Covid-19 shadow over Richie Porte’s last chance at Tour de France
Richie Porte contests his 10th Tour de France, a race that has no guarantee of being completed.
Tim Tszyu, phew, becoming the greatest boxer in the world that doesn’t have a nickname. NBA players refusing to take a shot because a Wisconsin policeman took seven. Cam Smith’s retirement. Latrell Mitchell’s hamstring. Anthony Seibold’s whodunit. Jack de Belin’s sexual assault trial. Jeff Horn’s corner. Didn’t Jeff Fenech warn yer? The departure of Naomi Osaka. The return of Naomi Osaka. The departure of the LA Lakers. The return of the LA Lakers. Cricket Australia allegedly organising its summer like Basil Fawlty used to run his hotel.
There’s been a bit happening in sport and now, almost as an afterthought, one of the most illustrious and extravagant events of the year, the postcard-perfect Tour de France, climbing great mountain ranges and swan-diving into pristine valleys, starts on Saturday. There’s been barely a peep made of it. “Cycling is cyclical,” was one of the better quotes I read this week, referring to the cyclical cycle of umpteen Australian cyclists normally featuring in the world’s most prestigious cycling event. The cyclical nature of cycling means that this year, only two Australian cyclists will be cycling in the lowest representation since 2001.
In last year’s cycle, there were seven Australian cyclists. In the 2018 cycle, there were 11 Australian cyclists. In the 2011 cycle, when Cadel Evans ended the cycle of no Australian cyclist winning the most grand and gruelling cycling race in existence, there were seven Australian cyclists. The names of this year’s Australian cyclists are Richie Porte and Caleb Ewan, and they may as well be named chalk and cheese for the divergent roles they are about to play and the results they will be chasing. The opening stage begins in a nice old place called Nice, and ends there as well. The only problem is that nice old Nice is no longer so nice, having become a COVID-19 red zone. Four folks from Ewan’s Lotto-Soudal team, two staff members and their roommates, have already been banished — on your bikes — after positive tests.
The 35-year-old Porte is in his 10th and probably last lap of France, his final roll of the dice, a 10-Tour warrior on wheels who has experienced all the highs and lows of a race that has a lot of highs and lows. His second child is due to be born next month, when he expects to be somewhere up in the Alps. He’s made tearful Tour exits after high-speed crashes, breaking his collarbone and pelvis when flung on to the bitumen and rocks at 70km/h, but he’s played key support roles in the victories of ex-teammates Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome. Regarded as Australia’s most likely champion since Evans, he’s fallen agonisingly short when he hasn’t fallen off. He’s at Prince Of Penzance odds at 100-1 this year, which may also be the right price for the 107th edition of Le Tour to actually get to the finish line in Paris. Tour de Covid hot spots.
Porte will lead Trek-Segafredo in the 3470km ordeal that climbs five mountain ranges. He can climb those peaks; getting down the other side gives him heart palpitations after his terrifying crashes in 2017 and 2018. Even during his career-best fifth in 2016, he’s had a crash with a motorbike on Mount Ventoux. He’s told News Corp: “The pandemic is still there and they’re taking very strict measures to get the race started, but how long it goes is anyone’s guess. I can’t see it being a straightforward Tour … it’s going to be a little bit strange.
“Of course you don’t want to be the organisation that kicks it (virus) off in another region, but we are all being careful, the race has bubbles and quite a lot of testing, but it’s at the back of your mind, for sure. We’re going places that are in red zones and the numbers of new infections are much higher than Australia. But the French government say it’s safe to race so there’s not much we can do.”
Ewan is a sprinter who may very well win the first stage while having not a hope in hell of winning the overall race, the staging of which is daring and perhaps utterly delusional with COVID-19 in the wind.
Ewan is the 26-year-old, Sydney-born, 165cm pocket rocket who won three sprint stages in last year’s Tour. He’s a familiar name in cycling-mad Europe but he could jump off the Sydney Harbour Bridge without anyone here really knowing who he is. His Lotto-Soudal teammate, Germany’s John Degenkolb, says Ewan is the fastest rider in the race. Six sprint stages have Ewan’s name on them but he says the green jersey, for the points classification winner, is “too hard” and beyond him. But if he wins the opening 156km stage on Saturday, always a skittish and quick affair, right up his alley, he will have the green jersey and the yellow jersey all at once.
“I‘m not focusing on the green jersey to be honest,” he told Cycling News. “The way the points work, it’s just not a competition that suits a pure sprinter. We haven’t seen a pure sprinter win in years. Peter Sagan and Wout Van Aert, who can climb and sprint — the days I can’t get to the finish, they’ll get there and get maximum points. Even the days when I can win, they’re always top five or top 10 and always scoring points. Right now I think it’s too hard. Going for stages is hard enough, and I think I’ll focus on that.”
Of an opening stage that starts in nice old Nice, and finishes in nice old Nice, Ewan says: “Obviously the stage isn‘t going to be a straightforward sprint stage. It’s a hard day. I think the benefit for the sprinters is there is a lot of time to come back even if you do get dropped on the climb.
“There is a lot of time to come back in the valley, and usually at this time of year in the valley, there’s a headwind, so that also makes it a bit easier to come back. It really depends on how it’s raced on the climbs, and if there’s a team that really wants to split it, it’s going to be hard for us.”
Ewan’s stablemate, Degenkolb, says: “I think Caleb is the fastest guy at the moment. It’s hard for him to take this position and say he‘s the fastest guy but I’ve seen many fast sprinters in my career, and if you compare them all — his abilities, no one else has.”
Perhaps Australia’s greatest chance of winning a second Tour is for Ewan to grab the green and yellow jerseys on Saturday before the race is wiped out by COVID-19 and they give the current leader a trophy that, like Tszyu, bizarrely has no nickname. That’s unlikely on all fronts. If the Tour doesn’t finish, there will be no winner. Organisers say if two or more riders or staff members from a team test positive to the virus, the team will be kicked out of the race. Fan interaction will be banned, but spectators are still allowed to stand roadside. France has recorded 260,000 COVID-19 cases and 30,000 deaths, so to start it is daring enough. Nice itself is a hot spot. Teams seem certain to be forced to withdraw, but organisers have not announced how many withdrawals will spell the cancellation of the race.
If cycling is cyclical, the threat of the pandemic is constant. Riders will be tested and monitored and told to wear masks, all the normal precautionary stuff, but there’s no such thing as a bubble in a road race. No other sporting event is contested in such a public domain. Any ongoing cycle of virus infections threatens to force the cyclists to stop … at any stage from the first. This year’s cycle of doubt starts at 9pm (AEST).
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