The aftermath of Stage 5. Today should see a sprint finish as well as giving riders a chance to stretch their legs after yesterday’s battering.
As well as the race we’ll get a history lesson plus a presidential visit.
2r
Friday Shorts
L’Equipe in English
Having reviewed their app yesterday, French newspaper L’Equipe get a mention again. They’ve produced a superb interactive piece about the climbers and the mountains of the Tour and it’s even available in English. With giant photos, videos, graphics and more it’s a good scroll even for the illiterate but the writing is a bonus too. More at lequipe.fr/explore/born-to-climb
Tuesday Shorts
A media and business theme to this week’s shorts. There’s been plenty of satisfaction in Italy with Vincenzo Nibali’s Giro win. A home winner is always going to pull in the crowds but his punchy style has been a real draw for TV audiences. La Gazzetta Dello Sport reports an average daily TV audience of 1.56 million on RAI, up 16% on last year. The audience peaked at 4.3 million for last Saturday’s stage finish at the Tre Cime di Lavaredo. This means over a third of the TV audience, an impressive stat.
UCI Publish Sporting Criteria
In my column in Issue 2 of 2r Magazine I looked at the options available for team licences with a view to bringing some more stability to the system. Whilst we can explore franchises and more, one of the cheapest and quickest solutions is to publish the UCI’s criteria for scoring riders and teams.
For years teams had been ranked on a secret system that few understood leading to a lot of head-scratching and confusion. Only last Thursday the UCI quietly published Annexe-2014/UCI/A-10… better known as the Sporting Value criteria.
Thursday Shorts
If you’re not yet excited about the Tour of Flanders this Sunday, perhaps the video above will do the trick. It’s not new but it’s still worth watching once a year. If you need a prompt to remind you that De Ronde coming up soon, note the first campervans have been spotted parked on the course.
France and Italy both venerate their national tours but often as a social and cultural event, people cheer for the yellow jersey without knowing who is wearing it. No country in the world does cycling like Belgium and the Tour of Flanders is the Flemish equivalent of the Tour de France compressed into one day, even a few hours and all the more potent for it.
2r Magazine
I’m delighted to announce that 2r, a new monthly digital magazine about pro cycling is available to download for all Apple iPad users. For free.
It will be available on other platforms in due course.
Why the satisfaction? Well I’ll be making regular contributions and you can now read my first article there. The magazine’s got a range of features and full-screen photos.