Sports
Pedal Pushing: This Year's Tour Cranks Up the Drama
As the midsummer doldrums descend on the U.S. sporting populace, we fans of friendly competition are left to ponder the vast emptiness of the broadcasting spectrum. From this Monday through this Wednesday, the only vaguely team oriented head-to-head–other than of course the kind-of-sort-of meaningful MLB All-Star Game–comes in the form of glorified T-Ball practice or something that looks not unlike retirement community activity day. Unless your counting the Tour de France–and this year, we think that you probably should.
That venerable entry has, of late, perhaps drifted somewhat afield of what might be considered team competition–if one could really consider that event to be one which rewards teams for collective effort. Still, as glory hungry as any one member of these racing squads might be, we’ve all heard how reliant they are on the efforts of their teammates. As Slate’s Daniel Engberger put it in 2005, “[o]ne member of the team serves as its leader, and the others do everything they can to help him win. In the major races, each team leader works with eight other riders, called ‘domestiques,’ who don’t have much chance of winning the race themselves.” So, instead of racing–really racing–these peddling versions of Donald Brashear, according to Engberger, spend most of their time, uh, breaking wind for the team leader who, with their help, “can save…between 20 and 40 percent of [his] energy in a long event.” Other fun activities for these track lackies include quickening the pace against a challenge from a rival and fanning out to block a move from somewhere behind them.
Trouble seems to come when one of the lackies actually turns out to be a pretty dern good rider. Witness team Astana’s Alberto Contador, who this past week shrugged off his assigned role as domestique in favor of a bigger share of the glory. And though he had to show up the man who is unquestionably cycling’s most recognizeable figure to do it, at least one of the sport’s journo followers thought he was well within his rights. “On the climb to Arcalis ski station, the truth was outed,” writes the Times of London’s Jeremy Whittle. “Contador is superior to Armstrong. He was quicker than the American in the time-trial in Monaco, faster to the first summit finish. The areas in which Armstrong once dominated — against the clock and in the mountains — are the disciplines in which he has become an also-ran. During his seven-year reign over the Tour, Armstrong asserted his supremacy on two fronts: in time-trials and in summit finishes. Not this year.”
Goodbye team bike racing, hello sport soap opera. Armstrong has yet to make anything of a public stink but one can only imagine what sort of pissy thoughts must be running through the man’s head: After all, this is the signature portion of his comeback, and though he’s already hinting at another try (hedging just a little mayhaps?), this sort of challenge from a teammate must burn something fierce.
And even if it doesn’t, it sure makes for entertaining watching. Especially when there’s nothing else on.
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How can you not root against this guy? I LOVED watching him get schooled by his own teammate last week.
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