21 Jan Tour Down Under Vs The Australian Open

Posted at 00:18h in Richie's Posts by

So this is the week in Adelaide where everybody dusts off their bike & goes herbing around the neighbourhood as the Tour Down Under hits town. There were plenty of people out on Sunday as the ridelikecrazy.com fun ride (supporting cancer research at the Flinders Medical Centre Research Foundation) & ended at the Unley Oval. A 51 km closed circuit road race last night in town is used a pre-cursor to the Tour Down Under which actually kicks off on Tuesday morning.

I know locally traders along King William Road are hoping for bumper crowds Wednesday as all the roads are blocked off with the Unley Gourmet Gala. Thursday morning the Tour takes off from Unley Hyde Park. For those of you who haven’t been to a Tour Down Under event before in the immortal words of Molly Meldrum – do yourself a favour.

Any discussion of bike racing & the Tour Down Under can’t go without mentioning Lance Armstrong and his admission finally (in the face of overwhelming evidence) that he is a drug cheat. Lance actually put the TDU on the world stage, so us Adelaidians can’t complain as the profile of the TDU & Adelaide have been permanently lifted. It seems unfortunate that many high class sports have been tainted by doping over the years (cycling, baseball, weightlifting, swimming, athletics, etc.) as the testers chase the dopers as new & better testing systems come to the fore. Lance still needs to do a lot more as the Oprah interview only scratched the surface of the actual doping activities Lance was up to.

Unfortunately there is collateral damage out of all of this, the people who have been sued & harassed by Armstrong & his associates over the years & innocents now like our own Anna Meares (well I can claim her as being an Adelaide girl now as she lives here !!!) who is an inspirational athlete who came back from breaking her neck to defeat her arch rival & win gold at the recent Olympics – story appearing on the weekend is that Anna has now lost potential sponsors due to the Armstrong doping scandal. Having heard Anna speak at an FPA function & her drive & will to succeed only reinforces that the cream will always rise to the top.

Lastly the best sporting event to attend in Australia – the Australian Open rules our TV screen at home virtually 12 hours per day. For those of you who haven’t been to Melbourne Park it is definitely a great day/night out with plenty of other activities than just the tennis. The colour & vibrancy of Melbourne Park with all the fans & different nationalities & atmosphere makes me wish as writing this that we did go this year (Oh well there is always next year!!)