Cycling is one of those spectator sports I don’t quite get. If watching tortured faces as they climb an endless mountain is, like the similarly screwed and distressed countenance of an ailing marathon runner, appealing, well fine. Otherwise it is a rapid ride-past of various shades of luminous lycra or, on television, an interminable procession of the pelaton, fluctuating only as different team members assume the burden of leadership. For all that anyone pays any attention, the landscape may as well be as repetitious as Bedrock’s as Fred drives (runs) his car past the same scenes on the animation loop.
The Tour of Mallorca starts tomorrow. It is the seventeenth, and coincidentally there are seventeen teams participating. Spanish, Belgian, French, Dutch, German, and not a banned substance among them, perhaps. On Tuesday, the third stage starts in Pollensa, goes into the mountains (just over halfway up the Puig Mayor) and then descends back into Pollensa and finishes in Puerto Alcúdia. The whole thing climaxes in Palmanova on Thursday. The tour is a chance for Mallorca to put on its best bib ‘n’ tucker and parade itself and its countryside to a sports-channel-glued tourism market. Well that I suppose is the hope. The mayor of Pollensa, for one, believes so. Maybe he’s right, but where does the TV coverage exist for an international market? And even if it does exist, is it not a case of broadcasting to the two-wheeled converted as opposed to those who otherwise would press the handset for the likes of the Discovery and History channels. It sounds a bit optimistic. I fancy those who do watch are more concerned with muscled legs than mountainous vistas. The tour may help in bringing more cycling tourism, but that’s about it.
In a wider sports context, and in particular a wider sports tourism context, the tour has a place in promoting Mallorca. Cycling is the main element of the off-season sports tourism, but there are others, such as running. And then there are of course the sea-based sports. It was a shame that Valencia, and not Palma, got the America’s Cup. The niching of tourism by individual sport (cycling, golf, sailing) may be missing a wider picture, which is the promotion of the island as a sport destination. There is plenty of infrastructure to allow this. Just look at the number of empty tennis courts in winter. Nadal and Moya could surely be called on to lend their “faces” to not just tennis but sport in general. Mallorca may not have any particular sporting cachet, apart from the tennis players, but it has the facilities. Florida can attract a sports tourism. Its climate may be warmer, but I know where I would rather play tennis, and that’s in a mild Mallorca in February rather than a steamy and humid Florida for much of the year.
QUIZ
Yesterday – “The Pieces Don’t Fit Anymore”, James Morrison. Today’s title – a film, who starred?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment