Lance Armstrong – Tour Down Under
I like the Tour Down Under, because for me it signifies the beginning of the cycling season. It has great weather, great fans and great cycling competition with the pro tour teams bringing their big gun riders.
The Tour Down Under races in and around Adelaide, South Australia. The race attracts riders from all over the world. In 2005, the Tour Down Under was promoted by the Union Cycliste Internationale highest ranking outside Europe. In 2007 Premier Mike Rann and Tourism Minister Jane Lomax Smith launched a campaign for the Tour Down Under to become the first race outside of Europe to secure ProTour status from the UCI.
For those purists in the sport, the season does not start until mid-march in France when the weather is a little rough. Sometimes it looks like this, which is cool to watch on TV, but terrible to ride in.
In September 2008 Premier Rann announced that a certain rider from Texas that shall not be named, would make his comeback into professional road racing at the 2009 Tour Down Under. The rider that shall not be named’s participation in the 2009 Tour Down Under saw it break all previous records for sporting events held in South Australia. Visitor numbers doubled, the economic impact was more than doubled (from $17.3 million in 2008 to $39 million in 2009) and media coverage increased five-fold. The 2010 Tour Down Under was named as Australia’s “Best Major Event” for the second year in a row in the Qantas Tourism Awards (Really? There is an award for that? How about an award for the writer who has boyish good looks and winsome charm and writes goofy great articles for the Two Shots One Beer web page? Where is the award for that? A travesty I say!). The cyclist who shall not be named participated in 3 successive Tour Down Under events, allegedly retiring from professional cycling after the 2011 event. The 2011 SANTOS Tour Down Under set new records with an economic impact of $43 million and attracting crowds of more than 782,000.
Outside of Tour de France, the event attracts the biggest crowds in the world. In 2013, it attracted more than 760,400 people to Adelaide and regional South Australia across eight days, including 40,000 interstate and international visitors who traveled there specifically for the event.
Stuart O’Grady (1999 and 2001) and André Greipel (2008 and 2010) have won the Tour Down Under twice. Simon Gerrans has taken the Tour three times (2006, 2012 and 2014) In fact, no winner has successfully defended his title. No American has won the race, but the guy whose name sounds most like an American, Allan Davis of Australia won the race in 2009.
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