While America no doubt has a vast array of sports for it's various fans, it really doesn't offer anything close to the Tour de France.
One reason might be security. It would be a logistical nightmare. In Europe, where the Tour travels, basically there isn't any security. It's pretty much on the honor system. Thousands of fans line the roads the cyclists travel and they can literally reach out and touch the riders as they pass by -- and sometimes do. There's really nothing to keep an evil doer or wacko from doing harm to the riders. Sure, motorcycle riding gendarmes or cops guide the Tour through the streets, but their job is to ensure a clear path for the riders -- not monitoring the crowds. I'm not so sure the honor system would work as well in America. We seem to have lunatics running around everywhere with mayhem on their minds. It would take hundreds, if not thousands of cops to provide security while monitoring the crowds along the roads.
In the last stage of this year's tour some person or persons unknown threw tacks or small nails across the road. This caused over 30 flat tires, or punctures, as they say across the pond. Tour officials have asked the police to investigate the matter. It wouldn't go down like that in America. Can you imagine if somebody threw nails on the track at the Daytona or Indy 500s? Race officials wouldn't have to request anything. Everybody from the local cops to the FBI to Homeland Security would be swarming like locusts until they caught the perpetrator. In Europe they brush it off as just an unfortunate occurrence, and move on. In America, it might be considered an act of terrorism. Before the prosecutors got done, those same small nails might get elevated to a weapon of mass destruction, and the legal proceedings could drag on for years.
On the Tour, there are certain unwritten rules of etiquette. One is not to capitalize on a competitor's misfortune. When Cadel Evans, the defending champ, was amongst the first to get a flat tire, leader Bradley Wiggins urged his fellow riders to slow down until Evans could catch up after his bike was repaired.
American sports seem to be just the opposite. They not only capitalize on the misfortune of others -- sometimes they intentionally cause it. Witness NASCAR drivers routinely putting a competitor into the wall, then racing away. Can you imagine the Green Bay Packers leading the Detroit Lions by 4 touchdowns, then letting the Lions catch back up because their starting QB got injured? Not likely to happen. The epitome might have been the New Orleans Saints' "bounty system". Not only did they capitalize on opponents' misfortune, they allegedly paid people to inflict it.
The Tour went through it's fair share of "doping" issues over the years. Everything from steroids to illegal blood transfusions were popping up. In America, we certainly had our own steroid issue in baseball, and there's little doubt athletes from different sports have used various substances to enhance their play over the years as well. Let's call that a push.
Chemicals aside, the Tour has a certain degree of honor about it. In America, with the exception of golf, athletes get away with whatever they can. Baseball, football, basketball, hockey, you name it, and the players will not only try to cheat, but sometimes even argue with the officials when they get caught red-handed.
Nope, there's no honor, much less etiquette.
Conditioning? With the possible exception of marathon runners, America offers no athletes in any sport that can come close to the endurance levels the Tour cyclists possess. At that, marathons are only run once with the top competitors finishing in a little over 2 hours. Conversely, Tour riders are routinely on their bikes for hours day after day for 3 weeks. While marathoners might have slight up and downgrades over their 26 mile course, it pales in comparison to some of the steep climbs the riders face in the Alps and the Pyrenees, not to mention the danger of whizzing down a mountainside at high rates of speed on a bicycle.
America has athletes with big beer bellies that make millions. They're called "linemen". You won't find an ounce of fat on a Tour rider and they never seem to know how much they're going to get paid, if anything.
Yes, I love American sports, but the Tour?
That's just something special.
No comments:
Post a Comment