July 9, 2008, 9:07 am
Tour de France marketing hits uphill stage
Sponsors of the Tour de France say it's a trickier sell since Lance Armstrong's retirement. What do you think?
Your Answers
From Paul, Pau, France Im visiting France (from Washington) to see the tour this week, what more can I say!!!!
Posted By Paul, Pau, France : July 9, 2008 10:52 am
From v.van walleghem Bicycling is a fast growing sport albeit from a very low beginning. I predict that the U.S. will continue to be a factor in world racing and domestic interest will continue to grow. There has been some college level competition, mostly off the radar being promoted by clubs rather than the institutions. That may change as this sport is very interesting once you become familiar with it. It won't be long before we'll see intra mural competition at even the high school level is my bet. WW
Posted By v.van walleghem : July 9, 2008 9:50 am
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We are at a crossroads in professional cycling. It was inevitable that the doping situation would come to a head. You have the stars of today that are fading out because that is what they know. Then, you have the young "stars" of tomorrow coming up. Now is the clean-up phase from the ASO and UCI to the newly sponsored veteran teams.
I am actually proud of how the cycling community had gathered together, for the most part, to say no to doping. They are taking more steps than any other professional sport to curtail this. We know there will always be cheaters. But don't ignore the problem just because its been around a while.
Hopefully, teams like Garmin/Chipotle and Columbia are the future of cycling with their "no doping" campaign. I just hope the public doesn't throw in the towel if one of their riders comes up positive. It is going to take a while to clean up the mess. It didn't happen overnight.