As well as daily podium ceremonies for the stage winner and to award the jerseys there are several other prizes awarded each day.
Now I enjoy pro cycling and like to follow the news but I’ve had to research the extra prizes and ceremonies on offer because they’re not obvious. But if you want to know your team classification from your Superteam or your Fuga from your Fairplay, read on.
There’s an impressive diversity of silverware and commemorative trophies awarded to the winners of bike races. Cadel Evans picked up what looks to be the largest item of the year. It’s a trident, the symbol of greco-roman sea gods and awarded to the winner of Tirren0-Adriatico, the “race of two seas”. It makes you wonder what he’ll do with it, indeed whether he managed to fit it in the team car.
Normally you get something more modest but still prestigious. Having won Milan-Sanremo, Matthew Goss gets something that fits more easily into the trophy cabinet and it’s ok, aesthetically. It’s not always so, Tour de France stage winners get a block of perspex which, for me, doesn’t quite capture the significance of their win, it’s a tribute to the sponsor, not the sport.
With the Giro d’Italia starting in Holland, a Dutch politician has suggested that they have men on the podium instead of girls. Here’s how cyclingnews.com reports it: Marco de Goede of the GroenLinks party had argued during a local council meeting that having podium girls was outdated and sexist. Because Amsterdam is known as the … Read more