You win some you lose some…….
Good news and bad news last week. I got through the entry lottery for this year’s Etape du Tour, so have the fearsome climb of the Mont Ventoux to look forward to on July 20. Shortly after this, I got a surprise email from a journalist working for the Tour de France organisers ASO on the official Tour programme, which includes a section on l’Etape du Tour. He’s interviewing ‘survivors’ of the Etape’s last visit to Mont Ventoux in 2000, where we had hail and temperatures of 2 degrees on the summit, and when the police closed the road with about half the field still to reach the summit. I’ve since managed to erase most of the pretty horrific memories of the descent from the summit that day, so being interviewed about them will be a suitably traumatic experience!
Unfortunately, the Etape is now the only event left to train for…..
Meanwhile, back in never never land, the third Mercure Duathlon up Jebel Hafeet was cancelled due to lack of interest (big hand to certain ‘triathletes’ in a certain UAE emirate who have consistently failed to support this and other events in the UAE by failing to actually show up). Then, the Dubai Tri Club cancelled all their events due to bad mouthing by a minority of participants.
People need to know three things:
- If you want to be called ‘triathlete’ you have to actually take part in triathlons, rather than just train for them or talk about them. Otherwise you’re not a ‘triathlete’, you’re a ‘poser’.
- If you don’t show up to events, there won’t be any more events.
- If someone organises an event for your benefit, the thing to say afterwards is “thank you for organising the event”, rather than making snide comments to or about the hard working (mostly voluntary) organisers and marshalls. That’s just plain dumb, and now the rest of the sporting community in the UAE pays the price for your selfishness. Well done to you whoever you are. Go back to your golf course/football pitch/wherever, you’re in the wrong sport.
