I’m taking a brief commercial break from recounting my recent touring adventures to acknowledge the return of my favorite sporting event. . .which is provoking a few mixed feelings this year.
My apologies to the French purists; I’m currently using a version of WordPress that doesn’t easily support special characters; I’m still trying to work that out.
Whatever will we watch now?
The loss of the ability to watch televised sports devastated many people in the US who literally can’t think of anything else to fill in those long hours they used to spend parked in the Barcalounger with weak beer and sawdust pretzel snacks. I didn’t miss any of the usual suspects because I never followed them in the first place (to judge from FB–which I guess we should know by now not to do with regard to anything–people seemed particularly upset about the loss of college football, a professional sport masquerading as an amateur one that has no place in nominally educational institutions).
Like every other sport, professional cycling was completely shut down as the pandemic burned through Europe. Just about all of the spring classics races were cancelled and then came the predictable news that the big three stage races–the Tour de France, the Giro t’Italia, and the Vuelta a Espana–had all been cancelled. In a response that can only strike someone from the US as quaint, countries in Europe actually seemed concerned that any of their citizens might die, whereas we in the US now shrug at another 1000 preventable deaths every day (and this is especially the case if you are a member of the RNC, for whom 10,000 deaths a week is a sign that the virus is magically disappearing, just like Dear Leader said it would).
The Tour de France is one of the very few things I’ve really missed over the last few months. Restaurants? We’re still eating well and creatively. Movies in theatres? I’ve definitely not suffered from a lack of quality entertainment, and while a movie like The Old Guard would probably have been fabulous in a theater, it was still pretty damn good on the smaller screen. But a three week bike tour is a singular spectator event both in person and as a TV spectacle. There’s really nothing else like it.
An apt comparison is maybe to the experience of binge watching a series, versus watching it on an episodic basis week by week. A sporting franchise like the NFL can deliver considerable drama over the course of a season, with lots of interlocking story lines for a given team and its relationship with other teams. But those story lines play out in only three weeks in a major bike race and as such are more visible. Moreover, the thing that makes stage racing more involving for me than other sports is that it is both an individual and team event, and the shifting loyalties and strategies that play out because of that, sometimes changing on a daily basis. It makes for a complicated story that fits both the technical and popular definition of epic. These interlocking narratives can be hard to follow, which is a big reason why watching professional cycling will never appeal to people who can’t think about “winning” in more complex ways than how many times a ball got popped through a hole.
Because the major thing about professional stage racing is that there is yet another definition of winning that every participant is striving for: simply surviving. Stage racing is an incredibly debilitating endeavor. Already lean riders lose most of their body fat and their bodies start consuming muscle. Apart from the ordinary difficulties of climate and terrain, your day or even an entire tour can be derailed by equipment failures, the actions of spectators, or even sheer dumb luck (if you hit a dog and crash, no one is going to wait for you; true story). This doesn’t happen in any other professional sport where athletes mostly play under tightly controlled climate conditions, separated from fans, with events halted to deal with every minor equipment failure or boo boo. Professional cyclists crash, break bones, and then, if they are still conscious, usually get on the bike automatically and keep riding until either the pain becomes too great, common sense takes over, or somehow, against all odds, they sometimes manage to finish that day’s ride. Because pride. What they never do is wail and thrash around on the ground like a professional soccer player who has just had their own bobble-head jammed up their butt.
Le Grand Depart
Unlike the US, where the pandemic rages out of control in some states, and is barely contained in most others, countries in Europe started to get a handle on this shit. So the UCI announced plans to go ahead with all major tours, but with them massively time-shifted. The Tour, instead of starting at the beginning of July, is now starting at the end of August. The Vuelta, which normally starts in August, is now starting in October. The Giro, which normally takes place in June, is also slated for October. The UCI also ran a shorter version of a one week stage race, the Dauphine, and seemed to use it in part as a test of its new pandemic protocols governing testing, crowd management, podium presentations, and the like. The situation with the Vuelta and the Giro is going to be particularly interesting; riders will now be racing mountain stages at a time of year where climate conditions could range from hostile to life-threatening.
Some of what I have described above concerning the things that draw me to these stage races will no doubt still be present. But watching the Dauphine I was struck by all the things that will be different, in ways that will substantially alter the event.
One of the ironies of the mechanisms employed by many US professional sports to re-start their seasons is how little they have changed the fundamental character of the event. Sure, playing in empty stadiums with digital fans and fake crowd noise has an impact on the people who would ordinarily have been watching the event in-person. But those people have for decades now been a minority of the viewing audience. For Joe and Jane Schmo, watching an NBA game on TV that is being played in the Florida bubble doesn’t look that much different from the way it has always been.
That is not so for Le Tour, and the other grand tours. A primary audience for those events has always been local citizens. Millions of local French residents line the streets of their small towns and villages for a brief glimpse of a whirlwind of riders as they pass through. Towns bid for the route to pass through their communities. People from all over the world travel to the races to line the mountain climbs on each day, inches away from the sweating suffering bodes of their heroes. Then they pack up their campers and do it again the next day.
Most of that will not happen. The Dauphine featured finishing straights and climb summits absent of anyone other than team support. Finishing areas are tightly controlled. Podium presentations are lonely affairs. There are no handshakes, no kiss-kiss, no ceremonial putting on of the jersey. There’s no proud mayor of the town presenting the winning rider to local dignitaries. (And, I’m guessing, there will be no “podium girls” a regrettable facet of these events that should have been ended years ago). Then of course there are the travel restrictions (hardly anyone from the plague-carrying US will be there in the crowds) and the general unwillingness of sensible people to expose themselves. All of this will of course have a major impact on the communities through which the race passes, who depend on this event not only for present cashflow, but to advertise themselves as places you might want to visit (and oh my God does that ever work; my long term cycling plans–if people from the US are ever welcome in civilized countries ever again–definitely include cycling in northern Spain).
Pas avec un bang mais un gemissement
There is a big “However” hovering over all of this. Realistically, I don’t expect the Tour to last more than maybe a week; even if it manages to get through to that point, the odds are high that it will be shortened. The UCI had implemented very strict testing and reporting requirements (would that they were quite so diligent when it came to doping). If any two people on the team tested positive within a certain time period (and that included riders, managers, and soigneurs) the team would be thrown out of the race. However, the UCI has now proven itself to be the same old corrupt organization it has always been, more interested in profit than people or rider safety. So just today they backpedaled, and announced that they will decide if a team is ejected. Moreover, riders on some teams have already been publicly chafing at the distancing and mask restrictions, and when people chafe it makes it much more likely they will disregard them.
Covid cases in both France and Spain are rising again after people let down their guard over the summer. It is hard for me to see how the Tour will be able to implement the necessary crowd controls. In an ordinary year, the race has a massive presence from local and national gendarmerie, and they still can’t control crowds. Moreover, there is one major factor present at the Tour de France that is also the underlying factor in a lot of scofflaw behavior in the US: alcohol. People drink, they do stupid shit. That is not debatable. It will happen. And while in previous years no one really cared if some hirsute dude from Poland got liquored up and decided to don a Borat swim costume and run alongside his heroes, Covid does care. When the beer tabs are popped and the wine is uncorked, Covid rubs its hands with glee.
But my biggest concern, honestly, is that most teams and riders are probably aware that this race will be shortened. As I mentioned above, grand tours are complex. Most teams who enter have no realistic chance of contending for any of the overall prizes. They are there for their riders to get into breakaways where they can generate TV minutes for their sponsors, and hopefully win a stage. It seems like a cynical aspect of the sport, but what it recognizes is that a world-beating team does not become one overnight. You need money, and lots of it, and it needs to be invested over time. If you get TV time for your sponsors, they are going to be encouraged to continue their support. And you as a rider stay employed, and maybe have an even better chance to contend for a major prize in future years.
However, if every team has a sense that they might not have three weeks to get time for their sponsors, or to capture a stage, then we are probably going to see a level of desperation that will produce some particularly dangerous decision-making.
The worst aspect of the grand tours is that part of their appeal is an enjoyment by fans of the gladiatorial aspect of it. As in the gladiators being eaten by lions. In the first week in particular, everyone is nervous, everyone is unsure of their fitness, small teams desperate for glory are jockeying for position with riders from big teams who are playing the long three week game and just trying to stay safe. Most of the worst crashes tend to happen in the first week. We fans say we hate crashes. Which we do. And we also love them. Not a few riders in previous years have also accused the course designers of deliberately throwing in elements (like cobbles, or dirt-roads) that will make the event more dangerous but satisfying for the fans.
All of this is likely to be turned up to 11 with the prospect of a short tour. Which leaves me feeling excited for the Tour, but also nervous for the riders, and, frankly, wondering about what my culpability is in watching things like this. (And to be clear, it isn’t just the Tour. Indeed, the moral qualms I have about the Tour at the moment pale into insignificance compared with the ones I am having about the Olympics or the Football World Cup). One of the most amazing things about professional cycling is that despite horrendous crashes and often horrific injuries, deaths of professional cyclists have thankfully been rare. But in the age of Covid,, dying–for riders, team members, and fans–is now a real possibility.
Alchemy 