You might have heard of Amaury Sport Organisation, the company behind the Tour de France. Maybe you know RCS , the Italian company behind the Giro d’Italia too. But what about Flanders Classics, the company behind several of the Belgian classics? Here’s a look.
Pro cycling is a nakedly commercial sport. The above cartoon by Pellos mocks the way the 1956 Tour de France consumes the environment with branding. Half a century later only the sponsor names have changed. Riders act as mobile billboards to sell Quickstep laminated flooring and Liquigas bottled gas.
However this culture is set to clash with the Olympic Games, now just four months away. One thing that didn’t exist in 1956 was social media and the International Olympic Committee has very strict rules in place about the use of blogs, Facebook and Twitter during the games. Here’s a look at the ad rules and social media guidelines.
Gerrans wins Milan-Sanremo but the clip above is an illustration of the teamwork and success being enjoyed by all. Expletives are beeped out and at times the soundtrack is like Morse Code as riders and managers alike share the moment.
A look at the photo above. Photography allows us to catch a millisecond in time and portray the moment as a whole story. Here is a great example. We have Lars Boom taking a tumble at the foot of the Taaienberg. That’s Lars Boom, cyclo-cross champion, a rider who can handle his bike. The fight for position is intense in moments like this and Boonen doesn’t give ground. Boom runs out of road, hits the soft earth. Game over.
There’s been plenty of coverage of Alberto Contador’s positive test and the ban, much of it in the mainstream media. Much is informative but some of this has run wild and ignored the intricacies of the case or the particulars of the procedure. For example today Le Monde, France’s establishment newspaper, ran an article with several mistakes. So here’s a quick primer on the facts.
Pro Cycling Magazine kindly asked if I’d write a piece for them about the use of Twitter in the sport and you can read my thoughts in the latest version of the magazine (edition 159). You’ll have to buy the magazine to read it, especially since the column is more than 140 characters long.
Read up on the history of the sport and larger than life characters appear. You don’t just have names, you have nicknames. The “Cannibal”, the “Eagle of Toledo”, the “Butcher of Sens“. Bernard Hinault scared, Mario Cipollini wowed. Nowadays pro cycling just doesn’t seem to have these references and personalities. Today the “The Butcher of Irun” is the man who supposedly supplied contaminated meat to Alberto Contador, not a charismatic racer.
A small nugget from the UCI’s annual report, the triumphant report of rising internet traffic to the governing body’s website…
The statistics concerning the www.uci.ch website are also very encouraging. Nearly 2.8 million visits were recorded in 2010 (compared with 2.3 million in 2009). Furthermore, the previous record number of visits in one day was demolished when over 62,000 visits were made on 30 September.
What exciting news happened on 30 September 2010 to cause a rise in web traffic?
The Tour de France is such a big event that you’d think cycling is a big sport in France. Perhaps but it’s a long way from other sports. Here’s a scan across the airwaves, news stands and servers.
In case you hadn’t noticed, the Tour de France starts on Saturday. During July I’ll be doing a few blog pieces for cyclingnews.com that touch on the Tour de France, the usual “Inner Ring” take on things.
Each time I’ll link to them in case you want to read and the first piece is now available to read online.