I have been a sports enthusiast for as long as I can remember, I grew up watching Kapil Dev and Sachin doing their thing on the cricketing field, watching the football world cup and Becker-Edberg matches in Wimbeldon. Cricket, Tennis and Football were always the sports which I liked to follow and watch. FI got added to that list when I watched Ayrton Senna win the Monaco Grand Prix once on Doordarshan (yes they used to show such stuff sometimes). Since F1 was not very popular in India at that time (early 90s), Sportstar (a sports magazine from the Hindu Group) used to be a treasured possession for me because it used to have a 2 page feature on F1 results. Week after week I obsessed over the Senna-Prost rivalry.
With the advent of Start Sports and ESPN in India, Basketball got added to the list of sports I followed. Of course being the patriotic Indian that I am, following Chess and the results of Anand was mandatory. Following so many sports, studying stats and remembering records somewhat assuaged the guilt which I felt for not playing any sport seriously (Tennis happened much later in life). Cycling never figured on my radar, like most people around I knew who Lance Armstrong was, but nothing more than that about the sport. The Tour De France was a small 2 column article in the Times of India sports pages for 21 days in July, and year after year it reaffirmed that Lance Armstrong was the best cyclist in the Tour.
Lance retired after winning an impressive 7 Tour De France titles (the most by any rider) and cycling was promptly forgotten. However last year my curiosity about the sport was revived with the news that Armstrong was coming out of retirement to contest in the Tour De France again. Like me thousands of people who knew little about cycling but knew Armstrong started following cycling. And trust me, it was the most confusing sport ever. A person could win many many stages in a Tour but still wont be the champion, someone could be the champion without winning a single stage in a tour. Every stage or race was different and we could not have a single favourite for each stage. Yes tennis has its different surfaces and cricket its different pitches which support fast bowlers or spinners, but this was completely different. Tennis had Federer and Nadal who could dominate on every surface because they were good players, Cricket had its batsmen who could attack both spinners and fast bowlers, but I just didn't get cycling.
Cycling had its sprinters, time triallists and climbers. It also had its classics specialists and stage race specialists. A rider could be a good climber and a good time triallist (Contador, Armstrong etc) but could not excel at sprinting (maybe the great Eddy Mercxx was). Some riders could easily win races on short climbs but would fare miserably on longer ones. Slowly I started grasping the basics of the sport, learned what terms like peleton and domestique meant and surprisingly I found it to be quite an interesting sport. It is a rare combination of an individual and a team sport. Yes winners are individuals, but they cannot win without the help of their team. In my humble opinion its the ultimate team sport.
Sounds like a random statement from someone who has been following cycling for just two years? Let me explain. What is a team sport all about? A bunch of talented individuals performing together for a common cause. Great players who put individual glory and egos aside for the team. Cycling is all that and much more. Great cycling performances (am sure greats like Armstrong and Contador would acknowledge) are due to a strong team backing you. Domestiques protecting their team leader during tough climbs, reining in the attackers to defend the leaders position, lead out men producing bursts of speed to guide sprinters to victory in a group sprint are all examples of great team play. And its not even a sport where pure strength and stamina can win the day for you. Yes, its an endurance sport, but to excel you need to understand your body, train it and ensure that your performance peaks at the right moment. To add to the excitement there are lots of unknown factors which can alter the outcome of a race like crashes, punctures and bike malfunction. Weather also plays an important role, a rainy or an extremely hot day can wreck havoc in the peleton.
Cycling races tend to be long (around 150-200 kms average), so they usually last for 4-5 hrs so its slightly boring to watch, but the last half hour of any cycling race can be as exciting as the best football and tennis matches. The attacks and counter attacks, the build up to a bunch sprint and the sprint itself are as much fun to watch as the finale of a mountain stage where an attack in the final few kms can make or break a grand tour conquest. What we have is an overall package of entertainment - an individual sport where team support plays an important role. Many different types of races to cater to individual interests (sprints, climbs, time trials). Many different factors which affect the outcome of a race (cobbles, team support, weather, form etc) and many different events (Classics, short stage races, grand tours) to keep the average cycling enthusiast occupied. As an added bonus, its a sport which promotes a healthy and green lifestyle.
Thanks to Mr Armstrong, I am a passionate follower of cycling as a sport and will soon be buying a good bike when I move to an area where cycling daily is possible. Every sport has its heroes, great personalities who by their sheer charisma transform the sport into something popular and magical. Tiger Woods did it for golf and Federer (to a certain extent) for tennis. Thanks to Lance Armstrong and his high profile friends cycling is now noticed across the globe, a little more push outside Europe and we shall soon have a global sport followed by millions.
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