The world of cycling has been rocked by a string of recent scandals. Can the Tour of Britain help revive a sport in crisis?
These are fraught times for cycling enthusiasts to be selling their sport to the wider British public. Tour de France winner Floyd Landis’s recent positive drug test has cast an enormous shadow over what had appeared to be a genuinely uplifting triumph last month. Coming on top of the pre-race withdrawals by key contenders Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso and Francisco Mancebo over their involvement with discredited doctor Eufemiano Fuente, Landis’s fall from grace was perhaps the most demoralising of the many drugs-related setbacks to have beset the sport in recent years.
It is against such a backdrop that the Tour of Britain, which starts on Tuesday and finishes in London with its sixth and final stage the following Sunday, takes place. But as an emerging, untainted event, which was only awarded world ranking status two years ago, the tour also offers the sport a chance of some redemption.It is well placed to do so. The race has particular spice this year, with London having been awarded the prestigious first stage of the 2007 Tour de France, and the fifth stage of this year’s tour will finish in Canterbury, where that first Tour de France stage ends next year. Feature continues
The riders start out in Glasgow on Tuesday, and wind their way through the north-west, Yorkshire, Birmingham and the Midlands and down to Kent (stage five runs from Rochester to Canterbury) before the climax in London. The sixth and closing stage in the capital starts in Greenwich and travels along the river before looping up around Regent’s Park and Hyde Park towards a 20-lap sprint finish around Buckingham Palace and Whitehall, finishing at the Mall.
‘Cycling is more popular here than ever before,’ says race director Tony Doyle. ‘Britain is becoming increasingly successful, in world championships, Olympics and junior championships. And now this year’s tour has the highest-profile line-up yet.’
This year’s entrants include Belgium’s charismatic world road champion Tom Boonen, seen by many as one of cycling’s great young hopes, Andreas Kloden of Germany, who finished third in this year’s Tour de France, and Britain’s triple Olympic medallist Bradley Wiggins.
Nick Nuyens of Belgium will seek to equal his double triumph of last year, when he won the overall race in the colours of QuickStep, who also won the team title. Boonen is also among their riders this year and they are well fancied to defend their crown. Expect a challenge too from the T-Mobile team, which features Kloden and three-times world time trial champion Michael Rodgers of Australia.
On previous evidence, the final London stage can be expected to draw more than 100,000 to line the route. There’s an evangelical motive here too, ahead of next year and the 2012 Olympics (where cycling events will follow the route of this year’s sixth stage), aiming to increase interest among spectators and participants alike. ‘It’s about getting more people on their bike, not just for racing but for recreation and pleasure,’ says Doyle.
An unblemished race is also important, in the light of recent events: ‘We are very conscious of the fact that we have to promote a clean and healthy event. We will have daily drug testing of riders and stricter controls than ever before.’ Enthusiasts can only hope that the sport’s rocky road to redemption can begin here.
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1 comment
I liked the final stage in London, even though
there was an accident on the official side, that surprised me. Perhaps not enough practice. It was nice to
see World Champion Tom Boonen win the final stage in the race. There was
a bit of bikering reported between the domestic uk teams in the bunch, and the europeans. But one has to really upgrade to a more international frame of mind and take it on the chin, and make the best of all opportunities. Cycle racing is a tough sport and at
international level even harder. I like the visiting cycle industry stands and the catering was welcome as it was a long day.
I think it was a good effort
while it did not satisfy the pros entirely. They were right in my ppinion to cap the speed. They still made a race of it. The best thing is to bring it up to the level where it
makes everybody happy and to learn to do it better. And if one had to stage an international standard road race, it has to be really very good.
But please can we keep the careless motorists from doing their urban maddness motor journeys during a stage race and whom ignoring the race officials and the floating close road rules.
I did not like the floating close.
I thought the london motorist in some cultural form, would prove to be a problem, and I was right.
But everyday I see motorists of all sorts break a wider vrange of road traffice laws all the time, compared to pedestrains or cyclists.
So roll on next year, and hope London is included again in years to some to host a stage or the Tour of Britain.