So I was watching “Honey, We’re Killing the Kids” a few nights back (no, seriously…) and after a few minutes of pre-adolescant New Jersey-ites Twinkie, Coke and video-gaming away their afternoon, suddenly this commerical comes on with Lance Armstrong. Apparenlty, his other former teammates are so crappy when it comes to bike racing that Lance has found it necessary to hold an official race to find his successor as leader of the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team.
Let’s pretend for a second that the “Race2Replace” will actually be an open competition to let one fan race for Discovery Channel at the US national championships, and start with obvious issue that the race to choose this fan is slated to go down at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Sure, Indy is one of those Cathedrals of Sport that’s inspiring just to think about competing in, but you don’t host Bar Mitzvahs in St. Peter’s or race Formula One through the Forest of Arenberg, so why on earth would you hold a bike race on a 2.5 race car track?
Even if the event uses the Brickyard’s 4.2 mile, 13 turn road course, I can’t imagine, with the relative width of the roadway and complete lack of elevation change, that the race would be in any way selective. Though the USA Cycling Championships web page is next to worthless (there’s no course information, the print is big and ugly, the 50k TT is described as “basically a sprint”, and the road national title event is apparently a “stage race”), I can’t imagine that such a high-profile event would be contested on a course as decidedly untaxing as that offered by the Brickyard.
Sure, the winner there will have proved himself either a strong sprinter or time-trialist, but suddenly faced with such obstacles as narrow roads, 90-degree turns, high-speed descents, and, oh yeah, going uphill, I see the “lucky winner” having a pretty short day in the saddle come September. And this is all assuming he actually gets to ride the National Championships in the first place; I don’t see USA Cycling (even run as it is by the Ochowitz/Weisel/Armstrong Axis of Evil) letting a non-professional start just for a chincy PR stunt.
However, far more troubling than these technical shortcomings (since I’m betting the Race 2 Replace winner won’t so much as smell the Nationals start line), are the contest’s implications to the American public about the sport of cycling. In case the poor condition of the National Championships webpage hadn’t tipped you off, even with the rampant success of the Tour of California, Americans are by and large ignorant of even the sport’s most basic principles.
As dime-a-dozen sportswriters have shown, Americans have no concept of how much hard work and athletic ability being a professional bike rider requires. Having a contest that pretends to operate under the assumption that an untrained diamond-in-the-rough can replace Lance Armstrong does nothing to squelch the misconception that any dumb jock can just hop up on a bike and win the Tour de France seven times.
But, no, to hear Lance Armstong say it, continued ignorance is a great way to promote cycling in America. Never mind that it puts forth the ludicrous suggestion that a cycling team has one leader throughout the season, rather than a different captain at each event – this sort of fallacy is “what’s necessary to keep cycling at the forefront of the American sports landscape”. Who cares about giving American audiences a clue about what’s actually going on when 200 thunder-thighed endoskeletons drag themselves up an 8,000 foot hunk of granite? An American successor is “the only way…[cycling] crosses over to the big-time press and the networks.”
Man, did I really just say it was a misconception that a dumb jock could win the Tour seven times? By this logic, Americans watch baseball just to see Americans hit home runs; a moronic sentiment, as anyone who’s tried to watched a game with a baseball novice can tell you. Viewers with no appreciation for intentional walks and sacrifice flies tune out long before Barry Bonds puts bat to cowskin. American sports fans only interested baseball for homers, just like American sports fans only interested in NASCAR for crashes, simply catch the highlights on the next morning’s SportsCenter.
Beyond the simple-mindedness that clings to this promotional campaign like tweak on a meth-head, what really gets to me is what a horrible waste of resources all this is. Discovery Channel has clearly put a chunk of change behind this promotion, and it would have been nice to see that cash actually go toward promoting the sport. There are plenty of actual pro riders out there looking for a few extra bucks, and having a basic cable channel televise a pro bike race once in a while (the Tour de Georgia, perhaps?) certainly wouldn’t hurt the sport’s standing. In then end, though, it’s Discovery Channel’s money, and they can burn it as they see fit; I just wish they didn’t feel compelled to undermine the sport of cycling in the process.
First off, I think it is absolutely classic that Hincapie is featured in the ad campaign as well (or at least on the Disco site). So I guess this puts paid to the clap-trap about George being America’s premier cyclist, ready to take on the leadership role?
As for the contest itself, the Yahoo new article mentioned that one “eligible” rider would win the chance to compete at the national championships, which I take as some bozo who already has a pro license, but wants to ride around the Brickyard with 20,000 of his closest friends.
On the larger point of corporate promotion of the sport, I think there is another aspect in the desire to elevate cycling to the level of a mainstream sport capable of competing with the big four, rather than promoting it as the basically niche interest that it is (at least in the U.S.)
Discovery Channel can be given something as a pass on this — afterall they were likely sold at least half a bill of goods in thinking that Lance had several years left in him, rather than one. After having jumped on the bandwagon, no wonder they’d like to see it rolling again, so why not combine the sport with the enormous popularity of American Idol?
But its a company like Nike that could be doing more, but isn’t. To be sure, Nike’s interest in the sport was originally flirtatous, and they did attempt to withdraw from sponsorship of the Tour (and then try and license out their commitment to another apparel manufacturer). But if there is one think Nike loves, it is a winner, so when Lance came along, they went full throttle. And I think they deserve a lot of the credit for elevating the popular coverage of the sport — not just through their ad campaigns, but more importantly through the heavy lifting the company can do behind the scenes to get their athletes time in the spotlight.
But with the retirement of Lance, where is Nike now? Compare their approach to cycling with their much longer-term approach to the World Cup (of soccer). There they embraced its niche — or cult — status, including it’s international flavor, and devised ad campaigns highlighting the exotic European and Latin stars that would dominate the non-American sports stage for three weeks in June. With the emergence of the U.S. team in the last World Cup, they now too have a more domestically-focused campaign (“Now No One Wants to Play Us”).
A similar approach would see the company sign up and promote the younger, English-speaking (even if as second- third- or fourth-languages) riders like Boonen, Basso, and Valverde and try and build awareness around them. In that way, too, they’d be better positioned to leverage the next great American rider — one who will be revealed through the rigors of European competition, not some cheesy promotion in Indianapolis.
Cosmo, I find all of your rants to be thought prevoking and most are on target and well thought out but this time I think you miss what Discovery is all about. It’s corporate money and bottom line results. They won’t ever try to sell any deep roadie philosophy or expalin team tactics. They are trying to squeeze every drop out of their investment, AKA Lance. Max appeal is what they want, hell look at their website on team Disco…all vanilla hype that updates, i don’t know, maybe once a quater. I share your dream of America understanding us but if you’re wanting the Zen of American Cycling to be on the tele you won’t ever find it on the Discovery Channel. Just be thankful that they are still paying the bills and keeping some cycling interest across the vast fast food land of the good ol’ USofA.
Isn’t it also more likely that somebody will get creamed in a facility *not* designed for cycling?
I liked you better when you were destitute and jobless and you wrote everyday.
Hope your new job entails writing pithy crud. Good luck!!!!!
Living here in Indy, I have heard a slight bit about the event, so hope to fill in some holes in the story.
Currently it appears that all 20,000 entrants will do a ‘neutral lap’ with Lance, followed by a 10 lap 25 mile road race on the 500 oval. It will NOT be on the formula 1 track.
Whoever is the winner will be added to the Discovery Team for 1 event, the upcoming pro-criterium nationals.
It appears that you do not need a pro license to do the event.
I too, have concerns about the event. my biggest concern is that the riders that actually have a chance of winning will do the 25 miles in 50 minutes or so. For the rest of us, averaging 15 mph, we will get lapped 3-4 times, and Grandma, will get lapped 5-6 times.
How do you score an event with 20,000 riders on 6 different laps?
Cosmo…..I guess you don;t have the capacity to see the bigger picture, too bad. In the bigger picture is the publicity for cycling in general which we need so badly and the other is to have our sport connected with the whole cancer survivorship issue. We have struggled in the background for such a long time and along comes an idea, so what if it is a bit of a stunt, that puts our sport in the public eye. It is just possible it will be the single most attended cycling event on a given day in the USA ever. But I guess you’ll say that’s a bad thing if it is not done for the pure of cycling hearts only. Get a grip man, if this happened five times a year in five major cities, what a huge win for both cycling and cancer survivors.
you sound like a lonely and angry man…just my two cents…good luck!
hair shag styles braided hair styles