On the opening day of the Giro d’Italia, not one of the UK’s major broadsheets had any meaningful coverage of a cycling event that ranks second only to the Tour de France. I mention this because this isn’t a sport that Britain struggles in. Quite the opposite in fact. We’re disproportionately good at it, given the lack of publicity and investment the sport receives here.
From Bradley Wiggins and Victoria Pendleton to Giro participants David Millar and Mark Cavendish, Britain is experiencing a real cycling renaissance. And it isn’t as if cycling doesn’t have a fan base here either: approximately 4 million people are thought to have attended the opening weekend of Tour de France when it visited London last summer.
So far this year, the Giro has rated a mention on the following morning’s sport news, but no more than that, when Mark Cavendish, Britain’s emerging star, sprinted to victory on Stage 4. David Millar, a Scot and therefore the man I follow most, came agonisingly close the following day, only for his chain to spectacularly break inside the final kilometre. It didn’t rate a mention.
To follow cycling here is to be taken back to an older, gentler world where sporting events overseas took on an unreal, distant quality. I’m reminded of my father’s story about staying up all night as a boy to listen to the crackling radio coverage of Cassius Clay shaking up the world (Sonny Liston included) and waking up the following day wondering if he’d imagined the whole thing. I now know how he felt.
We’re so accustomed to a depth and immediacy of sporting coverage these days that there is something almost (and I stress almost) quaint about the lack of serious coverage we get here, save for the brave efforts of the cycling press and some persevering broadsheet journalists.
Yahoo! Eurosport provides what is probably the best of the available live coverage, but as is often the way of sports portal, it manages to be comprehensive yet distant, and lacks character and insight. As a feat of sheer, mechanical information processing, it is undoubtedly impressive, but it doesn’t feel edited and you don’t actively want to read it.
Thank goodness then for Slipstream Sports / Chipotle and their blog – it is probably the best sporting example of social media I’ve yet seen. The US team, which includes David Millar amongst its riders, gets the concept and potential of blogs to an extent that you all too rarely see.
Rather than an administrative chore left to some poor office junior, the blog is written by the team, giving you an amazing insight into the experience of racing in the Giro and its ups and down. The result is that Slipstream are creating the sort of direct relationship with their fans – and yes, their blog has made me one – that makes you feel like you are there, not watching from the sidelines, but on the team bus, sharing the triumphs and the (near) disaster. Far, far closer than any television or print coverage could take you.
For example, take this piece from David Millar about that incident with the chain:
This is when my chain starts to skip a little. I think nothing of it. It’s been raining and it must have some dirt in it, but I’m now having trouble holding it in one gear. I’m so focused I don’t let it stress me. I know what I have to do and jumping gears aren’t going to stop me. And then the next guy goes…I go after him… Then we slow again, the chain is still jumping. I change it into the middle of the block so it’s straight and in a big gear so I won’t have to change it again until the final sprint.
It’s not going to stop me…
We’re spitting distance from the kilometre to go banner, and the big final attack I was waiting for comes. Bruit goes and I look at the others and see this is it, the last 202 km and five hours have been prologue to this moment. I’m going to win. I’ve got this…
And BANG.
It turns out that Millar isn’t just a great rider, he’s a rather impressive writer too.
Comment
Commenting is closed for this article.
Previous article: The Rider by Tim Krabbé
Next article: They share the same city, but Glasgow's clubs are miles apart
