Too bad Tour de France is so far away

One of these days I’m finally going to get to watch the conclusion of the Tour de France again.

For the past several years I’ve missed the end of cycling’s preeminent event due to some reason or other. Usually it’s because I have been on mission trips to Guatemala and not been able to access the Internet because of the remoteness of the locations to which I have traveled.

This year, I was on vacation in Yosemite and too busy to watch the last five days of the Tour, missing a rally by Team INEO’s Egan Bernall to become the first Columbian rider to win the tour. The 22-year-old, who moved past France’s Julian Alaphilippe in the latter stages, also became the second youngest rider to win the three-week long event.

Ah well, as I say annually as a Seattle Mariners fan, maybe next year.

I’ve been watching and following the Tour since the mid-1980s when Greg LeMond emerged as an American cyclist who could contend for a title, winning in 1986, 1989 and 1990. LeMond’s achievements helped bring more attention not only to the sport of cycling, i.e. something for more than just recreation, but also the Tour itself in this country.

Then along came a lanky Texan who elevated it to near superstar status, only to help put a knife through its popularity heart and nearly kill interest in this country. Lance Armstrong won seven straight titles, 1999–2005, only to have those stripped from him because of a doping scandal.

It’s sad because Armstrong possessed the abilities and talent to achieve that status without the use of drugs. By turning to steroids, he not only let down his teammates, U.S. Postal and in the last year the Discovery Channel, but also a legion of cyclists who work hard the legal way.

The Tour hasn’t been the same since, especially in popularity in the U.S. In 2006, another American, Floyd Landis, won the Tour and subsequently tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs, again having the title taken away.

Since then, no American has emerged to challenge for the yellow jersey, the Tour’s designation for the race leader. Subsequently, in my view, the event’s coverage has sagged on the western shores of the Atlantic, never achieving the focus it enjoyed beginning with LeMond — which should never be considered on parallel with other sports in the country (i.e. baseball, football, basketball) but which were still up there in popularity.

That’s too bad, because it’s an interesting sport to watch and appreciate. I used to ride 40-60 miles a week before life caught up with me and I put my cycle aside in the mid-1990s. That was a challenge — Tour riders do 40-60 miles a day for seven days straight, often up mountains, not just hills.

I’ve gotten back into riding recently, although not quite to that former level, and the Tour this year helped provide a little extra incentive to get out on the trails and put in those miles. And until we left for Yosemite on July 18, we were enjoying watching the race coverage.

That coverage was hard to find online once we reached our destination, and subsequently we lost track and didn’t get to see Bernal’s win.

It’s too bad that Americans need to have one of our own to root for in order to enjoy sports the rest of the world gets excited about. That’s just our nature, perhaps part of our isolation as a society.

Maybe in the future that will change. Until then, we’ll just plan our vacations a bit better.

John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.