Well….you go to all the trouble of buying and installing a freeview box (thanks, Martin), tune in for the Saturday stage…..and it’s not there! Instead it’s some lame programme with Carol fucking Vorderman. [Normally this blog is an expletive free-zone, but I’ll make an exception for Carol: especially as Hitch has now gone some way to legitimising the word.] Still, what a great show it is when they do show it, even though the theme tune is a poor substitute for the old Channel 4 one.
It’s early days of course, and the Tour doesn’t hit its peak until the mountains when people really start to suffer, but I’m enjoying it. No British riders after Millar’s self-destruction, which should prompt me to moan about why we miss out so completely on this sport, but I can’t summon up the outrage. In fact it might even be a plus. When we did have a rider involved they would inevitably be summoned for an interview after each stage, and would just as inevitably whinge. Millar did it, Chris Boardman did it – “God that was hell, I was really suffering there…” Oh shut up already. No one’s pointing a gun at you. If you hate it so much, don’t do it.
Would it be better if they had national teams instead of these ridiculous Rabobanks and the rest? Maybe part of the appeal is the entirely arbitrary nature of the teams (who are these people? Cofidis? CSC? What do they do?) and maybe having these commercial organisations that nobody cares about allows the focus to stay on the individuals, but a national competition would add an extra dimension. My guess is that the US would win this year even without Armstrong, what with Bobby Julich, Tyler Hamilton et al. The obvious problem is that France and Spain would need A, B, and C teams, while Jaan Kirsipuu of Estonia would be left out in the cold.
I have other sporting suggestions to make (yep, what with my recent thoughts on football I’m on a bit of a sporting roll here), which aren’t worth a post in themselves, so I’ll include them here as a postscript:-
Rugby Union: the flow of the game is constantly interrupted by arbitrary and opaque refereeing decisions. Is a ref really needed here? After all, this is a game played by gentlemen.
Basketball: a height restriction, nobody over 5′ 6″.
American Football: abolish it.
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