Americans don't seem to understand le Tour de France. People were interested in this year's Tour, because it was in the news so much, thanks to Lance Armstrong and his then-imminent retirement. But most Americans have no clue about cycling as a sport, even though most of us at one point in our life have ridden a bicycle. The rules (as well as the unwritten but long-observed protocols among the cyclists, like, when to pee, or what does one do or not do when a leader is peeing) can seem illogical or sometimes arcane.
Then it occurred to me...Tour de France is like Amazing Race (the reality show) in some ways:
(1) The objective is to win overall, but in each stage, there is a winner. In Amazing Race show, teams to arrive first at each location are awarded vacation packages.
(2) Cyclists can be eliminated from the Tour if they don't finish each day within a certain time limit (as determined by a formula that takes into account of the difficulty of the ride and the daily finisher's time). In Amazing Race, teams to arrive last are cut, unless it is a non-eliminatioin stage.
(3) The strongest rider in a physical sense does not always win. You also have to ride smart, and sometimes, ride with luck. Same with the teams in Amazing Race: you can be the first team to arrive in Venice, but if your flight out is delayed and other teams take to the road, you just may finish last in the next leg.
(4) Team work does count. No one wins alone in Amazing Race; each team of two has to help each other and those who bicker between teammates are often eliminated along the way. No one wins by himself in le Tour, either. It is a team sport. It takes 8 domestiques to ensure the one leader of the team have the best chance of winning. In Lance Armstrong's case, his super-domestiques often obliterate the opposition/competition by setting a fast tempo, while Lance conserves his energy until the final climb of the day when he puts the hammer down and rides to victory.
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