Electress said:
rhubroma said:
the ineffable aesthetic quality, which is "soul," not "mind," without which sport - and not only sport - looses its beauty. This you did through all the reasons stated. You effectively used the Nietzscheian "will-to-power," as a metaphor for that dreary over-corporatized and hyper-scientific sport method of automatized cycling that currently Sky personifies. Naturally this is not all Sky's fault, nor did it begin with the British cycling team. Corporate professionalism and scientific method in reality goes back to the Philadelphian buisnessman, Frederick Winslow Taylor, whose "scientific method" was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineering of processes and to management, to of course maximize profit and reduce expenses. In fact the factories already de-humanized by machines, now further reduced workers to mere pawns in a greater scheme. Sky has simply established the modern paradigm for this in sport. Sport is a business for sure, however, as someone once said: the more business takes over, the less humanity remains.
I haven't quoted your entire response; not because I didn't appreciate it, merely that I don't want to take up the space! At the risk of sounding pretentious, the bolded did make me think of John Ruskin ' “You must either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him. You cannot make both.” It's the human qualities that inspire and engage the fan-base, IMO. That and the narrative, which is why the history is still so important to sport.
That said, you have to have some evolution, and not everything Oleg proposes is so bad.
Anyway, to keep on topic, just thought I'd say what great taste Alberto has. That's a lovely blue shirt.
That should be fawning and obsequious enough for this thread...
PS: I'm glad someone posted that about Quintana, otherwise I wouldn't have heard it, coz I never stray into the Q. threads. But I confess I would double check if Carlton Kirby told me that grass was green
I did mention that sport is a business. The problem is that the business mindset has so radically changed from say 40 years ago. It has become even more predatory, ruthless, management fixated, "scientifically" oriented in the ways in which it predicts market shares and profit, analyzes production and the level of expectation that it places on the employed has become maniacal. My sense is that 40 years ago the work environment was generally simpler, less obsessive, more "spirited" and social if you will. In this sense, unlike today's, it was more "human." Arguably this becomes an allegory for what has transpired in sport over the same period.
Now cycling grew up on national, regional, even local business sponsorship level and still became extremely popular in Europe. Part of the beauty of the sport was that it was also a charming moving advertisement for the sponsorship businesses that rolled through cities, towns and villages with a family fan base that came out for a street-side fair, or country picnic, or mountain hike. The business owners were normally tifosi themselves, and counted on the popular nature (in the truest sense of the word) of the sport, which guaranteed a return on their investment. An investment that wasn't simply calculated in terms of quantifying that return though or as an ego maniac boost as with World Cup football. It is telling that the applicable businesses 40 years ago, while less profitable than todays giants, made no qualms about sponsoring cycling teams.
It was thus unthinkable back then that sponsors should demand television broadcasting revenue, or that fans should pay to watch races at the finish. In this sense, what an Oleg is calling for is to transform cycling into a rolling version of sport at the football/soccer stadiums and it is disgusting. This is nothing short of the annihilation of its own popular nature. He wants to make cycling into a class sport, in which you have "VIP" fans that pay exorbitant fees to see the finishes, while all the rest are just poor slobs. I recall the first professional European race I watched from the roadside. It was the last ITT up Col d'Eze of PN 1992. The atmosphere was electrifying as the build up to the last riders approached, and there was a sense of solidarity that no stadium sport could ever create. In fact the stadiums are about pure antagonism, even violence. Other than hooligans and ultras, the worst you might encounter at a European cycling race were some discontented union works (which again testifies to the popular, social nature of the sport) using a race as a venue to voice their grievances.
It is inevitable that the sport evolves. Not every development, in the Pasolinian sense, however, is progress. For example the development of helmet safety was obviously fortuitous. The bikes of today are infinitely superior to those of 20, 30, 40 years ago. Nobody wants the sport to remain in the past. This does not mean, however, that we are never allowed to say no, or to voice dissent over things that will not only not improve cycling, but destroy its soul.
I apologize for the length.