Keith Strudler: The Things You Can’t Control

I fully recognize that very few Americans care even remotely about the Tour de France, and likely haven’t since the end of the Lance Armstrong era. And even then, it was more of a passing fancy with American exceptionalism than any real interest in one of the world’s most grueling and dangerous sporting events. But, despite our national ambivalence and the carnage of an endemic performance enhancing drug issue, the Tour is still around, and in fact just concluded this past Sunday in Paris after some three weeks and over 2,000 miles of grueling terrain. 

22-year-old Columbian Egan Bernal won, making him both the first Columbian champion and the youngest winner since 1909. But what’s even more interesting is how he came to end the race in yellow, a jersey he didn’t wear until completing the third to final leg, a brutal route that ran up and down the Alps repeatedly.

Up to that point, Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe was the leader, a full minute thirty ahead of Bernal. Alaphilippe’s lead this late in the race was unexpected, and it gave his country increasing hope that they might celebrate their first French champion since Bernard Hinault in 1985. But then Bernal attacked on a gruesome climb up the Col de l’Iseran, all 9000 feet of it, built up over a two-minute lead on the road, and would hope to hold off Alaphilippe on the frightening descent and final climb of the day. Which is exactly what was happening when the race directors cancelled the final 24 miles of the nearly 80-mile race, thus taking the final day’s official time at the peak of the last climb. That was because a few miles ahead, unbeknownst to anyone on a bicycle, a freak hail storm lead to a mountainside mudslide that made the road less ridable than an outdoor skating rink in a hurricane. The race organizers quickly alerted all riders and managers that they were done for the day, which was a good considering it’s easy enough to get killed in the Tour without the addition of a natural disaster.

That meant that Bernal would officially take over the race lead with only two days remaining, ahead of both Alaphilippe and Bernal’s own teammate Geraint Thomas, last year’s winner and this year’s favorite. Which means there would be no frenzied descent and climb to see if either could reel in Bernal. And the following day’s stage, another brutal mountain ride, was cut in advance from 81 miles to 37 because of ongoing landslides, something most sports tend not to have to worry about. Since the final stage is a ceremonial processional into Paris, Bernal’s lead would stick, all part of a Tour that was more unpredictable than Maryanne Williamson’s closing remarks.

It is entirely possible – likely, in fact – that Bernal would have won if the race had gone its full distance. He was the strongest climber and had the support of his closest competitor and teammate Thomas. And Alaphilippe seemed to be fading fast, dropping down to 5^th on the shortened penultimate climb. So even though it may from a distance seem unfair, and perhaps it was, it does seem like the right person won, if that makes any sense.

But, what this affair should remind us is the frailty of sport. Pretty much anyone who’s ever so much as run a 5K or even watched a ball game has considered the social construction that makes our games and races what they are, or perhaps what we’d like them to be. We write voluminous rule books and build guidelines around things like the pitch of a field or the weight of someone’s bat. We look at lighting and surface and make sure officials can measure time to the hundredth of a second. And then we let them check that over and over again with digital video replay. And to make it a bit more standardized, sometimes we put whole domes over grass fields to make sure it’s always 72 degrees and artificially sunny, even in the throes of winter.

And yet, in one of oldest and most storied sporting events in the world, we are reminded that all of this we build in the name of fairness and control is no match for the will of nature. This Tour de France isn’t simply a reminder that the best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry. It’s a reminder that in the end, the most important thing in sport is to realize that no matter how hard you train, how well you perform, and how much you plan, there are things that one simply cannot control. That may be an opponent, your teammate, the weather, or even a mudslide. Giving yourself completely to that potential is both frightening and freeing – and reminds us all that in sport, the only think you can control is your own effort.

That might be a nice lesson from this Tour for young American athletes too often obsessed with winning. Of course, I’m guessing not many Americans paid attention to this Tour de France in the first place.

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