Tour de France: A legacy of heroes and rogues

It has been more than a century since the first Tour de France was staged in the summer of 1903 and the 2013 Tour de France will be the 100th edition of this spectacular sporting event. From humble beginnings, Tour de France has grown into one of the most followed and sadly, one of the most notorious events in the realm of sports. But irrespective of the numerous crests and troughs that this cycling event has had to undergo in its lifespan, there is no denying the tremendous impact it has had on the lives of the cycling enthusiasts who have always drawn inspiration from the tenacity of the winners and have felt the pang and shame of fallen heroes.

Tour de France is, no doubt, the father of the Grand Tours and there are few competitions, even in the non-cycling world, which foster such fierce rivalry amongst the competitors. Every year, scores of cyclists battle it out for the acclaimed “yellow jersey” as well as the comparatively less lauded “green jersey”, “polka dot jersey” and the “white jersey”. But while the competitive spirit of the tour has been instrumental in building its enormous fan following, the same has also led seemingly good men to take extreme steps in order to win this ultimate event in cycling; in their quest to achieve immortality, a lot many have stooped to shockingly low levels, which have included doping (think Lance Armstrong) and even switching their cycles for trains just to finish first (think Maurice Garin).

Yes, it is really sad that such a great sporting event that has given us winners like the enigmatic Miguel Indurain and the iconic Eddy Merckx should be in the news for all the wrong reasons, but thanks to Mr Armstrong, we are now taken up so much with all the doping that apparently goes on behind the curtains that we have conveniently forgotten that in less than five months from now, Tour de France is going to celebrate its centenary. Can anything be more tragic than that?

Few sporting events, if any, have borne witness to such a long list of heroes turn into rogues with the passage of time. Revelations regarding doping have gradually become as mundane as morning tea and instead of lauding the winners, watchers immediately start looking for imminent news which may prove their heroes to be blackguards. Astoundingly, cheating isn’t a recent phenomenon in Tour de France and the very first winner, Maurice Garin, was stripped of his second title that he won in the subsequent year for cheating, before vanishing into anonymity. Even the mercurial Eddy Merckx tested positive a couple of times during his career in the 60’s and 70’s and we can only speculate how much more would have come to the fore if he had been racing in the new millennium and if the anti-doping watchdogs were as strong as they are today. But it was only with the turn of the century that the doping menace reached its pinnacle as Floyd Landis was stripped of his 2006 title and Alberto Contador of his 2010 title, for doping of course.

Naïve as we are, we continued to trust our heroes through all this and there was one man who gave us hope in the face of all these tragedies; that man was Lance Armstrong. But as fate would have it, in due course of time, he too fell. Humans are indeed weak, aren’t they? We survived Ben Johnson’s doping revelation as well as those of his other athletics counterparts like Justin Gatlin and Marion Jones. But the fall of our very own Lance – a cancer survivor, the owner of an undying spirit and a philanthropic angel – seemed too hard to take. He was deservedly stripped of his seven Tour de France titles as well as the bronze medal he had won at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, but how is that ever going to help the Tour de France redeem its lost pride? If history is anything to go by, there will be many more Lance Armstrongs no matter how severe the punishment meted out to him, since the thirst for success and fame can get the better of the best of men.

Many staunch supporters of cycling like me have started looking elsewhere to satiate our love for sports and heroic deeds on the field, but is that the answer to all these problems? As Tour de France enters its centennial year, are we just going to brood on the darkness that has encompassed this iconic event, or are we going to rise up, dust off our clothes and start afresh? This is the question that all of us have to ask ourselves. There is hardly any sport that hasn’t been submerged in the dead sea of doping at some point or the other, but does that mean people have stopped visiting stadiums and switched to the more innocent ludo and the Chinese-checkers? The answer is, of course, a resounding no.

So forget Lance and think of the other Armstrong (Neil) and remember that no matter how many scoundrels walk off with the winner’s jersey, there will always be men like Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault who will keep the flag of Tour de France flying high. And if last year’s Tour de France is anything to go by, a new era has already begun and cyclists like Bradley Wiggins, who became the first British rider to win the event, are going to rewrite history in the years to come. So get rid of those drooping shoulders and raise your glasses to a great Tour de France this year and a couple of hundred more in the years to come. After all, if Pandora’s Box gave us anything good, it was hope, and we will forever keep hoping for the best, won’t we?