The Tour de France and Cycling’s Uncertainty Principle
When the 105th edition of the Tour de France starts Saturday, departing from Noirmoutier-en-l’Île on its twenty-one-day, two-thousand-mile route around the country, for the first time in seven years I will not be physically following the race. I’m recovering from a broken hip, and a finish-line press scrum full of sharp-elbowed journalists and 200-pound cameramen is no place for a man on crutches. But my absence this year has left me with time to reflect on the job of reporting on a sport in which the truth always seems to be in flux.
At the 2013 Tour, I was at the summit of the savage climb of Mont Ventoux, on a baking hot day, trying to shelter from the sun under a small gazebo in the press area along with about twenty other reporters.… Seguir leyendo »