Rewatching The Races

Sporza showed the 2015 Gent-Wevelgem last Sunday and it felt like a hard watch, why sit down for a couple of hours to see something old you know the result of? Well because there wasn’t much else to do and it was a lively edition…but it turned out to be a much better experience that expected. Once you know who wins you can watch and see how they win but there’s more.

Many of the sports channels you’re used to watching racing on are going to be replaying vintage editions instead of the planned live coverage. It’s not the same but here are a few suggestions to make watching repeats more interesting.

One of the reasons we’ve got live coverage from start to finish of more and more races these days is precisely because live TV is a draw for TV channels, whether sport or rolling news. With repeats and replays people skip the ad breaks or tune in for the finale, while live coverage keeps people on edge, even on the flattest of flat stages in the Tour people watch because something could happen. It’s a subject explained further in Why Show The Whole Race? from April 2016.

Source material
Things are coming on TV and they’re likely to be recent editions of big races. Chances are you’ve seen them before. But the likes of Youtube and to a lesser extent Vimeo and Daily Motion have more obscure races. This doesn’t mean an early 1990s village kermesse recorded on a Sony Camcorder, more like a mid-week semi-classic or a stage of the Tour of the Alps that you missed. Chances are you don’t remember the winner so if it doesn’t have the live feeling it can still surprise.

Context
If you do want to sit down and watch a race, give it proper treatment. Look up the startlist on procyclingstats.com as this is more than a list of names. You’ll see the old teams you might already have forgotten about plus thumbnail images of the team jerseys. You can take this further, for example look up the bikes they were riding or the wider context such as the news or music at the time, perhaps to jog the memory or to help situate the race in time.

 

2020 Hindsight
If you do know the winner of a race then you can still enjoy watching how they won it. Spoiler alert: Luca Paolini won the 2015 Gent-Wevelgem. But how did he do it? Today to mention Paolini’s name is to think of this race but also his subsequent ejection from the Tour de France months later after a positive test for cocaine and his personal problems with addiction and more. But cast back to that morning in March 2015 and Paolini doesn’t have the same clouds over him or your worries about him getting things back together. He’s just an outsider, a longshot bordering on moonshot.

The early scenes of the race are dramatic as a storm shreds the peloton. Some riders go in the ditch, one gets a musette stuck in his wheel and hurls his bike into the ditch. Even the motos on the race look unstable with their riders dangling their feet close to the ground to help with balance in case of another gust.

Paolini misses the winning move but bridges across and much of his move was solo. Then you can watch him in the breakaway. Chances are when you saw Niki Terpstra, Belgian champion Jens Debusschere, Greg Van Avermaet, Sep Vanmarcke and Geraint Thomas you thought one of them would win, not Paolini. Indeed Thomas was the form rider having just won the GP E3 Harelbeke when he’s associated with the Tour de France now. Paolini even gives you reasons not to back him in the finish, he’s dropped on a climb and has to claw his way back. He made a dummy move in the finale, Thomas is quick to close him down and perhaps it was a test, to see who was fresh and alert? Now you can see Quickstep falling victim to their own tactics, they have numerical superiority but can’t exploit it, they’re expected to chase when someone else goes. All told Paolini’s win looks glorious, he was strong, made the right moves and played the right cards.

All this can be applied to other races, could Tom Boonen have done anything different in the 2016 Paris-Roubaix and where exactly was Mat Hayman all day? Watch another recent cobbled classic and see how Peter Sagan fares, is he marked out of contention, is he lacking team support? Watch for Mark Cavendish and Heinrich Haussler at different points in the 2009 Milan-Sanremo and so on.

The Tell
If you’re not watching live you can start to look for new things and small details. One is “the tell” of each rider. Just as poker players look for a nervous tick or other body language cues to suggest their opponent is stressed or confident, cyclists can look for signs their rivals are flagging. Some are obvious like a slowing cadence, rocking shoulders or tilting the head sideways but others are more discreet. In 1989 when Greg LeMond and Laurent Fignon were duelling on Alpe d’Huez. Fignon’s directeur sportif Cyrille Guimard knew LeMond well having managed him before and spotted the American’s pedalling technique had changed, his ankle movement was slightly different. Guimard told Fignon to attack and the Frenchman did and took precious time. Chris Froome rarely looked comfortable on the bike in the frenzy of a summit finish on the rare times he was dropped his tongue dropped out. If you know someone is about to crack then try to look for their giveaway.

 

When They Were Young
The likes of Tadej Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel have made an impact on pro racing right from their first year in the pro peloton but it’s more normal for the champions to take their time. So if you’re watching a retro race look out for the surprise young names who might not win but are up there and learning. For example there’s a Netflix documentary about Movistar and you can Richard Carapaz in a new light, he’s no longer just a punchy stage winner and white jersey wearer when he rides the 2019 Giro and when he attacks on the Colle San Carlo and is alone on the descent soon after even his team managers are working the radio trying to dissuade him from pressing on alone to Courmayeur. They see it as a futile waste of energy… it turns out to be the race winning move that saw him take the stage, the maglia rosa and keep it to the end.

Social media
If you’re on social media you should find others watching too and can share the moment. If anything the problem at the moment is rather than the sporting calendar dictacting one or two clashing races at most, these days Eurosport UK is showing one race, Eurosport Italia another, Eurosport France a different one while people are watching different races on Sporza, L’Equipe TV and so on.

Summary
Apologies if this all reads like obvious tips to watch a race again, like a culinary blog switching to advice on how to sip lukewarm gruel… but it’s all we’ve got in the absence of live sport and perhaps it helps pass the time for some? Rewatching a race despite knowing the result proved more enjoyable than expected and it wasn’t an exercise in nostalgia either, there can be new things to look for. This week L’Equipe TV is showing parts of the 1989 Tour de France (it’s geo-restricted but many people use VPNs these days) and it’s footage that doesn’t exist on youtube, there are new details to look for. Some of it’s haunting though, watching a world in better times with the packed crowds and L’Equipe showed the 2018 Tour of Lombardy, the race touring a region now suffering so much and it’s hard to watch the race without seeing the fans beside the road and wondering how they are today.

27 thoughts on “Rewatching The Races”

    • Is the Netflix doc the same as the one that was on Movistar (The channel) over Xmas? “From Reynolds to Movistar” it was called, or something like that.

  2. it would be really great to see even older races, early 2000s or mid 1990s… if the have the rights to broadcast that it.

    seeing riders long gone or now in management roles racing at their prime. plus, the memories are dusty enough that it would be almost like watching it again live. or for some of us too young to have seen the race, like a brand new edition with a distantly familiar cast.

  3. @iamjensee on twitter is doing #ClassicClassics where everyone is watching an old edition of whatever classics race would have been on. So far we’ve done the 1992 MSR and the 98 Gent-Wevelgem. It’s a fun time.

    Also, who could forget how Luca Paolini won G-W? From a 2-man break that went out a long way out, with Stijn Vandenbergh. Which was somewhat comical because Vandenbergh is a full foot taller than Paolini and drafting was … dramatically less effective for VDB than it was for Paolini.

  4. This piece about how watching reruns wisely reminds me of the theatre in ancient Greece. Popular plays were re-staged every year and audiences already knew the plot by heart as they would have been on stage in previous years – there were no professional actors. All interest lied in the interpretation: would this year’s cast of actors excel in their roles?
    Nowadays we demand spoiler alerts lest knowing in advance how things end ruin our viewing pleasure. What a monumental fall in standards, that we think of spectating merely in terms of entertainment! Contrariwise, why watch even once that which does not merit revisiting?

    • That’s also similar to how people experienced plays in the Shakespeare’s time – think of the prologue to romeo and Juliet, it tells you the entire plot in the first 30 seconds of the play! The enjoyment was in seeing how it was done. In fact, the composition of many plays was so formulaic (‘tragedy’ meant something very specific in the 1500s), you can say that the plot was almost secondary to the verse and especially the performance.

      Rewatching classic races is slightly different – we are watching the same performance after all, not a new interpretation – but there’s still much to enjoy. It’s like rereading a book, you get a whole lot more out of it (if it’s a good book). Some races have so many sub-plots, I’m certain there’s enough there to merit a rewatch even if you know the podium positions already.

  5. the Paolini memory that sticks in my brain was when he set Kristoff up for his MSR win – he looked so strong controlling everything until the last few metres, probably helped by his dayglo overshoes standing out in the gloom…

    • Hard pick but five quick selections:
      – Paris-Roubaix 2015 for the ever-changing scenarios
      – Paris-Roubaix 2016 as it was live all day and it’d be interesting to see how the winner did it
      – Tour of Flanders 2011 for the same reason as Roubaix 2016, it was a long day and a crafty win, worth reading at Edward Pickering’s Ronde book if you can’t get the video
      – Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2015 to see Ian Stannard’s “overwinning”
      – One Lombardia between 2018, 2016, 2015, 2014, hard to pick, some good editions with long range moves making it but suspense until late

      Presumably readers can recommend more and better choices.

        • I was going to mention that one too. But in some ways it only stands as a highlight for that last 3 minutes or so.
          He’s in a breakaway and looks set for the win, so theirs not quite the same replay value – you’re not looking for riders tiring, or when the winning move is made. It’s certainly something to behold.

          • True, but it’s just a stand out race moment for me.
            Besides watching race length videos, we could relive race defining moments. Ain’t that really why we’re watching… Even when we know the outcome, we’re still looking for that exact moment of beauty, when it all comes together and the race is decided.

    • My recommendation would be:

      Paris-Roubaix, 2016.
      The whole cobblestone season was good that year, and it’s worth (re)watching the races chronologically: Omloop, K-B-K, (Strade), E3, G-W, Ronde, before the cherry on top. There’s no other race where I have been as engaged for so long when I saw it. I was standing up, nearly jumping, when Tommeke bridged to Hayman just before the velodrome, hoping so earnestly he would finish off his coup. I nearly even fainted after the sprint, ha.

      Ronde van Vlaanderen, 2017.
      The best solo win I have seen, I must say. And right up until after the last ascent of Oude Kwaremont, it looked likely that van Avermaet and Sagan would bridge up and win. Another great cobblestone season from Omloop to Roubaix, but a notch below the previous year.

      Ronde van Vlaanderen, 2011.
      The last edition on the old route, and it really made you wonder why it would have to change. Cancellara was the one main favourite, showing great form in previous races (Strade, MSR and E3). It looked like he would dominate even more resoundingly than the previous year with Tommeke not at his best. But Chavanel proved more durable than expected, and in the end, it would be the team car of Cancellara’s former team that would be shown celebrating.

      Gent-Wevelgem, 2015.
      It has already been motived very well by inrng.

      Olympic Games Road Race, 2016.
      Unlike the Classics, a race on an unknown route that was quite difficult to tell who could win on. The 5 man national teams only meant that it would be even more open. Italy clearly with a plan, Spain on the defensive, a super strong Alaphilippe that was too late to the party. And a decisive descent, even more so in the women’s race.

      Honourable mentions: OGRR, ’12; WCRR, ’10; Lombardia, ’18; MSR, ’11; Amstel, ’17.

    • I don’t know about today but a couple of years ago he and some friends/business partners took over a coffee shop/bar/pasticceria/gelatria in Como, “Monti”. He wanted to return after his ban but no team would take him. The caffè is in a, even the, prime location in the town square of Como with views on the lake and next to the Armani store etc.

      • Thank you very much for the feedback and I hope that Paolini is doing well and, most importantly, is fit and safe. Enjoyable memories of watching the race that day. It’s nice to look at the archived articles too, both pre and post race, with comments.
        Stay safe everyone and don’t let your chuckle muscles dry up and drop off.

  9. Merely watching cycling has positive effects on the mind and body, so just do it! As for what to watch, they’re all good, but the ’84 Tour de France (Lemond-Hinault), ’86 and ’89 (Lemond-Fignon final ITT) are epic even in reruns. And anything with Johann Museeuw riding up the Keppelmuur is a must.

  10. The velocast are doing weekly Podcasts following vintage editions of whichever race would normally be on the calendar. They send a link in advance to the footage then give their analysis a few days later. Having never been too enthused by historical stuff, I’ve found this a really great way to learn about some of the great races. This week is the 2003 tour of Flanders.

  11. I watched the 2009 MSR again last week. Even though I knew the result the hairs still stood up on the back of my neck as Cavendish came hurtling towards Haussler like the shark in Jaws.

  12. Thank you for this, Mr Inrng.

    Completely agree that very often knowing the backstory to a race makes watching it again like a new experience.

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