The Tour of Britain has been excellent this year. Competitive
racing, good parcours, large crowds and a field that contains a decent number of
world class riders (the most obvious being the reining World Champion Thor
Hushovd). Looking at the list of stage winners this year this could have easily
have been a protour race. The competition between Lars Boom and Geraint Thomas
(until his unfortunate crash) was brilliant to watch.
The Tour of Britain has a number of things going for it
1)
The timing of the Tour of Britain – ITV 4's pundits
made the point in the Vuelta that the Tour of Britain could be moved to another
date. I disagree with this for a number of reasons a) the cycling calendar is
already crammed and will only get more busy with the advent of new races due to
the globalisation of cycling (eg the Tour of Bejing), b) The race is perfectly
timed to be a warm up race for the World Championships for those who miss the
Vuelta, c) Changing the dates to try and have a race with better weather is a
risky move in a country such as the UK where the weather is so temperamental. The
weather could easily be better in September than in June. Also it doesn’t seem
to have affected the crowds this year and cyclists are used to bad weather.
2)
The categorisation of the Tour of Britain – The fact
that the Tour of Britain is a 2.1 category race means that a nice mix of teams
can compete in it. We get to see world class protour teams (cycling's equivalent
of Premier league teams) alongside home grown Continental teams (such as
Rapha-Condor, Endura etc) and hungry European Pro Continental teams (Team Europcar,
UnitedHealthcare etc). This leads to good racing and the ability to see up and
coming talent from the continent. It is also very healthy for the UK cycling
scene as it gives an excellent chance for grown riders to gain recognition
(such as Jonathan Tiernan-Locke who has shown that he has good potential to
become a protour rider)
3)
Good sponsorship – The Tour of Britain has a
number of long standing sponsors such as The Prostate Cancer Charity and
Halfords and newer sponsors such as Yodel and IG Markets.
Praise is due to the Tour organisers who have improved this
race year upon year. Organising a cycle race in the UK is very painful due to
the bureaucracy (closing down roads etc) and takes a lot of time and effort. The
organisers have also done a great job of getting good quality sponsors on board
and running a very tight ship (the website is second to none for a cycling
race, very informative and well laid out). It is due to the diligence of the
organisers that this race has the prestige and standard it has today. Praise is
also due to ITV who have broadcast this race (in addition to the rest of their
supreme cycling coverage) every year helping is popularity.
The increasing standing of this race will only help the
growth of cycling in the UK.
No comments:
Post a Comment