Stirring 'wins' in the drug-tainted Tour de France

Watching Lance Armstrong successively “win” the Tour de France was stirring.

Lance Armstrong - he
cheated his way to seven
'wins' in the Tour de France.

The intrigue of recent times has blunted somewhat the celebratory mood; intrigue arising from a deception of dimensions never before seen in elite sport.

There is, however, within that an inspiration that reaches beyond human artefact.

Millions around the world drew strength and courage, not to mention commitment and hope, from Armstrong’s well-chronicled confrontation with and survival from testicular cancer.

Armstrong cheated at cycling, but such trickery was not an option as he wrestled with the reality of cancer.

Locked in a life and death wrestle with cancer, the man who was to become a hero to many, never blinked and the steely determination that enabled his survival, morphed, it seemed, into a purpose-driven cycling career in which the desire to win overrode decency and good sense.

Confronted with such an implacable adversary that is cancer, Armstrong employed whatever he could find in the medicinal armoury to win and it seems the “take no prisoners” attitude such a confrontation demanded worked, for years, without apparent fault in elite cycling.

What Armstrong did was unquestionably wrong, but without apologising for his behaviour, it is important to judge him in context of the time, his life and in losing our salvos of criticism, remember the Bible quote in which it is argued that he, who is without sin, should cast the first stone.

The doings of Armstrong were quite clearly wrong, offending the values most hold decent, filtering through cycling and leaking into other sports.

In the broad sweep of world events, the corruption of the sort inculcated by Armstrong is inconsequential compared to other happenings in which hundreds, if not millions of people, young and old, innocent and willing participants, died from hunger or political malfeasance.

Arguments of difference immediately enter the conversation, but at base the drivers are identical – the desire to succeed at the expense of others, whatever the cost.

Armstrong’s influence on cycling was majestical and being a cancer survivor with an intense force of personality, he had a magical hold over cycling and drove both counterparts and competitors to do distasteful things, just as a despot contrives to offend a population.

Many have stood beyond the present controversy arguing that it was Armstrong’s inspiration that saw them survive the trials of cancer. Armstrong was, a still is, for many the beacon that lead them through difficult times.

Watching Armstrong guide his team through the Tour de France and other similar events, was inspirational for despite his indiscretions, he demanded discipline and dedication; needed traits if humanity is to endure the difficulties ahead as civilisation wrestles with a burgeoning population and the depletion of finite resources and a changing climate.

The extremes of the Tour will resolve humanity's dilemmas

The Tour de France - the essence of what
 it is can resolve humanity's
 dilemmas.

Watching the Tour de France I became puzzled as to why men push themselves to such physical and mental extremes and along with that why we, their less focussed fellows, watch with such adoration and dedication.

Such passion is not strange, scarce or unique, nor is the human fascination with watching others search for the extremes of their abilities, physical or mental.

The roads of France in July each year equate in a modern sense with the “excitements” of gladiatorial Rome, as do the feats of men and women on any of the world’s many sporting arenas from the bellicosity of boxing to the beauty and finery of ballroom dancing.

Men and women test and push themselves to their limits and we watch with unalloyed enthusiasm.

Sport, it seems, has evolved to become the modern construction of war; that human confrontation that drives our emotions, ignites  passions responding to a siren-call that leads to outcomes commonly considered everything from horrible to honourable, but never to be missed.

So we watch with our emotions unleashed, our infatuations running free and, for maybe only a brief moment, we too are vicariously there, sweating, experiencing and feeling the heat of the spotlight, although, unlike the participants, our only investment is time.

Our urge to physically and mentally exhaust ourselves can be philosophically understood, but even participants would probably be at a loss to explain their behaviour as motivation seems to emerge from deep within the human psyche.

Motivation is like the many-headed Hydra monster of Greek mythology – it has many faces; identify one and there is another, and another, and then another.

Sport voyeurs and the participants they watch are stimulated and inspired in Hydra-like ways, but within that they are strikingly similar and yet as different as a blink and a wink.

Interestingly, the passion, excitements, addictions and distractions of sport, for participants and spectators alike, embody the values that are taking humanity closer to the abyss.

We are watching, but not taking any note of where it is we are going nor, it seems, do we care.

Distracted by the titillations of sport, and an endless array of technological entertainments, we seem immune to and so ignorant of the fact that we have exhausted our world’s environmental sinks and are consuming our way to catastrophe.

Sport, and this “loudness” of other distractions are not of themselves individually troublesome, but they are integral to the machinations of a way of life that has disrupted earth’s ecological balance.

Enthusiasm, passion, patience, commitment, resilience, energy, compassion, team-work, single-mindedness and tenacity are the ingredients for success in the Tour de France.

They are, also, what is creating troublesome times, but applied in pursuit of different goals they will resolve our dilemmas.

Euphoria overlooks reality

Australian cycling enthusiasts, along with many others, were jubilant as Cadel Evans rode last night to victory in the Tour de France.

The 34-year-old Northern Territory born Evans, set up his tour win in the final individual time trial of the tour in the penultimate last stage of the tour.

Cadel Evans in the
 colours of the world
 champion- a title he
 won in 2009.

Evans started that stage 57 seconds down on the tour leader, Andy Schleck, and demonstrated his clear edge in time trialing to finish a minute and 34 seconds ahead, gaining more than two minutes to effectively win the tour.
The ride into Paris, the final stage, is largely a formality with huge honour going to the rider who wins the last sprint for the tour on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. Evans had no need to feature in the sprint, rather simply finish with the peloton.
Evans’ win prompted enthusiastic comment from many quarters with some declaring him to be the complete road cyclist with only success in the Olympic Games having eluded him.
Many in the cycling fraternity were euphoric about an Australian winning what they, and many outside the sport, consider the greatest sporting event in the world, even bigger than the Olympics.
Some declared it a seminal moment for Australian cycling as it illustrated to younger and emerging riders that they were not geographically denied opportunity of reaching the epitome of road cycling.
Embedded in the ecstasy of Evans’ success, the commentators predicted the growth in cycling over the next ten to 20 years, but overlooked some critical realities I can’t ignore, although the sheer virtuosity of the Australian’s success made me stand taller.
The tour, in its modern manifestation is a product of the industrial age and so despite its world embracing magnitude and complexity it edges towards collapse as the world uses more and more of irreplaceable resources; resources upon which such massive events are built.
Our world is moving toward “peakeverything”, the peaks for some resources such as oil have already passed, and within decades it will become increasingly difficult to sustain events such as the tour.
Humanity, and so by implication events such as the tour, faces a crisis of sheer existence brought on by the collision of multiple peaks – food, water, soil, oil and innumerable minerals – with a changing climate brought on by our seemingly irresponsible use of the very resources that are becoming exhausted.
One hundred years ago, the Tour de France was just that and limited largely to local riders and maybe that scenario will soon return.
In riding to victory in the Tour de France, Evans rode over several seemingly impassable peaks, but interestingly the peaks that both he and humanity may find even more difficult are yet to come.