Jul
14
No disrespect to the great Floyd Landis, but seeing him in yellow yesterday got me thinking: has there ever been a more “normal” guy in yellow before at the Tour? There’s no pomposity or pretentiousness here with him. No Hinault arrogance or silent Indurain air of invincibilty there on the podium. He’s a little goofy, too, and he smiles alot. He just seems really happy and comfortable in yellow. He doesn’t seem to be intimidated by the weight of the yellow jersey or take himself too seriously. Love the way he wears his baseball cap backwards on the podium. He’s personable and glad to talk with the reporters post-race and doesn’t spew the old cliches like most riders do.
On another subject, is anyone else enjoying the lack of segments on the culture of France during the OLN coverage this year? I love wine, cheese and learning about the seperatist movement in the Savoie region as much as the next guy, but I’d rather not take valuable time away from the race to see a reporter wine tasting or telling us about the Roman ruins along today’s course. The segments they are running away from the race have been great historical Tour stories on Tour-related topics like LeMond and team 7-11. Nice to see a sport’s TV coverage aimed at the enthusiasts for a change, not just the guy with a passing interest in the sport who might enjoy the non-racing pieces. Good job, OLN.
Comments
One Response to “Regular Guy in Yellow; No Wine Tasting Pieces on OLN”
[...] Well, I just saw that Tim Jackson made a nice post at the Kool-Aid blog last Friday about our blog here and I realized that the first post new visitors would have to read was the one I wrote about Landis being goofy. I really like Floyd, by the way, and meant only good in my description of him as normal and [a little] goofy. Really. BTW, speaking of how riders are perceived, who do you think comes across better in their segments sprinkled throughout OLN’s coverage: Armstrong or LeMond? I’m a big fan of both, but have my doubts that they are doing their legacies any favors with these spots. On to something that may actually interest my fellow bike bloggers, Tim also announced my interest in holding some type of get together or round table of industry bloggers in Vegas later this year. I’m very interested in trying to facilitate this and I’d love to get some input or ideas as to how to run it or what format it should be in. Basically, I’m just putting it out there to start the discussion. How would the outcome of last year’s informal gathering influence the next one? I can’t make any promises, yet, about a location for it, but I’ll see what I can do. As the new guy here (I started the day after IB 2005), and in the marketing department, I don’t work with facilities that much. I’ll check on what’s possible at this point in the game. More importantly than the room is the content, though. Let’s talk it up. [...]