Le tour de France (8.01.03)

I was amazed to receive from Bert Westbrook a very long eulogy of the Tour de France. Perhaps it was a retort to the bad publicity the tour has received, and which was expressed in a posting. Space permits me to post this: "Contrary to a few recent postings, and the antagonism to sports/populism general in this list, I think bicycle racing, and specifically le Tour de France, is the most WAIS of sports. Moreover, many of the criticisms of the "modern tour" in a recent post (how hard Lance Armstrong and other modern riders work, how dangerous it is) are rather ahistorical. Consider the following:

1) Peaceful globalization:
The Tour is the biggest sporting event in the world, after the World Cup and the Olympics. In part as a consequence, it has become less dominated by the French. This year, in the overall race, the first three riders were from the U.S., Germany, and Kazakstan (wow!). A trio of Australians battled for the sprinters title. A Frenchman won the "King of the Mountains" award, and another Frenchman won the final sprint on the Champs -- on the 100th anniversary of the Tour. The best young rider was from Russia. A Columbian won a race for the first time. Even that WAIS preoccupation, the Basques, were very well represented.

2) International Cooperation:
Unlike the Olympics or the World Cup, in the Tour, people of different nationalities compete together. The "nationality" of a teams is determined by its principal sponsor, not its riders or its coaches. Lance Armstrong rides for U.S. Postal, an American team, but he is protected by several Spanish riders, and a great Russian time trial rider. The American Tyler Hamilton, who placed fourth with a broken collar bone, races for a Danish team. Lance's challenger Jan Ulrich, a German, races for an Italian team. And so on

3) Team Sport:
Road racing (except time trials) is a team sport, that is, each day involves far more cooperation than competition. Rephrased, to compete successfully, requires that one be good at cooperating (as in much business and diplomacy). The underlying reason for this lie in the physics of riding a bicycle fast. Wind resistance increases with the square of speed; the power needed to overcome that wind resistance increases with the cube of speed. Thus, as the speeds increase, drafting becomes more and more important. Last year, when he was truly dominant, Lance rode alone for some 14km (it has been estimated) out of something around 3000 km of riding. That is, his team (variously called lieutenants, domestiques, or rolleurs) worked for him. Most of the tactics in bike racing hinge on when you "spend" the energy a given team member has. So great riders, like George Hincappie or Roberto Heras, may end up in the middle of the pack, because they sacrificed their energy keeping their overall contender as rested as possible.
To make matters more complicated still, temporary alliances are often formed on the road, as riders from different teams work together to break away from the main pack (i.e., take turns "pulling" the other riders along, which is exhausting), or conversely, catching a break away.

4) Sportsmanships
Jan Ulrich, the German who came in second, could have attacked when Lance fell in the Pyranees. But Ulrich waited, and Armstrong won the stage, solidifying his control of the overall Tour. A few years earlier, Ulrich had a flat tire in the Alps, and Armstrong waited. That's sportsmanship".

RH:
I have cycled all over Europe, far more than anyone I know, so I am very much in favor of cycling, but Bert's argument fails to convince me.