La Mort du Tour
If you click through to read the whole article, not all the “photos from the world’s greatest cycling race!” “viva la tour!” links still in the sidebar. What can I say, it’s a French love affair.
Times Online - France mourns ‘death of the Tour’ as sponsors get cold feet after scandal
The French Prime Minister called today for the sport of cycling to be cleaned up after the latest doping scandal on the Tour de France prompted newspapers to announce the death of the country’s greatest sporting institution.
The 17th stage of the Tour began this morning with no rider wearing the yellow jersey after the Danish race leader, Michael Rasmussen, was thrown out by his team for lying about his whereabouts during training. Two teams of cyclists have already been excluded.
Although cycling in general and the Tour in particular have long been tainted by doping allegations, many fans and observers reckon this year’s scandals could prove to be the last straw.
Liberation, the national newspaper, announced “La Mort du Tour” - The Death of the Tour - on its front page and said the race had been “emptied of all sporting interest”.
The left-wing daily said that it would no longer publish race results because they were “without significance” except for “scientists looking for new medicines”.
It’s fun too that this time they don’t even have the Americans to blame. I mean, sure, the Americans are there, but they’re not exactly setting the road on fire. And this is after all the leaders keep getting thrown out every day (it reminds me of my high school class, but the reverse, because in that case so many kids were getting kicked out for drugs and things that it was seriously screwing with the smart kids’ class ranking).
July 26th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Boys.
When we are young we all dream of being good enough at sports to compete at a more elevated level. When we are old, we remember our sporting exploits as more exalted than they were.
Knowing that to reach the pinnacle of success in a sport, even golf, for Gods sake, requires regular injection of anabolics, kills the dream of every little boy and every used to be little boy who ever hit a home run, caught a touchdown pass, or broke 80 on the links.
Watching sports is about the dream, for all of us. This kind of thing will ruin the sports industry.
What a bummer.
July 26th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Watching Italians playing soccer ruined the World Cup for me. Bunch o’ drama queens.
July 29th, 2007 at 5:01 am
You know what ruined sports for me? It was a simple thing, the slider. Curves cool, I can lay off or wait till one hangs. But a consistent slider? Nope, went from Babe Ruth League cleanup man to HS strikeout victim.
Ima still sad about that. If only it hadn’t been invented.
July 30th, 2007 at 2:39 am
It was the basic leg-break that did for me. We didn’t have them in Yorkshire, so when I came across my first at university it sort of made me goggle then giggle then grieve.