Stephen Pollard • Lance Armstrong, winner of the world narcolepsy yellow jersey for utter tedium (The Times)

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July	26
2004

Lance Armstrong, winner of the world narcolepsy yellow jersey for utter tedium (The Times)

» Posted on July 26, 2004 12:02 AM » Category: General

Large parts of my life revolve around sport. I’m off to Goodwood tomorrow for a week’s idyllic racing. I spend days at Lord’s and the Oval watching cricket. Even when I don’t really have the time, I end up in front of the 3.45 from Uttoxeter on my TV. For nine months of the year I obsess about the latest inept performance by Spurs, wondering why on earth I bothered renewing my season ticket and wasting so much of my life at White Hart Lane.

But, like most sports fanatics, I do have my limits. Today’s coverage of Lance Armstrong’s record-breaking sixth win in the Tour de France is one of them. We are all, it would seem, supposed to be in awe of Armstrong’s achievement in cycling round France quicker than anyone on six occasions. Sports aficionados are, apparently, now hailing a new hero.

There is, however, a small problem with this. I know of no one — no one — who has the slightest interest in the Tour de France or who thinks cycling as a sport anything other than mind-numbingly tedious. I realise I will now be deluged with letters from cycling fanatics who will cite all sorts of figures proving me to be not just wrong — cycling is, apparently, the second-most-popular spectator sport in Spain — but offensively wrong. Lance Armstrong has, after all, come back from cancer to resume his winning streak. And yes, that is an impressive feat.

But when I spoke to a few fellow sports-mad friends yesterday, we all had the same reaction: Armstrong’s achievement is, clearly, admirable. But none of us has any interest it. Cycling is just plain dull.

Admittedly, in the pantheon of dullness, the Tour de France is far from the worst example. There are, at least, distractions — such as the possibility that one cyclist in the pack will stumble and cause a crash of some sort. Since the chance of serious injury is minimal, the piles-ups can be guiltlessly enjoyed as momentary respite from the narcoleptic effect of the actual competition.

No, if we’re talking dull, it’s difficult to beat the form of cycling which involves competitors pedalling round and round and round and round and round and round (etc, ad what feels like infinitum) a stadium against the clock. This has a name but I can’t remember it and I haven’t looked it up because, well, who cares what it’s called?

Difficult to beat, but not impossible. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you . . . swimming. Is there any more depressing a sentence to hear from a sports presenter than, “And now, over to the pool for the 200m backstroke”? Time to make the tea.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not denying the prowess of the competitors, exceptional human specimens all, swimmers and cyclists. I’ll even admit that walkers — and there are few more preposterous sights than competitive walking — are finely tuned athletes. It is simply that their exploits are fundamentally forgettable. There are few sports which have the capacity to entrance and to provoke genuine passion rather than curious interest. In part it’s because cycling, walking and swimming are things which many of us do regularly, and there is little romanticism — a crucial part of the emotional involvement which makes a sport interesting — in watching something so banal as walking or cycling being done faster.

And in part, it’s because the team element is missing. When there is a British swimmer or cyclist we do get involved, because he or she has started to represent us. When the Scottish women curlers won a Winter Olympics gold medal in 2002, there were ridiculous prophecies that the popularity of curling would grow. Not a chance. Hardly anyone gives a damn about curling. The country was interested because the Brits were winning, not because they were shoving a disc across some ice.

Rest assured that if some plucky Brits manage to get to the latter stages of some of the more obscure Olympic sports in Greece next month — let alone if they actually win — we’ll be told that the nation has gone “50m rifle 3 positions (3x40)” or “K-1 1000m (kayak single)” mad, as two of the events are poetically labelled.

We won’t have. We’ll cheer them on because they are British. But we’ll have forgotten who they are within a week. Can anyone remember the name of even one of the curling gold medal winners?

Lance Armstrong’s name may be splashed across the front pages today, but by the end of the week he and his sport will, deservedly, have slipped even off the sports pages. To the vast majority of the population, he and his sport are instantly forgettable.

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Comments

Quite an incredible post, Stephen.

And quite preposterous.

You watch cricket, horse racing and Spurs and yet have the cheek to describe other sports as dull?! The Tour de France is without doubt one of the great sporting occasions as well as being possibly the most gruelling. The fact that Lance Armstrong has won it six times running is astonishing, the fact that all six triumphs follow his grave illness leaves him out in front as the greatest athlete ever of any sport. Forget Jesse Owens, Pele, Ali and the rest.

This man is on his own.

Cricket and horse racing? And you call cycling boring? I'm going for a lie down ...

Stated by: Pete_London on July 25, 2004 9:30 PM

Finding sports tedious is rather a theme of yours, Stephen - it was Wimbledon last time... I rather enjoy these columns, actually, as well as your anti-Tolkien, anti-Potter ones. But can you reassure us that you are steeping yourself in what bores you before you write your columns - a few hours of Tour here, some rounds of Henmania there, and rereading Tolkien cover to cover? So that we know you're doing your research....

Stated by: James Hamilton on July 25, 2004 9:48 PM

Watching a bike race may be boring, but biking itself is not. It's a terrific exercise, and you're on a high for the rest of the day.

When you write about horse racing, are you on the horse, or just watching?

Dom

Stated by: Dom on July 26, 2004 3:20 AM

I once read a comment to the effect that watching horseracing was like watching a Russian movie without subtitles. Have to say that cycling is also a dull spectacle, but probably not for those actually close to it.

Stephen, you really need to change your act otherwise you will be forever pigeonholed as the miserable fart who hates the passions and interests of most of his countrymen.

Stated by: Johnathan on July 26, 2004 8:59 AM

There are so few evils in this world that it's incumbent on professional gasbags to expend most of their energy berating the harmless pleasures of others.

Stated by: Jabotinsky on July 26, 2004 9:20 AM

The telly is a big offender here. It shrinks everything. For example, swimming. You get no idea just how LONG a 50 metre pool is, and just how FAST those swimmers are going. 48 seconds for 100 metres? Next time you're down the pool see how far you get in 48 seconds.

... and how many of us have watched Ice Dancing since the retirement of T&D?

Stated by: Bob Doney on July 26, 2004 9:52 AM

Formula 1 is my bug bear. How dull is that? I load of cars all driving round in the same order. You get more jockeying for position when they close a lane on the M25.

Stated by: Mark on July 26, 2004 10:48 AM

I wonder if, between races at Goodwood sometime this week, Stephen could have a crack at cycling up to the racecourse from the village Singleton like I did yesterday.

Here's an OS map of the climb.

I could meet him at the bottom and loan him my bike. I'd throw £20 into the St John's Ambulance collecting sheets if he could do it.

Somehow I think my money is safe!

Stated by: Mark Holland on July 26, 2004 1:35 PM

Lance Armstrong’s record-breaking sixth win in the Tour de France ...

I fully agree that he has done better than our Flemish cycling hero Eddy Merckx (5x) and that it is a great achievement… but nevertheless there is an hair in the butter…

In an interview this weekend, Eddy Merckx first explained why, at his most victorious era, he skipped one year attending the Tour. Now becomes clear that the chauvinist French (the Tour direction included) did not grant the little detested Flemish cyclist to beat their own hero and that Eddy Merckx was teased away. But fortunately for him, Armstrong is an American…

From Flanders in Belgium

Stated by: Johan Van Beek on July 26, 2004 3:10 PM

At least cycling is contested by humans. You pay to watch horses run around, and then pay even more to bet on which one "wins". I don't object to your appreciation of the equine pursuits, but it should make you think twice before denigrating sports like tennis and cycling which actually require human skill and stamina.

And anyway, the Tour de France gives us an annual opportunity to see an American smash the French at their own beloved game. They actually have to fly the Lone Star flag on one of the public buildings in Paris and play the Star Spangled Banner on the Champs Elyssees! Can you imagine the humiliation? Heheh.

Stated by: Janan Ganesh on July 26, 2004 7:57 PM

Rhona Martin.

And I didn't even need to look it up.

I am just so pleased you didn't say anything rude about hockey.

(That is of course, proper hockey played on an ice rink - not the other stuff which is "field hockey" and is of course stupifyingly tedious)

:-)

Stated by: Andrew Duffin on July 27, 2004 1:07 PM

Sir, You are a compleate idiot.

You start by boasting of much of your life revolving around sport, - yet in reference to your picture where your shirt collar is only part effective in hiding your third chin and gives a good indication to the extent of your own sporting ability - you then start to tear apart a sport you clearly know nothing about and are so ignorant on the subject that it becomes quiet damaging and embarrassing for you.

Lance Armstrong is a true miracle, what he and his team accomplished on Sunday was on its own extraordinary but for him to come back from cancer that riddled his lungs, heart and brain is the most remarkable comeback in sporting history bar none.

No sport appeals to everyone, I for one rarely watch golf, however I understand the skill involved in hitting a little white ball then walking to it and giving it another wack. I have also felt the satisfaction of putting a ball into the hole and hitting a drive further than the last. If golf is on TV, I watch something else, usually anything else. I also would never be so quick to open my mouth on something I know nothing about or understand for fear of getting it wrong or sounding stupid. I would like to offer this advice to you.

You list crashes as the only respite from the "dullness" of the Tour and indeed confesses to enjoy them. Cycling has lost many young rider in these crashes and there is nothing to enjoy about a young professional athletes twisted body lying dead by the side of the road.

You are not a sports fan you are an ignorant pig as far as sport is concerned. Try riding a bike for a while and you might not have to crop your picture to hide that fat head of yours.

Yours faithfully

Marc Bearman

Stated by: Marc Bearman on July 27, 2004 1:34 PM

Quite aside from the merits of cycling and Lance Armstrong, what the hell is the point? You have a privileged position with a prime column in a national newspaper and you write a piece of drivel which amounts, as far as I can read, to saying "I find cycling boring. (from my position at the heart of British opinion in Brussels and ) regardless of any statistics to the contrary I know that so do most other people. The Tour de France won't be mentioned in the papers next week." There look, you could have said that in fewer words and given the space to someone else.

Never mind that one of your main loves is a bore which would put almost all other minority sports in the shade were it not for the fact that it is sustained by gambling. What is the bloody point?

Stated by: alex on July 27, 2004 5:24 PM

Oh and people watch the Grand National in the hope of seeing every horse bar one fall as well.

Stated by: alex on July 27, 2004 5:25 PM

Rhona Martin - and we actually went curling at Elgin Leisure Centre last year - great fun.

Mind you I had to think - I nearly said Rhona Cameron who I believe excels in other sporting arenas.

Stated by: Laban Tall on July 27, 2004 11:42 PM

Stephen, this is priceless stuff. If loving to watch you wind people up - and get paid for it! - is wrong, I don't want to be right.

Also, you just can't beat being told by someone that you are "a compleate idiot." Classic.

Stated by: Jackie Danicki on July 28, 2004 3:19 PM

Dom asks: "When you write about horse racing, are you on the horse, or just watching?

Horseback blogging! Now there's an Olympic sport in the making!

Stated by: wally on July 28, 2004 3:31 PM

And in part, it’s because the team element is missing.

You utter cretin. Those blokes wearing the same colour clobber as Lance Armstrong (when he wasn't wearing yellow, that is)? They're his teammates. There are few sports with a greater team element than stage-race cycling.

If you meant 'it's because the silly patriotic element is missing', you'd make marginally more sense. But you'd still be talking bollocks. I only hope you lost the money that the Times paid you for that piece of drivel on the 3.40 at Market Rasen. Because the bookies deserve it more than you.

Stated by: ahem on August 18, 2004 6:47 PM

What an ignorant pillock you are! You admit to liking cricket and then state that cycling is dull. What a laugh! There's another thing that you and all your 'sports-mad friends' have in common; none of you have ever been to watch the Tour de France. Nobody who had ever witnessed a mountain stage of the Tour could possibly describe it as dull. Cricket, now that is dull!

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