Trouble Brewing at the Tour de France
The Tour de France is one of the most gruelling and difficult cycling races on the planet, some say it is the most difficult sporting contest as well. This year’s race seems to have been hit by a serious heat-wave that has gotten to the riders’ heads. Controversy is brewing as well in the race which just saw its 13th stage completed. In the race already this year, punches have been traded and riders have been head-butted. Along with the doping allegations that rocked the cycling world a little while ago these new incidents leave us wondering about a return to the nice days of cycling.
The trouble started this year when the temperature started to creep up higher and higher. The fact that much of Europe has been in the grips of an intense heat-wave this summer, with temperatures soaring to the mid 30s, has caused a major problem for the cyclists, imagine trying to ride a bicycle in extremely hot weather, now imagine trying to race a cycle against serious competition and try to win one of the most difficult races in the world. It is not an easy job by any stretch; in cooler weather the task is difficult but in very hot weather the ride becomes almost impossible.
The trouble started early this race; as the temperatures soared, so did riders’ tempers. On stage six of the race two riders came to actual blows. Carlos Barredo and Rui Costa crossed the finish line and then started to have a good old fashioned fist fight. Barredo, who was very angry, ran towards Costa and started to throw punches at him. Costa responded with punches of his own and the duelling pair had to be separated by their team officials. The trouble started when there were 20 kms left in the stage and Barredo claimed that Costa elbowed him in the gut winding him in the process. This messed up Barredo’s chances on the stage and enraged the Spaniard. The problem was settled after both men were fined but allowed to continue the race and Barredo called up Costa and apologised.
The other big news of the current Tour is that two riders were involved in a nice little head butting incident. The 13th stage of the race was in full swing and being a sprinting stage the riders were all tightly bunched up with very little room to manoeuvre their bikes. The winner of the stage was Mark Cavendish but his victory was lukewarm because his teammate Mark Renshaw head butted Julian Dean during the stage because he claimed Dean was pushing him into the wall. The head butt pushed Dean out of the way to give Cavendish a clear road to victory. Renshaw was thrown out of the race because he endangered the safety of the other riders with his head butt challenge. There are two sides to this story; firstly Renshaw claims that being pushed into the wall by Dean was very dangerous because he could have fallen and it would have caused a major pile up of riders. He says he was pushing Dean out of the way. The other side is that Dean was blocking Cavendish’s path to victory and Renshaw pushed Dean out of the way to give the stage to his team mate. This looks like it could be the more plausible scenario but we will never know. The race organisers were very upset stating that it was cycling not fighting and incidents like this can cause unnecessary injuries to other riders.
It seems the world of cycling is being hit by a case of the nasty bug at the moment because people have been acting very unsportsmanlike in the past few days. Doping is a big problem in the race and now the heat is another huge problem. Hopefully all will be settled as the temperature starts to drop and riders’ tempers cool down as well. We need to get back to proper riding and competition and less ugly incidents in what used to be a very nice and gentlemanly contest between some of the world’s best athletes.
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