OT: the Tour

[Bigboote]

I've been DVRing the Tour de France every day. Unfortunately they don't generally start the broadcast till well into the stage.

Today's stage featured a teargas attack. Not by terrorists, but by the gendarmes. Evidently some farmers piled up some bales of hay on the road and the police threw some teargas at them. I'm sure it was a surprise to the police to find that teargas blows with the breeze, and around 15 riders were hit by it. The race was halted for awhile so that the affected riders could recover sufficiently.

Unfortunately, this happened at the 30 km mark, but the broadcast started at about 100 km. Did anyone see this all the way through? The broadcast definitely said the "race was halted," but I have no idea what that means. Did the officials halt the whole thing? Stop everyone at the same point? I doubt they could stop everyone at the same time. In a race that may be decided by seconds I think whatever the race officials did could affect the results.

 

[fang]

[QUOTE="

Unfortunately, this happened at the 30 km mark, but the broadcast started at about 100 km. Did anyone see this all the way through? The broadcast definitely said the "race was halted," but I have no idea what that means. Did the officials halt the whole thing? Stop everyone at the same point? I doubt they could stop everyone at the same time. In a race that may be decided by seconds I think whatever the race officials did could affect the results.[/QUOTE]

Actually... yes they do stop the race. With more than 100km left, what happens near the beginning rarely affects finish times. Cycling is different in that there is no set time. The participants decide if they go fast or slow.

A couple of years ago they stopped the race near the finish in one of the early stages, where the crazy build-up to a sprint finish often causes crashes. There were so many crashes that day they were worried that further incidents would strain the medical resources. They ended up giving everyone the same time for the stage, and now if you crash in the last 3 km, you get the same time as the peloton.

In the decorum of the tour, if one of the main contenders gets a flat, or just stops to answer nature's call, the rest of the tour slows down to let him catch back up. To do otherwise would be bad manners. Mon Dieu!

 

[Bigboote]

Thanks.