You’d think that with such an historical event taking place in France overnight that the Australian newspapers would be a sea of yellow and ‘we are the champions’ headlines this morning. Yet what I saw staring back at me when I visited one of the most respected newspaper websites (ie not a Murdoch tome) was a dead, tattooed junkie. Now that’s news!
Australians are known for our love of the ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’, where we like to take a famous public figure, be it a politician, entertainer or sportsperson, and build them up to a level of adulation sometimes deserved, oftentimes not, and when that figure reaches the pinnacle of their field we criticise or ridicule them to bring them back down to ‘our’ level. We don’t want to be seen as lesser than them, or more likely want our heroes to be just ‘ordinary blokes’ like us. Aussies love to be the common man, but also want to be better than all those high-and-mighty Poms, Yanks, or in this case, ‘Frogs’.
Now that ‘we’ have won the world’s biggest bike race, we will embrace the victory and milk it for all it’s worth. Even if the majority or the Holden-drivin’, VB-drinkin’, steak-eatin’, footy-watchin’ public thinks that cyclists are lycra-wearin’ fags, and would gladly swerve their ute to run us into the gutter for a bit of a laugh.
So enjoy your time in the sun Cadel, make the most of the plaudits from the press, the politicians and the cycling fans, because cycling will still be seen as not a real man’s sport by most. Kind of like yachting, but hey, we loved it for a brief moment when we won the Americas Cup.
You little bloody ripper!
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@Xponti
Cool. I was wondering how they got hold of her/picked her out
I also found this..
http://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/download/file.php?id=30617&mode=view
@ash
Top work.
@Frank
Thanks for that!
@frank
Just rolling through some of the older articles (work can blow itself this afternoon) and noticed the above quote from our esteemed leader post LBL...care to revisit @frank??
Not only did the Cadelephant more than show up over the last 3 weeks, the last week showed your boys actually deploying some tactics! All they need to do now is learn how to TT or go back down the hills & they'll be unbeatable.
OK, this will be my last gratuitous photo of Cadel (unless another cool one comes up). Tweets a pic of himself on two phones doing Aussie radio interviews in the middle of the Swiss night.
"What's that leaning against the wall in the background Cuddles?"
"Just some trident I picked up earlier this year. Still looking for a place to put it."
@Marcus
As if you get a trident for winning Tirreno-Adriatico. I did now know that. Awesome. That's gotta be the most V-chanelling trophy in cycling, surely?
@ralasdair
It's V in a really comic book sort of sense, but for straight-up hard as nails bad-arsery, Paris-Roubaix's big fucking rock, that you just defeated like the road-paving bitch it is, is hard to beat.
@Blah
Looks like a weapon.
Awesome photo...the MJ, the lion, the trident, his dog...NICE!
Mmmmmm
@Marcus
Are those his wife's jeans? Even his dog looks disappointed.