The Champs Elysees is suddenly
a boulevard without pavement, as thousands gather to welcome the riders of the
Tour de France as they enter Paris on the last day of their gruelling three
weeks.
I have managed to bag what was, literally, the very
last ticket in a grandstand seat, and I am excited beyond belief. Unless he
crashes, Bradley Wiggins will be the first British man to win the race, and I
will be able to say ‘I was there.’
I have been coming to Paris for the end of the Tour de
France for ten years, and I love it. I am not, however, what you would call a
keen cyclist. The mountain bike I bought five years ago, after a particularly
enjoyable end of July day in Paris, hasn’t even seen the hill at the end of my
road, much less thought about the Pyranees. I have put three cycle helmets in
the bin, each rotten with lack of use and old age. I shout at inconsiderate cyclists
from my car as they take up half the road and ignore the Highway Code to which
car engines are slavishly subjected.
But the Tour de France. Oh, yes. Every year, these
extraordinary athletes take my breath away with their stamina and determination,
and it is an unbelievably beautiful, moving moment, when they arrive in this great
city. The riders’ emotional as well as physical stamina, permeates the air; you
feel their sense of achievement at the very core of your being; your heart
soars. This is it. They have made it. Relief. Celebration. Joy. Every time, I
cry.
And now, here I am, for the first time, not five deep
on the Champs Elysees, straining for a glimpse of the yellow jersey, but with a
ringside seat, and I am already crying.
The Tour de France is, for me, not only a magnificent
spectacle, but a great sporting metaphor; a narrative that spells out how we
would all, ideally, like our lives to pan out - honing a skill to perfection,
developing the discipline with which to achieve that, working hard to fulfil
your individual potential, while also recognising the importance of being part
of a team and supporting your fellow man. It is a sublime example of the
importance of competitive sport in character building.
Political correctness has all but wiped the importance
of competitive sport from our psyche. Every child must now be regarded as good
as the next, part of a team at the expense of individual glory. But while our
sports men and women achieve great things on the world stage, there is still,
in our British DNA, something that celebrates losing more than success. Andy
Murray. English football. Rugby tests against southern hemisphere teams. We
lack a fundamental belief that is down to the fact that we have lost our
competitive spirit.
Most of us have memories about standing in a line on
the school playing field, as the “in” crowd, during games lessons, chose teams.
I was never selected as one of the choosers and, being small and never part of
any clique, was always at the bottom of the barrel when it came to selection.
The horror of being among the final three, and then, the relief at my name
being called out and knowing that I was not the very last dreg lives with me to
this day. Every time, I would try to prove myself, by running faster, scoring
more goals, jumping more hurdles – yet it made no difference to selection next
time around. I just wasn’t one of the gang. Even Mrs Davies, head of Games,
pulled me aside one day after I had scored three goals in a hockey game and
said: “You are too competitive.” I avoided every single games lesson after
that.
I am, and always have been, very competitive. What’s
the point of being any different? Yet I was brought up with the adage “Don’t
hang your hat higher than you can reach”. I never wanted to be that kind of
person. Hang it high and, if you can’t reach it, find the means by which you
will be able to, has always been my philosophy. Jump. Stand on a box. Ask
someone to give you a leg up. Nothing is ever too high, or too out of reach:
you just have to find the means of getting there.
Friday sees the start of the Olympics in London, when
athletes from around the world come together to try to prove themselves better
than their competitors. It’s what they do every day of their lives, but, every
four years, they have the chance to really rub everyone’s noses in their
superior sporting prowess.
Never has there been a better moment to celebrate the
importance of competition. We win some, we lose some; we laugh and we cry;
sometimes we’re good, sometimes we’re bad. As Shakespeare said: Some are born
great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Sport
is about the achievement of greatness. It invariably comes at a cost, but
pushing yourself to the best of your ability is something to encourage.
We are, sadly, living in the golden age of mediocrity,
where cheap reality television can make stars of people whose only achievement
is their ability to pander to the lowest common denominator.
The Tour de France is the very antithesis of that: it not
only a great event, it is inspirational, compelling television that takes your
breath away as you watch people at the very top of their game, striving with
every fibre of their being to be even better. Hanging their hat high, reaching
for it, and hanging it higher again. For the Sky team that gave ultimate glory
to Bradley Wiggins, there was never any limit.
The power of
the individual, the importance of teamwork; strength, stamina, determination,
hard work. I am sitting on the Champs Elysees as the yellow jersey of Wiggins grows
from a spec in the distance to a perfect manifestation of truly great human
achievement.
And I can only weep in awe.
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