Competition’s status as an open-access spectacle has led to a long, inglorious history of spectators getting in the wayOn Saturday morning, hardcore fans of Thibaut Pinot assembled in the Vosges for their idol’s final mountain stage of his final Tour. One group of ultras posted a list of dos and don’ts on social media. Don’t use smoke bombs. Don’t run alongside the riders. Brandish signs at the side of the road rather than in the road, so they don’t get in the way of the cyclists. No insults or shouts. Pick up your litter.The list had extra relevance in a week when the fans’ behaviour on the roadside at the Tour, and their interaction with the Tour caravan and the...
Once accident-prone, the Belgian is a shoo-in for the Tour de France’s green jersey with four stage wins – and can target moreMark Cavendish’s imminent retirement is a reminder that the sprint hierarchy in the Tour de France is an ever-changing picture. So, too, the fate of the Irishman Sam Bennett, who looked unassailable after winning two stages and the points prize in the 2020 race, but has not even started the Tour since, thanks to injury and team politics.Bennett was at least racing and winning this week, but a pair of stages in Romania’s Sibiu Tour will be scant consolation; it remains to be seen whether and when Cavendish will race again after breaking his collarbone last Saturday. Continue...
This year’s Tour de France began amid a backdrop of orange on a strip of the Atlantic seaboard with a great cycling traditionOnce, the present and future of cycling in the Basque Country were orange. Today, that is still the case, if the blend of colours on the roadside during Saturday’s convoluted 180km stage through this cycling heartland was anything to go by. There were ikurriñas waving aplenty, in all sizes, the green, red and white colours that are always seen when the Tour route merely flirts with this proudly independent-minded region on the other side of the Pyrenees.On the final two climbs, there were plenty of the orange t-shirts, fishing hats, and racing jerseys which used to colour every...
After hardships and disappointments – and two bright sparks – focus turns to the Vuelta and a home world championshipsIt’s the hope that gets you. In an ordinary year, two remarkable stage wins at the Tour de France would be considered a successful campaign from the peloton’s Australian contingent. But given the buzz that surrounded general classification prospects, particularly after Jai Hindley became the first Australian in history to win the Giro d’Italia in May, the absence of an Australian in the top 20 as the Tour concluded on Sunday left lingering disappointment.The buzz had focused on Ben O’Connor and Jack Haig, who both arrived in Copenhagen for the grand depart anointed as race leaders for their respective teams. O’Connor...
The likes of Wout van Aert and Tom Pidcock have flourished in a race which has offered no respite and hit record speedsFifteen years have passed since the new Tour de France organiser, Christian Prudhomme, announced his intention of “sexing up” the race – my words not his – after watching a dramatic stage across Burgundy. Since then the Tour has gone in one direction: shorter stages, more hilltop finishes, the odd gravel road, cobbles, a search for routes where crosswinds may affect the peloton, fewer and shorter time trials; a search for ways to create tension and excitement, to avoid the race becoming predictable.The 2022 Tour looks like the culmination of that process. Barring accidents or illness – not...