Ride Against the Machine
“ONLY TWO WORLD WARS have stopped the Tour de France.”
Mais non, Monsieur Prudhomme – this is a world war. A world war of the 21st century kind.
Of course, we would love for the Tours of Italy, France and Spain to all go ahead but as five-time winner Bernard Hinault said in March, one week after the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 to be a global pandemic, “Frankly, we shouldn’t care about cycling in a case like this.”
“Sport is fabulous. The Tour de France is a fantastic party, but life is more important. We’re talking about the risk of death,” reasoned the normally pugnacious Badger. “A lover of the Tour wants above all to see people in good health. If the Tour needs to be cancelled, let’s not hesitate. We’re up against a bloody illness; it’s much more serious!”
A REJIGGED WORLDTOUR CALENDAR?
At the time of writing
