WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KÉVIN
The podium of the French National Championships in 2014 said a lot about France, about cycling, and about the politics of both these worlds. On the top step: Arnaud Démare, the sprinter for the FDJ team. The runner-up was also a sprinter for FDJ: Nacer Bouhanni. Europcar’s Kévin Réza had come third.
In the enclosed world of cycling, eyebrows were mainly raised at the intra-team politics of the top two riders. Everybody knew there was no love lost between Démare and Bouhanni, uneasy cohabitants in the same team; Bouhanni is an open book and so the disappointment was visible on his face. But the podium also spoke of wider issues. It reflected perfectly the culture of contemporary France - a ‘black-blanc-beur’ podium which represented the ‘black-white-arab’ make-up of the French population and reflected a lot of the commentary on the French football team. And if there was tension between Démare and Bouhanni, well, didn’t that also represent reality to an extent, uncomfortable as it might be for any idealists who might have wanted to use it as a symbol of unity and harmony?
From Réza’s perspective, happiness at. His parents, who had come to watch the race, had heard comments in the crowd, but they ignored them. “They had the intelligence not to answer. That kind of reaction is stupid,” he says.
