For the past few weeks I have been writing about the Tour de France for a
television network in Australia. I am a complete novice when it comes to
cycling but have long been fascinated by the history of this great race and
swept away by its color and romance.
For me it is as much an IMAX cinema experience of France as it is a sporting
event; for Australian, and by extension Asian, fans this year the Tour holds
special significance, too, because for the first time ever a sportsman from
this part of the world looks like taking out the yellow winner's jersey in
Paris.
Cadel Evans of the Belgian-based Silence-Lotto team is the man in the hot seat.
He came second in last year's Tour and was
anointed as race favorite months out from this year's edition, a tag he has
handled well in the race so far; at the end of the crunch 17th stage in the
Alpe d'Huez on Wednesday he was placed fourth, just a minute and a half behind
the leader, CSC's Spanish rider Carlos Sastre, and had worn the yellow jersey
himself for four days earlier in the race.
With his time-trialing abilities, Evans is expected to overhaul Sastre's lead
in Saturday's 53 kilometer flyer from Cerilly to St Armand Montrond, and,
barring catastrophe, take yellow in Paris in the final stage on July 27, a
monumental achievement for any cyclist but especially the diminutive and
slightly built Evans, who only saw the Tour de France for the first time on TV
in 1991.
It will be a great moment for Asia-Pacific sport. But I can't help feeling it
will be a hollow one. More than the Olympics, more than Major League Baseball,
the Tour de France has suffered heavy blows to its reputation through a
seemingly endless succession of drug scandals.
There was a time not long ago that there was talk of the race being called off
altogether, albeit temporarily. It is a mark of its durability and importance
that it still manages to come off each year and transfix sports fans like me
with its scope and majesty.
But to be enraptured by this event also requires a certain suspension of
disbelief. The list of major-name riders who have busted for
performance-enhancing drug use is a long one - Miguel Indurain, Floyd Landis,
Jan Ullrich are just a few - and already this year three riders have been
expelled for turning up positive results: Manuel Beltran, Moises Duenas,
Ricardo Ricco. They won't be the last.
Sponsors Barloworld and Saunier Duval have already taken the extraordinary step
of withdrawing their financial support for future teams, a not-insignificant
protest when you consider the cost of putting together a team for the Tour runs
into the tens of millions of dollars. The sport is in disarray. But still the
Tour lumbers on, defiant.
On Wednesday night Australian eastern-standard time I watched Sastre race to
the top of the Alpe d'Huez, the Valhalla of Tour legend, over two minutes ahead
of his nearest rival and countryman, Euskaltel-Euskadi's Samuel Sanchez. It was
gripping stuff, all six hours and 210.5 kilometers of it. For a rider to finish
that far ahead of the peloton on such a crucial stage was Herculean stuff.
Almost inconceivable.
And that's exactly the problem. The last time I'd seen such a masterful ride
from a Tour de France rider in the mountains was two years ago, when American
Floyd Landis rescued himself from certain oblivion in the general
classification to finish six minutes ahead of - guess who - Sastre in Stage 17
from St-Jean-de-Maurienne to Morzine. Landis would go on to wear the yellow
jersey on the Champs-Elysees but was stripped of his title a year later for
testing positive to unnaturally high levels of testosterone.
I keep on thinking any minute, I'm going to log onto Google and find out Sastre
has been busted too. Just like I expect Lance Armstrong to one day be back in
the papers for all the wrong reasons. There don't seem to be good guys in
cycling any more.
Evans looks like a nice guy, he's Australian, I should be getting behind him
all the way, but what exactly am I supposed to be cheering and, more to the
point, can I trust what I'm cheering is real?
For now, the only thing I can do is keep on suspending my disbelief. Just like
everyone else. But fans, like riders, sometimes run out of puff too.
Jesse Fink is a leading football writer in Australia. He is the author of
the critically acclaimed book 15 Days in June: How Australia Became a
Football Nation and has won various awards in Australia for his sports writing.
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