There’s a Formula 1 race happening today. It’s in Hungary this time and what will almost certainly happen is that Lewis Hamilton will get a great start, lead on the first bend and then go on to win. He will not just be seconds ahead of his fellow competitors – if that is what you can really call them – in some cases he will be minutes and laps ahead of them. For all I know, our tax-avoiding, charisma-free F1 champion could be the greatest driver on earth, but could it be the driver of the slowest car on the grid would be world champion if he was in Hamilton’s car?
With a little training, I could drive Hamilton’s Mercedes in a Grand Prix. It is far to say that I probably would not be competing for pole position, but I could drive round and round a track, stopping occasionally for new tyres – they are fitted by other people, just like in Kwik Fit only quicker – and trying to avoid bashing into someone else, a bit like driving in London, really. Driving in a Grand Prix would undoubtedly be more interesting than watching one, but only just.
What I could not do, at my time of life or even when I was younger and fitter, is what Chris Froome has been doing. I can cycle in relative comfort from my house to, say, Asda, but undertaking a major climb, say up Talbot Road in Brislington, I’d probably have to get off and push from about half way up. The Tour De France appears to be slightly more gruelling than a trundle down the Mile Straight to Filton.
Le Tour, as we cycling connoisseurs refer to it, runs from 4 July to 26 July. There are 21 stages over 3,360 kilometres and the cyclists get all of two days off during the entire race. There are nine flat stages, three “hilly” stages and seven – seven! – mountain stages, including five summit finishes. The distance, on roads where cycling is permitted, is the equivalent of cycling from Lands End to John O’Groats and back – and then some! The Bristol to Bath cycle path, which would just about finish me off, it ain’t. I can imagine how Hamilton drives his state-of-the-art car around a track, but I cannot even begin to understand how Froome, or anyone else, can even complete the Tour de France let alone win it.
In terms of human achievement, never mind just in sport, there can surely be nothing that comes close to winning this epic race. And once Froom completes the formalities of winning the race today, he should be feted as a national hero. No Brit will have ever won the race twice, it will be a national scandal if Froom does not join Bradley Wiggins as a knight of the realm.
Sadly, the tour has been marred by the slurs cast against Froom and Team Sky regarding what appear to be baseless allegations about doping. The Lance Armstrong era persuaded many to believe that cycling could never be clean and for anyone to do what Froom has done, well, he has to be cheating. David Walsh, the brilliant journalist who exposed Armstrong for what he was, believes Froome to be clean. He points out that Team Sky is like no other team in cycling, in terms of professionalism and attention to detail and the theory and philosophy of Sir Dave Brailsford in terms of achieving marginal gains. This, Walsh believes, explains Team Sky’s place at the front of the Peloton.
What we are witnessing with Chris Froome is sporting greatness and what we are witnessing with Lewis Hamilton is a bloke driving a very quick car very quickly. You can’t compare the two and believe me I am not trying to.
