People often ask me why I'm so obsessed with cycling. What it is that draws me to this sport that is nothing but 6 hours of spinning the pedals on a bike? With three weeks of non-stop cycling before my eyes, I had plenty of time to think about my answer.
And it's the quality of the human spirit in these athletes that I love. These guys are riding hard every day for 21 days, and yet every day they still have the passion to ride harder than the day before. Being Australian, one of the traits we value most is hardiness, endurance, that utter tenacity of the soul where you can't give up but instead just keep soldiering on despite all the odds. We call it the ANZAC Spirit, and we value it above almost all else in people.
These men have that spirit, the GC riders most of all. Thomas Voeckler is a beautiful example of why I love this sport - he predicted three times over the course of this year's Tour de France that he would lose his yellow jersey at the end of the stage. Maybe it was a defeatist attitude, or maybe he was just being a realist, but every time, something in Thomas just wouldn't let him give up. We could all see the grit and determination that made him keep on going, every inch of it clear in the utter pain on his face, somewhere inside himself finding the ability to keep on going despite all else and do something that human beings should not be able to do - be superhuman.
Watching Johnny Hoogerland also had that feeling, but this time the whole world could feel it. We could see the streams of blood running in rivulets down his legs as he rode to the finish of that horrific stage where he became so intimately acquainted with a barbed-wire fence. We could see and feel his pain, and yet he clambered out, was back on the bike and began riding after the breakaway. He needed 33 stitches afterwards, but he was still putting his body and his mind through agony to keep going when any normal person would have collapsed in a sobbing, bleeding heap by the side of that road. These men have some celestial ability to transcend normal human limits and go beyond, time and again, to be heroes, legends and champions - glimpses of the heights to which humanity can ascend.
And of course, our golden boy, Cadel. When his bike broke down riding up Alpe d’Huez with Andy and Alberto, everyone thought he’d lost the Tour de France. Even I was dubious. Trying to make up a minute and half on the world’s top climbers racing up a mountain is almost foolhardy in its impossibility. It’s like running after a car – you’re never gonna get there, unless you can fly. And Cadel Evans showed us he can. He achieved with ease what we were all saying was impossible, and yet every time we apply the word ‘impossible’ to something these men do, they find a way to prove us wrong again. It was the feat of a winner and a champion – and now he’s both.
Just like the Greeks who lived near Mount Olympus, catching glimpses of the gods from time to time, this proximity to greatness touches us all. There is something inspirational about the men who possess this magical ability to be more than they are, just for a little while. The 6 hours of mindless pedalling merely gives us the context so we can truly appreciate when they have one of these man-as-god Olympian moments. It is the humanity in cycling that draws me - and the proof that sometimes, if we only try hard enough, for just a little while we can be something more than human.
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