Saturday, July 09, 2011

Pro Road Cycling: The New Blood Sport?

Tour de France time again and with that said, I had planned on not speaking of it here while it was going on. However; being that I work amongst folks that are still big Tour fans, it is hard to ignore the spectacle for me. That is why something was brought to light to me this past week. The pro road racing scene has become a bit of "reality show T.V." Especially around the Tour.

The first week of any tour is generally a nervous, crash infested week where riders eager to jockey for position to show themselves for their team and sponsors make many risky maneuvers. Add in sketchy roads, wind, and in the case of this Tour- rain, and you have the recipe for disaster. It is what it is for the riders. Big pile ups, mangled bikes, and broken collarbones are all in a days work for European based pro roadies. This has been going on for years.

What is disturbing to my mind is the relentless pursuit of the media to bring you and I face to face with this part of cycling. The "blood sport" aspect that results is nothing less than disgusting. Really. Do I need to see blood pouring from a young man's broken body seconds after he smacks terra most-firma? No. Neither do you.

And the riders don't appreciate having their visages plastered on every screen and device this side of the Pecos either. Check out what recent crash victim, Jani Brajkovic had to say about this:

"To all media who put a photo of me bleeding, laid out on the road, half-aware, on the front page of daily news, etc…How would you feel if I was your son, your family??"


I'm betting they wouldn't like it, Jani. And we shouldn't be looking at those images either.


While I respect that "the story should be told", there are better ways of doing it than by jamming a camera up in someone's face and having some media wonk making some less than stellar commentary about it on live television. I saw Tom Boonen's wreck and it was interesting how almost within seconds of his sitting up in the middle of the road, a moto had swooped in, a cameraman had leapt off the mount, and was within three feet of Boonen feeding the "raw images" around the world. It's sick, and it is wrong.


And it isn't just the images either. We even get live audio from these scenes of carnage and we get to hear the expletives of frustrated riders. Nice. What would you expect them to be saying? This isn't news, and it isn't anything we need to be hearing. What next? Will they be "streaming" live video and audio of the peloton's "nature breaks" next?



I guess they may as well. But I won't be tuning in.
 

7 comments:

Dave said...

Agreed. A lot of the "blood sport" coverage takes the beauty out of the sport. Instead of focusing on the extraordinary efforts these athletes are making, the shows producers think we wannna see blood. We're not UFC fans, we're cycling fans. We're tuning in to see people do something most of us mortals can't. Before the tour I noticed a promo on Versus that seemed to feature more blood and carnage than cycling. The casual viewer would expect to see a demolition derby on bicycles.

Hopefully someone will smarten up and we can get back to the cycling.

Lucky131313 said...

I like your comments this morning.

Pro cyclist are even filmed when they go to the shower...

Ligget & Sherwen are calling them "boys".

When will they wake up as a group to get respect?
Soon hopefully.

This is worse than gladiator stuff.
The pros are raped buy the UCI and their team.
The circus in Rome had some rules but cycling is just "arbitraire" over "arbitraire".

When civilians decide that a group of people can not use needle, we are going back to the middle age. It seems that the new blood is coming out of the Tube, not the needle ;-)

john said...

"...riders eager to jockey for position to show themselves for their team and sponsors.."
John

rideonpurpose said...

Honestly, I see the "gravel scene" and a lot of your own actions being just as media hungry.

Everyone these days seems to be pandering to sponsors and magazine coverage etc., just because they are smaller sponsor companies (sort of, somewhat- or at least they pretend to be) or "underground" web only magazines doesn't make the spirit of things any different.



Towards your other point- I'd bet the non-US coverage of the race is not so bloody. I'm all for whatever works to help out our ratings and get more coverage etc..

Maybe the blood should be viewed through a different narrative lense- one which celebrates the epic struggle and the values of never giving up.

Regardless, how is this "blood sport" crap any different than most of the widely read (blog) recaps from Dirty Kanza or similar? I seem to remember a few companies posting blogs about that race where athletes claimed real symptoms not so far off from heat stroke (something at least equally likely to kill you as a road crash).

Guitar Ted said...

@rideonpurpose: Wow. Where to start...

Okay, first off, the coverage referenced was European based, not U.S. (and not that this matters)

Secondly- Visual and audio "live feed" is a very, very different animal than magazine articles, blog recaps, or what have you. What you are talking about, and what I am talking about are two, very, very different thing.

Watching a man bleed, cuss, and suffer seconds after it happens in HD isn't anything like the coverage the gravel scene gets. If you can't see the difference, I guess this is all in vain.

Really, your comments are so far removed from what I was trying to portray, I feel that you almost didn't read what I wrote.

Finally, to my experiences and promotion of gravel events, (including Trans Iowa), I don't care if it gets any mainstream media coverage, or sponsorship especially. It does so,... whatever. I take it for what it is: a momentary, fleeting thing that has no ultimate bearing on whether I, or most folks, continue to try to challenge themselves out there on our country's back roads. Someday no one will really care, most likely, and folks hopefully will still be riding out there, or at least I hope so.

Getting the word out about something fun is another thing altogether, so in that regard, call me guilty.

rideonpurpose said...

"The first week of any tour is generally a nervous, crash infested week where riders eager to jockey for position to show themselves for their team and sponsors make many risky maneuvers. Add in sketchy roads, wind, and in the case of this Tour- rain, and you have the recipe for disaster. It is what it is for the riders. Big pile ups, mangled bikes, and broken collarbones are all in a days work for European based pro roadies. This has been going on for years."


That's mostly what I was referring to with the sponsorship/media comments. I was also indiscriminately venting about a few recent articles that I've seen promoted on the internet about "our scene" and a race that I've got some involvement with- all of which has got me fairly ticked off about the direction that gravel racing/free races is going in.


I'm all in favor of getting the word out and also of riding gravel. I just don't think gravel riders/promoters/sponsors etc., are in any position these days to act "holier than though" about the tour. It seems that quite a few have this attitude (this isn't an attack on you personally) and they seem to hold it for all the wrong reasons. It's a bike race and more or less the pinnacle of the same sport we love, so why not just support it? If there were no sponsors, no sucking up to companies or media outlets etc. in the gravel scene then I'd better appreciate this "anti-big racing" stance.

I did make a leap from what you actually said to what I responded about and I'm sorry about that.

Guitar Ted said...

@rideonpurpose: Right then. Well, you see what I am saying is that with regards to racing, crashes happen, and people get hurt. Right? Okay, then my point is, we don't need to see the "blood on the pavement". To me, it smacks of everything that is wrong with racing coverage, and in a broader sense, what media does as a whole with regards to tragedies. It takes away from racing's beauty, and it makes the racers less than human.

My opinion. My blog. I like to write about stuff. I respect those that don't want to agree, or read it. That's cool.

Now, I see that you seem to be "ticked off", (your words), in regards to the gravel racing scene, specifically the "free races". That would seem to be a whole different sentiment than what this post is about. Furthermore, since I haven't a clue as to what it is that you see as being "the right way" for the scene to go, I can not comment further on that. I invite you to hit me up with an e-mail at anytime to discuss that issue if you would like. Seems to be of importance to you, and I assure you that it is to myself as well.

Now as for your question, "...why not just support it" (I assume you mean The Tour)

I don't like what it has become, and I think you might agree that many gravel promoters and riders feel that way as well. I think the Tour could be far, far better, but with all of the economic, politic, and entertainment concerns so closely tied to and heavily influencing the Tour, it can not be what many of us would like it, romanticize it, or dream it could be. I, for one, can not believe in a performance that one day may be wiped from the books as being false. Your mileage may vary.

So, I care, to some degree, and therefore I criticize the Tour.