Good times from the not-good times

When people ask me if I watched the Tour this year, I tell them, “I didn’t so much watch it as I endured it.” We all know what happened with Messrs. Sinkewitz, Vinokourov, Moreni, Rasmussen, Mayo and whomever else has been suspended by the time you read this, so I’ve opted to start with some positive notes about this year’s race.

The prologue in London was a success by all accounts. The crowds were huge, the riders liked it, and Mayor Ken Livingstone said that he wants to do it again. Seeing as he said that after the Tour was over, it must have been a pretty good day.

TV ratings data showed some mixed results. But given how the race played out, “mixed results” shouldn’t be discouraging. Reports from Spain looked pretty decent, but reports from Germany were not so good, especially after the country’s largest broadcaster dropped coverage following Sinkewitz’ test. In the US, the LA Times reported that Versus’ viewership through July 26 was up 21% from last year, with unique visitors to their website up 15%.

Barloworld came to play. Robbie Hunter won a stage and finished second for the Green Jersey. Mauricio Soler won a stage and the KOM title – which he was leading even before Rasmussen got the boot. With several ProTour teams mailing it in (Bouygues Telecom? Gerolsteiner? Milram?), it was great to see Barloworld acting like they belonged on the biggest stage. Respect large.

Everyone stayed on-message. It’s significant that when the shit hit the fan, just about every rider and manager with a microphone in front of them said the same thing: “[Insert name of doper] is an idiot, but this shows that we’re willing to confront our problems head-on and that we’re making progress.” If you repeat something enough, people start to believe it – it’s called advertising.

I was skeptical at first, but sure enough, more and more articles (and readers’ comments on those articles) popped up in the mainstream media along the lines of, “These bike guys are serious. There’s no way that the NFL would test for steroids just before the Super Bowl, let alone kick guys out the next day for testing positive.” At least in the US, the message seems to be working.

But don’t get me wrong: The 2007 Tour de France was definitely bad for business. Those articles are just journalists talking, and it’s clear that sponsors aren’t exactly clamoring to get into cycling.

Moreover, TdF organizer ASO didn’t even invite UCI president Pat McQuaid to the Tour, but they still managed to insult each other daily. Near the end of the race, McQuaid told Cyclingnews, “I don’t think the Tour de France belongs to the ASO, I think the Tour de France belongs to the cycling family and I am president of the cycling family.”

That statement is factually incorrect. The Tour de France belongs to ASO, and, as I’ve said before, the Tour’s image makes possible everything else in cycling – including Pat McQuaid’s job.

But anyways, this year’s Tour featured earth-shattering doping scandals, drove away sponsors, and further exposed fundamental instability in the structure of pro cycling. Other than that, it wasn’t all bad.