I have been watching the Tour de France for 23 years now. I
watched my first one in 1989 and I can vividly remember sitting in my lounge in
Morecambe with my new born baby son James on my lap trying to make sense of the
mindboggling spectacle that was
unfolding before my eyes. The rules seemed as incomprehensible as American
Football and the commentators used lots of strange words such as peloton
and domestique. But I was hooked, and I had picked a good year for
my first experience of the Tour de France as the race was won by Greg Lemond by
the smallest margin in Tour de France history, just eight seconds.
Ever since then I have watched the race religiously every
year and have seen some fantastic races with the occasional dull one along the
way. For most of those years I felt like Moses in the wilderness because for us
Brits there were precious few British riders to support for most of that time. I can even remember some years when there were
no British riders in the race at all. British stage wins were as rare as hen’s
teeth with Robert Millar’s win in the alps in those early years of my viewing
being a particular highlight. The two British names that stick out from those
years in the early nineties are Sean Yates and Max Sciandri and Sean’s day in
the yellow jersey in 1994 was a rare oasis in a wilderness of disappointment.
1994 was the year that I saw my first Tour de France when it
visited Britain for two days. It was very reassuring to see the hundreds of
thousands of people who turned out to see the two British stages and to know
that I wasn’t the only strange person who spent the evenings of the first three
weeks in July every year glued to Channel 4’s coverage of the race. Even the
French were taken by surprise by the turnout of British fans. Apparently as the
race went up Ditchling Beacon outside Brighton (I was there!) through crowds
that were ten deep on either side of the road, one of the French commentators
was heard to say in wonder at the size of the crowd to his audience back home, “This is not Alpe D’Huez
this is England!”
Since 1994 I have been to the Tour De France many times, at
the last count it was three starts and four finishes including the hundredth anniversary
of the race. Two of the proudest moments of my life have been riding up the
Champs Elysees the day before the Tour de France finished there which I did in
2008 and 2010 at the end of the Christian Aid London to Paris rides. The race
is an exciting and colourful spectacle and it gives you a good excuse to spend
summer weekends in Paris so what could be better!
The great thing is that after those many wilderness years
that I endured in the early days of my Tour de France viewing things did start
to slowly get better. First Chris Boardman came along and won some time trials
and then later on we had David Millar getting some wins. And then about five year ago things changed dramatically
when Mark Cavendish burst on the scene and started winning shed loads of
stages. At last we had a true British
star to cheer and it was fantastic to be at the side of the road in Paris in
2010 when Mark thundered to victory on the Champs Elysees.
But the idea of a
British winner of the Tour de France still seemed as unlikely as me being made
Archbishop of Canterbury (I don’t want that gig by the way!). Then in 2009 a
strange thing happened. Bradley Wiggins suddenly discovered that he could match
the best riders on the mountain stages and came fourth overall in that year’s
race. The idea of him winning still seemed unbelievable though but over the
last three years he has got better and better and this year he won the three
biggest one week stages races in the build up to the Tour. At last I dared to
dream that it might happen and I have been on the edge of my seat and my nerves
have been ragged throughout the last three weeks. When Brad crossed the finish
line in Paris on Sunday in the yellow jersey there were tears of joy in my eyes
because something that I never dreamed that I would see in my lifetime had
happened.
And one of the lovely things about this year’s race is how
enthused my congregations have become about the Tour. I preached about the Tour
at the start of the race and many of my parishioners have become avid followers
of it. And I was particularly touched when one of them rang me up just after
the finish to share the moment with me.
I hope that this year was the start of great things for British
riders in the Tour de France. But in a way I don’t care if I never see a
another British stage win or British winner in the race because I feel that I
have finally emerged from the wilderness and reached the promised land, and it
is a very good place to be!
No comments:
Post a Comment