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I’ve never been to a Superbowl or an NBA Final; I’d like to get to the Kentucky Derby one day and it would be amazing, I think, to be at a World Cup soccer game, as long as you were safe from hooligans; I have—thanks to my dad’s connection to the president of the American League back in the 1970’s when Pop was dean of the Medical School at the University of Pittsburgh and New York Yankees pitcher, “Doc” Medich was going to school there—attended a 1971 World Series game (in which the Pirates beat the Baltimore Orioles on the strength of some great long-relief by then rookie pitcher Bruce Kison); and I did go to a Formula 1 auto race when I was a kid in Holland in 1968; but now I can add to my list of personally-attended world-class sporting events the one that I’ve probably wanted to see longer than any other—since I first became enamored of Belgian Eddy Merckx back when the cannibal still ruled the cycling world—a Tour de France stage, the arrival, to be exact, of the riders in the 13th stage of Le Tour 2008, in Nimes, the conclusion of their day’s stage which began 182km away in the town of Narbonne.
Jen, Mimi, and I waited along Boulevard Jean Jaures for 4 hours to catch 20 seconds of the riders flying by and had a swell time, catching loads of schwag thrown to the crowd by the publicity vehicles which preceded the peleton’s arrival.
The throng was enormous, festive, and greedy, clamoring loudly for caps, keychains, and meat snacks tossed from cars and motorcycles modified to look like everything from cups of cocoa to jockeys on horses. We scored a sackful of junk, including the sack to carry it in and thrilled to the final sprint which was won by British rider Mark Cavandish, a result we couldn’t really see except on the giant video screen down the street.
Jen, Mimi, and I waited along Boulevard Jean Jaures for 4 hours to catch 20 seconds of the riders flying by and had a swell time, catching loads of schwag thrown to the crowd by the publicity vehicles which preceded the peleton’s arrival.
The throng was enormous, festive, and greedy, clamoring loudly for caps, keychains, and meat snacks tossed from cars and motorcycles modified to look like everything from cups of cocoa to jockeys on horses. We scored a sackful of junk, including the sack to carry it in and thrilled to the final sprint which was won by British rider Mark Cavandish, a result we couldn’t really see except on the giant video screen down the street.
posted by Professor Dave at 12:42 PM
1 Comments:
20 seconds of excitement out of 4 hours seems not that different from that Formula 1 race at Zandvoort that you mention, that we both got to see as kids in 1968. I think we thought the the movie was more thrilling. I recall our family making fun of the loud German tourists - we all thought Dutch was so much easier on the ear, Holland being our adopted country at the time - and I remember the taste of the patates frites in a newspaper cone with fritessaus (Lemon-y mayo) better than the race.
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