RACE CULTURE: TOUR DOWN UNDER
Despite this year’s searing temperatures, the Tour Down Under is as popular with riders as it is with the enthusiastic Australian fans. What better way to kick off the World Tour?
Behind the scenes at Australia’s World Tour-opening stage race, which has developed into one of the most atmospheric races of all
It was hot. Properly hot. Fry-an-egg-on-the-pavement hot, as one Australian journalist demonstrated to the delight of the assembled press corps at the finish of stage 1 of the Tour Down Under in Lyndoch.
The scuttle to record the day’s top temperature was won later when one of the race’s motorbike riders showed off his on-board computer having registered a high of 50 degrees Celsius. The general consensus, though, was “high 40s”. Too hot. The news came out midway through the stage: it was to be shortened by a lap, meaning that the peloton would complete two, rather than three, circuits of the finish town: 118km instead of 145km.
For those who think it’s just plain crazy to run a professional bike race at the hottest time of the year in one of the world’s hottest countries, race director Mike Turtur has explained himself previously and rationally: if the race is to attract large crowds of spectators, it needs to retain its calendar slot during the school summer holidays, just as the Tour de France does in July.
Besides, the riders are pleased to be here in the sunshine and many rate it as their favourite event of the year. Dangerously hot days are still few and far between.
Should such a day arise, the UCI can trigger its Extreme Weather Protocol, conceived two years ago following a string of races hit by severe conditions that caused riders to complain, from snow at the Giro d’Italia to tub-glue-melting heat in the Middle East. Lotto-Soudal’s Adam Hansen told Procycling how the protocol is enacted mid-race. “We needed the agreement of three parties to shorten the stage: the UCI, the race organiser, and a CPA delegate — and I’m the CPA delegate at this race, representing the riders,” he said.
“Some of the riders were saying that it was borderline too hot, and it was just getting hotter and hotter, so I went up to the car of the UCI chief commissaire, Alexander Donike, to speak to him about it. He agreed, and he telephoned Mike Turtur, and Mike agreed, so that was the three parties we needed, and yeah, they shortened the race.
“I represent Australia for the CPA [Professional Riders’ Association], and they assign a delegate for each race, and because I’m Australian and I’m here, I got the job,” Hansen explains. “Quite a lot of riders came up to me, and not just foreign riders: some Australians, too. So then I knew that it was serious!”
But neither the heat nor Hansen’s role as union boss precluded him from going on the attack with around 15km of the stage left to go, off in hot pursuit of lone leader Jan Bakelants of Ag2r, before they were both swallowed up by the sprinters’ teams in the closing kilometres, and Caleb Ewan stormed through for the win.
“I wanted to try something,” says Hansen, “and that was the only chance I had.
“Personally, I didn’t have a problem with the heat but then I’m from Cairns,” he laughs. “But as a representative of the riders, it was my responsibility to listen to their concerns.”