SI: TdF cycling a clash of cultures for Americans, Europeans

From the article:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Alberto Contador is a 26-year-old professional bike racer from Spain
who in two seasons has won the Tours of France, Italy and his
homeland. It's a feat matched by only four other riders in history,
and by last fall Contador's performances had depleted the European
press of its supply of superlatives. Then, in March, wearing the
yellow leader's jersey one week into the Paris-Nice stage race, he did
what even the finest racers are occasionally known to do, but Contador
since his rise to prominence had not yet done. During a mountain
stage, he cracked.

What followed revealed the abiding gulf between the cultures
surrounding pro cycling on either side of the Atlantic. European
sportswriters spilled liters of ink on this revelation of Contador's
humanity. He is one of us! He is plus sympathique! He is ... Sartre on
a bike!

Contrast that over-the-top reaction with the off-the-radar response in
the U.S.: [Crickets] ... and this terse tweet from Lance Armstrong,
Contador's American rival on the same Astana team: Unfortunate day for
Alberto. Amazing talent but still a lot to learn.

Even as the U.S. has produced, in Armstrong, the sport's most dominant
performer, cycling remains a virtual cipher in the States. When it's
consumed at all, it's consumed differently than in Europe. It's framed
differently. And as Armstrong returns to the Tour de France after a
three-year absence, that ongoing pas de deux of mutual loathing and
suspicion, Lance vs. France, is only part of a larger cultural
loggerheads.

Here's a stab at what's behind it: Bike racing in Europe is what
boxing is in the States -- a poor kid's way out. A chimney sweep won
the first Tour de France, and since then honors have gone to
carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, welders, baker's apprentices and
metalworking trainees. (One of the greatest, Italy's Fausto Coppi,
wasn't even a butcher, but an errand boy for a butcher, which is how
he learned his way with a bike.) The European peloton is a clan with a
code, a sweatshop on wheels that doubles as a testing lab for designer
doping products. Fans make the biggest heroes of those who suffer
most; the founder of the Tour, Henri Desgranges, believed that the
ideal race would be one survived by a single rider. If these hero-
sufferers take drugs, goes the continental line of thinking, it's
because no one can be expected to survive such an ordeal without
palliatives, and besides, cheating has been woven into the Tour since
its second staging in 1904, when the winner of the first, that chimney
sweep, hopped a train for part of the route.
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Read it at http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200.../tour/?eref=T1






J. Spaceman

On Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:12:57 -0700 (PDT), Jason Spaceman
wrote:


Here's a stab at what's behind it: Bike racing in Europe is what
boxing is in the States -- a poor kid's way out.

Outside of the country club sports, the sports that have a profile way
different than 'poor kids way out' are the ones that use the
NCAA-as-professional-farm-team structure, a corruption of the mission
of universities and colleges, built on significantly underpaying the
participants for the value that they provide. Kill this unnecessary
system and the corruption that arises from it, and you will see fewer
differences.

Cycling has its share of blue collar participants. The possibility of
sliding across tarmac reduces the pure country club golf set
significantly.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

On Jul 16, 7:12*pm, Jason Spaceman
wrote:
From the article:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Alberto Contador is a 26-year-old professional bike racer from Spain
who in two seasons has won the Tours of France, Italy and his
homeland. It's a feat matched by only four other riders in history,
and by last fall Contador's performances had depleted the European
press of its supply of superlatives. Then, in March, wearing the
yellow leader's jersey one week into the Paris-Nice stage race, he did
what even the finest racers are occasionally known to do, but Contador
since his rise to prominence had not yet done. During a mountain
stage, he cracked.

What followed revealed the abiding gulf between the cultures
surrounding pro cycling on either side of the Atlantic. European
sportswriters spilled liters of ink on this revelation of Contador's
humanity. He is one of us! He is plus sympathique! He is ... Sartre on
a bike!

Contrast that over-the-top reaction with the off-the-radar response in
the U.S.: [Crickets] ... and this terse tweet from Lance Armstrong,
Contador's American rival on the same Astana team: Unfortunate day for
Alberto. Amazing talent but still a lot to learn.

Even as the U.S. has produced, in Armstrong, the sport's most dominant
performer, cycling remains a virtual cipher in the States. When it's
consumed at all, it's consumed differently than in Europe. It's framed
differently. And as Armstrong returns to the Tour de France after a
three-year absence, that ongoing pas de deux of mutual loathing and
suspicion, Lance vs. France, is only part of a larger cultural
loggerheads.

Here's a stab at what's behind it: Bike racing in Europe is what
boxing is in the States -- a poor kid's way out. A chimney sweep won
the first Tour de France, and since then honors have gone to
carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, welders, baker's apprentices and
metalworking trainees. (One of the greatest, Italy's Fausto Coppi,
wasn't even a butcher, but an errand boy for a butcher, which is how
he learned his way with a bike.) The European peloton is a clan with a
code, a sweatshop on wheels that doubles as a testing lab for designer
doping products. Fans make the biggest heroes of those who suffer
most; the founder of the Tour, Henri Desgranges, believed that the
ideal race would be one survived by a single rider. If these hero-
sufferers take drugs, goes the continental line of thinking, it's
because no one can be expected to survive such an ordeal without
palliatives, and besides, cheating has been woven into the Tour since
its second staging in 1904, when the winner of the first, that chimney
sweep, hopped a train for part of the route.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------

Read it athttp://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/the_bonus/07/07/tour/?e...

J. Spaceman

It's even better the second time around, thanks!

-ilan

On Jul 16, 3:59*pm, wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:12:57 -0700 (PDT), Jason Spaceman

wrote:

Here's a stab at what's behind it: Bike racing in Europe is what
boxing is in the States -- a poor kid's way out.

Outside of the country club sports, the sports that have a profile way
different than 'poor kids way out' are the ones that use the
NCAA-as-professional-farm-team structure, a corruption of the mission
of universities and colleges, built on significantly underpaying the
participants for the value that they provide. Kill this unnecessary
system and the corruption that arises from it, and you will see fewer
differences.

Cycling has its share of blue collar participants. The possibility of
sliding across tarmac reduces the pure country club golf set
significantly.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

I imagine that a quality education would get in the way of a pro
cycling career. A commentator in a cross-country ski magazine last
winter opined that serious skiers should not attend college if they
want to reach their full potential.

" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Read it at
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200.../tour/?eref=T1



I thought this quote summed things up pretty well: For Americans, doping is
entwined with questions of character, with goodness and evil. For Europeans,
doping is simply something that cyclists are known to do. C'est le métier,
the French say: It's the job. ... [It's] the same divergence that occurs
when a politician is caught out with a mistress: Americans get outraged --
How could he? While Europeans shrug -- But of course.