Le Tour De France ----- Team Work

It is the biggest cycling event in the world, lasting for three weeks, sponsored by France, and is attended by cyclists worldwide. This year Le Tour De France started in London, more specifically, Tower Bridge. I was not that interested in it at the beginning, because, although cycling is more and more often recommended by gym coaches to keep fit or by the government to keep green, still, in my eyes, it is neither a sports as complicated as swimming having many postures , and nor something as speedy as Formula one. Every cyclist keeps one position all the time, and admittedly, it is lack of visual attractiveness. When I almost shrugged this event off, what one fan of Le Tour De France told me hold my interest back. This seemingly individual event is actually an utterly team effort. This team is not that team including coaches, bicycle sponsors….., but each team of cyclists in a match. I was confused: is not it the award only going to individuals? Why do they attend in a team?

The reason is found out from the theory of cycling. Because of the theory about speed and “resistance” caused by cyclists’ moving in the air, when an individual cycles alone with great speed, it receives more “resistance” than when cycling with others together. When a group of people cycle together, the one who is in the front spends much more effort than the one following behind, to keep the same speed. Therefore, it is very important for cyclists to stay at a good position in the competition. In a cycling competition, the one who is ahead is very often not the one who wins at last.

In the Le Tour De France, cyclists compete individually but compete in a team. In each team, there is the best one who is most competent to win. The other cyclists know they have little chance to win, but they can cycle around the best cyclist to protect the best one from exhausting energy too early. That is why we will often see, in a team, cyclists often exchange their positions between the front and the back but the one in the centre does not change often. By applying this team strategy, the best cyclist is well protected from unfair positions in a competition to get that tempting yellow jersy, eg. the front, while the runner-ups, like those who know they are not competent enough to win, still have the chance to earn their proportions of the pot.