I interviewed ESPN’s Chris Fowler during the first weekend of the 2007 Tour de France.
QA with Chris Fowler: A UK Weekend Like No Other
ESPN’s Chris Fowler has been in London covering Wimbledon. A longtime friend of Lance’s and of Postal/Discovery, Chris checked in with The Paceline in the early evening Saturday (London time).
Q. The Tour de France began today in London on a weekend in which Venus Williams took the Wimbledon ladies’ final here today, and the men go tomorrow. Also on Sunday, the Formula 1 British Grand Prix gets underway with Brit rookie sensation Lewis Hamilton leading the Drivers standings. What’s it been like there?
Chris Fowler: It’s been an unprecedented sports weekend for London. I think it might be the craziest collision of differing cultures and different kinds of sports in any one city ever.
You definitely felt an extremely high curiosity factor for the Tour. There is a hardcore group of cycling fans here like in any large city, but this event cut way across that, not just with locals but it also clearly brought in a lot of people from all over Europe. Whereas Wimbledon is distinctly English and F1 here is mainly a celebration of national phenom Lewis Hamilton – who is becoming the Lance of F1 – it’s clearly more of a more global thing with the Tour.
Q. And London did what it does best—rolled out the red carpet?
CF: Absolutely. I think the enthusiasm for the Tour de France here is real. The London Times put out a 16-page Tour guide in anticipation that people are going to follow the event more this year. The Tour’s arrival here is a result of the mayor (Ken Livingstone) making cycling a much larger urban priority too. The Tour is here because of a request by the mayor in his broader goal more to get people riding bicycles in the city–something that plays well alongside Discovery’s own recent green commitment.
Another important thing to remember is people here were assuming that today would be a “one-off.” I think that will change. On the second anniversary of 7/7 here and with the recent bomb scares, this city turned out. The people of London have an amazing resolve here to go on with their lives and not be affected, to not be intimidated. You know, a week ago there was a real sense of unease.
But today it’s celebratory and you really do feel the vibe with everybody and the organizers. Paris in its own way is picturesque but London just might be the only other city that can fill monuments and can stand up to Paris as a Tour host city. I’ve taken many a run of the Serpentine in Hyde Park and this is one of the few cities that can and does match Paris for scenery.
Q. This is a heck of a dress rehearsal for the 2012 London Olympic Games.
CF: It’s made all the more amazing because tonight at Wembley Stadium there’ll be 100,000 people for Live Earth a week ago it was the Diana concert and so you really get the sense of London being the epicenter this weekend.
And even with a niche sport that normally would dominate media here — something traditional in its own right like the Henley Regatta (the crew event on the Thames aso taking place now) for example — there’s been just an amazing one-after-another roster of goings-on that you really can’t ignore. It’s actually kind of too muchat once, but the Tour’s clearly stood out and taken its rightful place in this lineup of happenings.
Q. You’ve been immersed in Wimbledon, but even so what things have you been hearing there regarding the state of cycling?
CF: Its not really what fans of the sport want to hear, but there’s understandably been a tremendous amount of coverage regarding the topic and certainly locally, too, on the signing of the UCI pledge. But the spectacle of the prologue brought everything back to what this sport is about. Today was a reminder about everything you love about the Tour de France.
Q. They love their Formula 1 in Britain and of course Stateside we get a real sense of the British-based relevance of Wimbledon. But how has the collision of the three camps – the competing personalities and stories of tennis and F1 and cycling – how has it been?
CF: First let me say that these three events have pushed soccer to the back of the sporting section. It’s hard for me to explain how hard that is to achieve – even with soccer in off-season.
The Lewis Hamilton story is a sensation, and because here’s a homegrown superstar who has burst onto the scene, it’s been F1 first and Wimbledon second. Now the Nadal-Federer men’s Wimbledon final will certainly generate excitement with the Tour following close behind tennis.
The Tour has come a close third here, with the tabloid media not paying very much attention. But the more prestigious broadsheet media – they are much more into it, same as say the way the New York Times covers cycling but not so much for the NY Post.
It was an absolutely perfect day here today after a truly horrendous ten days of torrential rains, flooding and serious damage, almost a mini-Katrina in the North here. And so a day like this had all the makings of a turnaround and crowds like we saw – cycling veterans were saying they’d never seen crowds at the Tour like there were here today.
It went off perfectly and people here were surprising into it, this despite the lack of a local hero in the end. With David Millar and with Bradley Wiggins really having a terrific showing, everything combined to bring together a nation. You know, this country’s like everybody else –they want to cheer on their own and Wiggins was feted without getting on podium.
With the Tour prologue today, you really get the sense of having been present for something special in this city. Expectations have been surpassed and the people have really whet their appetite for this Tour and hopefully many more to come.