Something about hope.
Rest Day Notes from the Giro.
The 109th Giro, this mighty adventure, has been cavorting across a continent for 10 days and more. Its cyclist-soldiers are in the vanguard, and in its long wake follow the hired fools whose living depends on this vainglorious pursuit of an ideal: the armourers, the butchers and the vintners, the wheelwrights and carpenters, the sign-makers, the tumblers, the tinkers, and the bards.
I am one of the bards, I guess. An old hack, making up stories to keep people entertained on the way, stumbling along, blindly trying to keep pace and resting briefly at each camp fire that crackles, before dawn sees us all packing down and moving once again.
We have come a long way from the lacklustre waters of the Black Sea, unenthusiastically lapping at the sandy shores of Burgas, where Bulgaria’s prolific population of cigarette enthusiasts sat behind the glass of their café windows, obdurately unimpressed by the arrival of the Giro, ardently smoking and watching the flotsam of the Giro d’Italia wash up on the beach.
Bulgaria, a land which left me aghast at its emptiness, passed by in three giant leaps, as the country went from unadorned Soviet-era tenements to the deeply sentimental wooded slopes of the Balkan hills, so profoundly associated with this country’s sense of sacred mission at the border with the infidel. Here the children lined up in puffer jackets and under umbrellas to sing their melancholy songs and dance their elegant dances, and it was irresistible.
The three days ended in the national glory of Sofia, letting loose the fast-chiming bells of Sofia’s Alexander Nevski cathedral. They rang urgently, calling a noisome orthodox congregation to communion, competing with the Giro’s loudspeakers, filling the warm-ish spring air with Italian pop of the very worst order. The 21st century revealed itself as tawdry and ephemeral in the face of the 19th, but still perhaps, just about, a happier place to live than in Bulgaria’s birthing pains of the Russo-Turkish wars and the 60 years of fighting which followed.
In Burgas and in Sofia, there was the awakening of a true talent. It was a fine thing to see Paul Magnier in full flight, and now, on the first proper rest day to consider the distance he has come in such a short space of time. Not long ago, he was an apprentice with Trinity Racing, beautifully prepared for his future by the new DS Pete Kennaugh, and now he is crushing this stacked Giro peloton, spooking the hitherto imperious Jonathan Milan, faced for the first time at the Giro with a genuine challenge on Italian soil, one to which he has so far seemed unable to rise.
Magnier is a complete sprinter, elegant and poised despite the immensity of his buried power. He is brimming with confidence and gets more self-assured by the day. France, across the board, is shedding its past imposters and rising to meet the demands of the new age.
The crash on stage two, caused by the slightest mistake by Marc Soler as the bunch flowed through a wet right handed descent, and which brought down so many riders was a moment of sickly familiarity. In the immediate aftermath of the cascading, collapsing human forms, and as riders lay prone on the wet tarmac or picked themselves up with caution and fear from the ground, I was once more left with a hollowness at the heart of the words I was charged with finding.
When Adam Yates stood alone in the middle of the road, his unfocussed gaze registering nothing, washing blood and grit from his hands, he was unrecognisable. He was the victim of a violent assault, and should never have even considered remounting and continuing the race. What is this sport which bestows such a hideous imperatives on these young riders? How is it morally permissible that we place them at such great danger for our entertainment.
In the absence of anything like an answer, we simply move on, trampling our doubts underfoot, stamping them down. Short of shutting down the sport for good, this numbness of judgment is the only response left, and we reach for it every time.
We left Bulgaria as darkness fell, a fleet of Boeings all heading in a line across the million acres of black Balkan skies, over mountains, rivers and plains that bear the scars of human fault lines of language, religion and tribe. And soon the stars of the Aegean lit our way to Italy. As the engines switched register to descend to Calabria, there was a resettling of the spirit, and new calm returning, a banishment of the fear of the unknown. By midnight, we were home.
