point I'll yell at the TV that they should concentrate on the race, not the gossip, and adore Phil Liggett for doing just that. Sports have problems with doping, all sports. Cycling was the first sport to do any kind of drug testing and despite the bad press (and people publishing books that everyone in the business confirms are a pack of lies), it's cleaned up and is acting aggressively to flush out the remaining bad patches.
I want my race this year to be about the racing, the competition and the beautiful scenery we're watching. Anything else leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I want my Tour to be the fun, beautiful thing it usually is.
My god, I know how to babble :-)
Eurosport
ITV2
The Official Tour de France site
Picture the finish line: It's so foggy, you can't see more than a hundred metres. Pedro Delgado appears out of the fog, alone apart from the motorbike/camera guy, and commentator Phil Liggett talks about him as he powers towards the line, certain that he's won the yellow jersey. Suddenly, out of that fog bank, appears Roche. He's exhausted, almost dropping, but he doesn't let up or slow down. Delgado goes over the line first, but Roche is only a few seconds behind him having ridden himself into the group to make up the minutes he had lost at the foot of the mountain. Phil Liggett goes crazy because there was no hint over the radio that Roche had managed it. Roche gets over the line, collapses and needs oxygen treatment in hospital because he's raced so hard up a huge mountain. Despite this, Roche starts the stage the following day and wins the Tour that year. I've never seen it but I can picture it in my mind and it's that kind of effort - that incredible determination and inhuman feat - that keeps me coming back to the race year after year, no matter what happens.
This year I'm going to enjoy my race. I'm excited. I've got a mountain time-trial up l'Alpe d'Heuz that I know is going to be thrilling. I'll be cheering Lance Armstrong to a sixth Tour victory (I hope!) and loving every minute of it. I will probably be a gibbering wreck at various points because it really can be a tense, thrilling race and boring everyone on this LJ with race talk (behind cuts because I'd hate to give away spoilers). I'll be engaged in my usual battle of the commentators with Da (he likes the guy on Eurosport, I'm a Phil Liggett fan and am so glad his show will be on ITV2) and trying not to give anything away if I watch coverage before he does.
However, I'll also be sighing over the riders who have pulled out this year due to injury (especially Vinokourov because he was one of the revelations last year and I love aggressive riders). I'll be gritting my teeth every time someone mentions the lack of David Millar and Cofidis due to doping allegations (no positive test but they allow rumour and speculation to rule?) or the publication of a book of lies about Lance Armstrong. At some point I'll yell at the TV that they should concentrate on the race, not the gossip, and adore Phil Liggett for doing just that. Sports have problems with doping, all sports. Cycling was the first sport to do any kind of drug testing and despite the bad press (and people publishing books that everyone in the business confirms are a pack of lies), it's cleaned up and is acting aggressively to flush out the remaining bad patches.
I want my race this year to be about the racing, the competition and the beautiful scenery we're watching. Anything else leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I want my Tour to be the fun, beautiful thing it usually is.
My god, I know how to babble :-)
Eurosport
ITV2
The Official Tour de France site
