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| Photo: Panoramic |
I started riding a bike again 'round about the same time ol' Lance started winning Le Tour de France. And while Lance turned out a major fraud (if not, the biggest fraud in sports history), The Tour itself remains one of the genuinely ultimate tests of physical and mental stamina, conditioning and endurance. You ain't ever gonna get on any tourist expedition to accomplish the completion of these summits! The Alps and Pyrenees are an unprecedented commitment to pain writ large- I've struggled on many a San Franciscan... hill. Which is why I always gave those skinny White boys (and that's no dig, disguised or otherwise- I'm a skinny non-White guy) their due props! This is not an elitist sport per se, rather, one very much rooted in working class origins. And yet, it has transitioned into a sport, an industry, well rooted in well monied equipment, finance and training.
And for those very reasons alone, it is exactly why we haven't seen athletes of all colors and socio/economic backgrounds competing in a sport that does require such extensive commitment, monetary and otherwise, from all involved. That long history of exclusion was finally broken this weekend when a very distinctive, brown pair of Columbian legs powered by one very determined 22yr old Egan Bernal managed to doggedly pursue and overtake the maillot jeune worn by Frenchman Alaphilipp, who proved no slouch himself! What did Bernal have to say? "I love to ride, I love the feeling to suffer in the mountains..."
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