The Tour de France yellow jersey once evoked in me a visceral response similar to NRL jerseys when I was a youngster watching TV from my Central Queensland outpost. I would surrender to the brutality of a prolonged mountain climb, finding beauty in those tortured limbs.
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Not any more.
Professional cycling is a diseased fruit of world sport, eaten from within by the very people entrusted to promote it as its public face, the riders.
They’re like a politician who espouses democracy but embraces autocracy. The politician is no friend of the country, and many a rider is no friend of cycling.
To enjoy the Tour de France is to be either suspended from or indifferent to the reality of the situation.
Despite that sentiment, I found myself occasionally watching it over the past three weeks. As with faded love, I wanted to see if there was a semblance of an attraction that could spark something more serious.
There wasn’t.
I couldn’t get past the betrayal, the shameless cheating behind my back, and the debasement of childhood ideals as riders shed the untainted wonder of youth and draped themselves in the foul cloak of a drug cheat, at the same time debasing their sport, their profession.
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Dick Pound, the former head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said that when people lose faith in a sport, when they no longer believe it to be fair, they will show it their back. He turned his back on cycling.
To the people who watch the Tour de Phew and professional cycling in general, my question is this: Can you envision a point at which the corruption becomes overwhelming? How long does the line of duplicity have to get before you switch the channel?
It is an apt question for media organisations, too.
At this year’s Tour, Chris Froome was the target of public anger over the drug cheats, as if he were the one perceived blight tarnishing an otherwise reputable contest and sport.
Or you may be among the group who have adopted the “everyone is doing it” stance as a way to keep enjoying the sport.
Like other drug-infested sports such as athletics, cycling benefits from the benefit of the doubt – as did Lance Armstrong for a long time.
The enemy is not at the gate: they’re over it and running amok.
