One of my favorite sporting events to watch on TV is the Tour de France. I just love everything about it: the individual and team competitions, the strategy, the characters, the drama, the climbs, the landscape, the sprints, etc... And somehow my enthusiasm hasn't been deterred by all the doping scandals. Of course I despise the cheater, but to me that’s part of the drama. The pressure of winning makes humans do weird stuff. Whatever winning means, that’s a subjective matter. In sports psychology they always stress the importance of focusing on process rather than outcome. When the prospect of achieving the desired outcome starts slipping away, desperate minds tend to choose the straightest line between point A and B, and then walking the dark side becomes a tempting option.
One day I would love to be one of those fans following the race with their RV’s, camping out on mountainsides, riding the course and just being close to the action. Seeing the stages on TV brings you all the action, but to be inches away from the riders, to get just a glimpse of the battle and feel the energy of the race up close is totally different. Especially if you wear a superhero outfit and speedos to run along with the pack.
One of my favorite ways to stay motivated during training and racing has always been watching videos of the greats. Thank NBC for Universal Sports. By the way, they are eating Versus’ lunch, since Versus was the first, at least on Time Warner Cable, to bring cycling and triathlon to the TV screens on a semi regular basis. But now, Universal Sports has far surpassed Versus in covering endurance events. What’s with Versus anyway? It’s 99% fishing and hunting shows. Are hunters really interested in cycling races? Maybe secretly hoping to have them as targets one day? Or do cycling fans hunt and fish between interval workouts for recovery? It’s a mystery to me.
Anyway, watching videos is a great source of inspiration for me. When I was a downhill ski racer I watched and replayed Alberto Tomba’s races ALL THE TIME. In Hungary, the quality of ski instruction at the time (1980’s) was probably even surpassed by bobsledding instruction in Jamaica. Regardless, I loved my coaches. They tried. Tomba had the most amazing carves, and that was before shaped skis were invented. His style and motion was burned in my memory chips and served as a standard that I had to get to. Science has proven that such mental “training” helps improve technique, mechanics and imagery.
Ok, here I have to make a side note. Tomba has to be one of my all-time favorite athletes. His success speaks for itself. He wasn’t the fittest or the most diverse skier. He didn’t do so well with downhill and super G, but was the best in slalom and GS. His super fluid, seemingly effortless style was captivating. He carved those straight skis like they were shaped. What was his preparation like? Well he had to have trained a lot, obviously. But the funniest thing about his preparation was revealed during an interview in the Winter Olympics in Albertville. The interviewer asked him what he did differently as opposed to four years prior in Calgary. Tomba’s response was something like this: “In Calgary the night before the race I partied with four women till 5 in the morning, but now I only partied with two women till 3 in the morning.” Age takes its toll… We all know skiers at all levels are party animals. Just ask Bode Miller or think back to that college trip to Killington.
While at this subject, apparently cyclists are no different. Recently, teammates Andy Schleck and Stuart O’Grady were thrown out of the Vuelta de Espana cycling race by their team because they went out for a few drinks one night. In one of the comments the team manager said - "Whether it's one glass or ten, at 5am, it's inexcusable.” Aha! They do party hard in racing season. I have suspected this for a long time. I remember when Floyd Landis tried to explain high EPO levels in his blood sample after a spectacular stage win in the Tour, by saying he had “a couple of shots of whiskey” the night before. That must be a default explanation for out of the ordinary situations so it follows that going out for drinks the night before a hard stage is normal. He knew he couldn’t get in trouble for that. But even I, who barely made it through high school chemistry, knew he was bluffing with the whiskey trick. But I’m getting away from my point.
Last time I saw Tomba on TV was at the ITU race in Kitzbuhel just about a month ago. This little ski town in Austria is best known for the toughest downhill race in the world, but in recent years the summers have been also sizzling with professional and age group triathlon races. The sight of Tomba making rounds among the triathletes gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling. In a way my past and my present were converging. I felt the same way when I was at Lake Placid for the Ironman race this past July. It was a regular winter destination until my son was born eight years ago. We found it too long a drive for little kids so we haven’t returned until this summer. As I entered Mirror Lake for the swim start of the Ironman, that special race feel became extra special. The energy of racing success of the past and my present, with my two fantastic kids and a wonderful wife cheering while getting soaked, filled up my fuel tanks and got my psyche ready for anything. I fed on that energy for the next 10 hours and 34 minutes and I can’t wait to do it again.
I still watch sports videos and I record all the triathlon, running, track, cycling, swimming and skiing that Universal Sports puts on their programming. Just like when I was a kid I fantasize about being at the big races, doing what the champions do so one day, I may actually be one of those guys. So just recently I found out that Symphony Space will show a new movie about the Tour de France called “Chasing Legends”. This is a must see for me, especially because I live 5 blocks away. I hope they get a good turn-out; we need more public showings of sports videos. From the look of it this movie is right up my alley. Click here for more detail.
I hope to see you there!
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