![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
the tour ends; the real racing continues
The Tour de France ended today with the traditional sprint at the Champs Elysees. Hot young sprint sensation Mark Cavendish won the stage, his sixth of the tour, while the gifted climbing specialist Alberto Contador wore the yellow jersey into Paris and was crowned the overall winner.
Pictures and commentary of the 21-stage Grand Tour showed it to be fast and furious. I would have liked to be more excited. I really enjoy bike racing and would have liked a really good show. But I also like my sports pure, free from stain and controversy and full of honest human achievement. The Tour just didn't add up for me.
Lance Armstrong, who ultimately finished the Tour in third place, announced that he would leave the Astana team and form his own team for next year, before the Tour he was riding in was over! At the same time, directeur sportif (manager) Johan Bruyneel announced that HE would end his association with Astana; it's assumed he will go with Armstrong, since the two appear to be surgically joined at the hip.
Meanwhile, climbing sensation and Tour champion Alberto Contador was asked about doping and gave only vague, evasive answers. Sweetie asked me if I thought that Lance was doping. I thought for a moment and answered that at this level of professional racing, if you're not getting chemical help, you won't be able to keep up with everyone who is for very long. Amazing physical specimen that he is, Lance Armstrong is also 37, an old guy in this sport. For me, his third-place finish is equal parts sweet, pathetic and yes, slightly suspect.
I'll go out on a limb here: I believe that the majority of racers on the ProTour teams ARE getting some kind of chemical help. Is it a big majority? I don't know. I have no access to the scientific proof. But any notions I had about professional bike racing being truly clean were pretty thoroughly shattered when Tyler Hamilton tested positive for doping. Like other racers, he learned quickly that if you don't produce results in Europe, you get sent home; racing in the domestic scene simply wasn't enough for him, so he enhanced his natural gifts with some chemicals and gained an unfair -- and I believe an unethical -- advantage. Never mind that lots of other racers were doing the same thing. It's all about staying in the game for as long as you can. When sponsors are paying millions of dollars to fund a team, they demand a return on their investment. They want their racers to win so that the brand can be seen front and center at the finish line.
I love the Spring Classics for their tradition, the Grand Tours for the epic climbs, and the Belgian 'cross scene for the insane, beautiful suffering that at times is nearly operatic. That's why I still follow professional bike racing. Because there is still poetry in it, even if that poetry has been diluted by doping and an emphasis on technological innovation at some expense of the triumph of the human body.
But when I want to see REAL bike racing, all I have to do is ride over to PIR, or up to Mount Tabor; and watch the locals. At the amateur level, I cannot imagine that ANYone is having anything much stronger than a cup of coffee (or perhaps some of that horrid goo-gel) before they race. It's all for bragging rights, and for the random bike shop gift certificate tossed out at the primes, like hot dogs to a tank of piranhas. Racing at this level is slower, to be sure, but it's no less exciting than what's being shown on cable TV. And now that I've done it myself, I can say it's also more real. I don't need a yellow jersey. I need to see and imagine the impossibility of lungs about to burst as a rider tops the summit of Mount Tabor, or feel the scary exhilaration of scurrying over the last set of whoops with a rear wheel skidding in a slippery arc across the dirt. THAT is bicycle racing, and that is what I love about it more than anything.
See you at the races.
Pictures and commentary of the 21-stage Grand Tour showed it to be fast and furious. I would have liked to be more excited. I really enjoy bike racing and would have liked a really good show. But I also like my sports pure, free from stain and controversy and full of honest human achievement. The Tour just didn't add up for me.
Lance Armstrong, who ultimately finished the Tour in third place, announced that he would leave the Astana team and form his own team for next year, before the Tour he was riding in was over! At the same time, directeur sportif (manager) Johan Bruyneel announced that HE would end his association with Astana; it's assumed he will go with Armstrong, since the two appear to be surgically joined at the hip.
Meanwhile, climbing sensation and Tour champion Alberto Contador was asked about doping and gave only vague, evasive answers. Sweetie asked me if I thought that Lance was doping. I thought for a moment and answered that at this level of professional racing, if you're not getting chemical help, you won't be able to keep up with everyone who is for very long. Amazing physical specimen that he is, Lance Armstrong is also 37, an old guy in this sport. For me, his third-place finish is equal parts sweet, pathetic and yes, slightly suspect.
I'll go out on a limb here: I believe that the majority of racers on the ProTour teams ARE getting some kind of chemical help. Is it a big majority? I don't know. I have no access to the scientific proof. But any notions I had about professional bike racing being truly clean were pretty thoroughly shattered when Tyler Hamilton tested positive for doping. Like other racers, he learned quickly that if you don't produce results in Europe, you get sent home; racing in the domestic scene simply wasn't enough for him, so he enhanced his natural gifts with some chemicals and gained an unfair -- and I believe an unethical -- advantage. Never mind that lots of other racers were doing the same thing. It's all about staying in the game for as long as you can. When sponsors are paying millions of dollars to fund a team, they demand a return on their investment. They want their racers to win so that the brand can be seen front and center at the finish line.
I love the Spring Classics for their tradition, the Grand Tours for the epic climbs, and the Belgian 'cross scene for the insane, beautiful suffering that at times is nearly operatic. That's why I still follow professional bike racing. Because there is still poetry in it, even if that poetry has been diluted by doping and an emphasis on technological innovation at some expense of the triumph of the human body.
But when I want to see REAL bike racing, all I have to do is ride over to PIR, or up to Mount Tabor; and watch the locals. At the amateur level, I cannot imagine that ANYone is having anything much stronger than a cup of coffee (or perhaps some of that horrid goo-gel) before they race. It's all for bragging rights, and for the random bike shop gift certificate tossed out at the primes, like hot dogs to a tank of piranhas. Racing at this level is slower, to be sure, but it's no less exciting than what's being shown on cable TV. And now that I've done it myself, I can say it's also more real. I don't need a yellow jersey. I need to see and imagine the impossibility of lungs about to burst as a rider tops the summit of Mount Tabor, or feel the scary exhilaration of scurrying over the last set of whoops with a rear wheel skidding in a slippery arc across the dirt. THAT is bicycle racing, and that is what I love about it more than anything.
See you at the races.
