As American cycling fans are recovering from the Amgen Tour of California, columnists from mainstream American sports media giants ESPN and Sports Illustrated gave their take on the race, and the return of Lance Armstrong.
ESPN: Tour of California Was Success Despite Economy
ESPN’s Bonnie D. Ford, in my opinion, is a shining star among the other sports columnists at ESPN. Ford’s column titled Tour a success, but sport feeling crunch focused on the large crowds and overall success of the Tour of California, and how some of the large crowds were due to the “Lance Effect.” Team OUCH’s Tim Johnson gave his take …
“When we pulled into Pasadena, I was dying to be in the breakaway,” Johnson told ESPN.com the morning after the stage that finished with five hotly contested loops in the neighborhood around the Rose Bowl. “I wished so much I had been up there. Pulling into the finish circuits, the crowd was incredible. As we got into the suburban streets, it got bigger and bigger and bigger, and when we finally took a right-hand turn into the circuit, I was just blown away.
“I had done [Tour de] Georgia ‘05, which was huge when Lance came. I’ve done every Tour of California. I’ve been to the world championships. This week has blown all of those away. It is an economic downturn, people do have a lot less money to spend, but that’s one of the draws of cycling — it’s free to everyone. You can see, you can feel, you can hear. People feel the wind when we ride by.”
Ford then contrasted the success of the Tour of California to other American races that are folding due to the U.S. economy. For example the Tour de Georgia is not happening this year, and the Tour of the Gila will be run, but with a reduced prize list.
Still, Johnson said he wouldn’t trade the California gold rush for anything. “If it makes other things seem relatively small by comparison, that’s OK,” he said. “I mean, the football season isn’t the Super Bowl every week.”
September’s Tour of Missouri is growing, Johnson said, and will be a fitting bookend to the season. Locally organized races, such as a new, one-day event in Boston on June 27, are popping up. And Johnson said some of the smaller U.S. races are still better attended than those he has seen in Europe. “Some of these second-tier French races, they’re 50 years old and they act like they’re 50 years old,” he said.
Just yesterday I talked with the promoter of the U.S. Open Cycling Championship, which is slated to be the next race on the USA Cycling Pro Tour in Providence, Rhode Island. He said he was very optimistic that the race will happen, but in this economy he is relying on a number of small sponsors instead of a couple of big money deals.
The Boston race mentioned in the article looks to be a criterium that is being organized by former Olympian Nicole Freedman who is now director of bicycle programs for the City of Boston.
The second half of Ford’s article was basically a rundown of the status of drug testing, which I guess is a requirement to write about with every story on cycling.
Sports Illustrated: Lance Is Still The Star
Sports Illustrated’s Austin Murphy’s column basically said Lance is to Cycling what Tiger Woods is to golf, and that even though the race started with some bad weather, the start power of Lance Armstrong turned the Amgen Tour of California into a mini Tour de France.
Neither rain nor sleet nor stolen bike nor abrasions suffered in a collision with a race motorcycle during stage 2 could dampen the spirits of Armstrong, whose influence on the race was predictably dramatic and immediate: TV ratings were up 100%, according to Messick. Bike-friendly websites such as velonews.com and cyclingnews.com reported Tour de France-like traffic. And the race was witnessed by some two million spectators (up from 1.6 million last year), an inordinate number of whom turned out to see one man. “It was amazing,” said Jens Voigt, the ageless German rider for Team Saxobank. “The fans seemed to say, ‘If the guys can suffer on the bike, we can stand here and wait for them.’”
Armstrong’s bond with his worldwide army is based on a deeper suffering: his triumph over testicular cancer, which had spread to his lungs, abdomen and brain. The race’s unofficial theme was splashed on thousands of placards handed out by volunteers for the Livestrong Global Cancer Campaign, his awareness-raising initiative: hope rides again. During and after Armstrong’s reign as the world’s best cyclist, however, books and depositions and articles have cited circumstantial evidence that he didn’t win all those races clean. (He has never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs.)
A month into his comeback we know this much: In the court of public opinion that slice of the public, at least, willing to bag work or school for a day to see a bike race — he has long since been acquitted. No, the crowds along the road didn’t unanimously support him. Without slowing his tempo near the summit of stage 4’s final climb, Armstrong stiff-armed into a snowbank a man in a yellow devil costume who’d been running alongside him. Closer examination revealed that the tines of El Diablo’s pitchfork were giant faux syringes.
No doubt Lance was a big draw, but I think there would have been fairly large crowds anyway. Even without Lance, the field was a step up from past years. I think adding the Schleck brothers, Carlos Sastre, and Thor Hushovd to the mix added some extra star power.
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