team has been emblematic of French athletic prowess and interpreted as a
barometer of the state of France’s body politic. The team’s astounding victory
in the 1998 World Cup fi nal seemed to herald an era of French athletic resur-
gence and rejuvenated confi dence and unity at home. In subsequent World
Cup tournaments, the side’s frustrating (2002), breathtaking (2006), and pa-
thetic (2010) defeats, on the other hand, seemed to symbolize the nation’s
athletic stagnation as well as growing social and ethnic tensions in France.
The Tour is a success story. Its commercial power, popular appeal, and
infl uence on the global scene expanded steadily throughout its history. These
qualities may not be apparent in light of recent drug scandals. The reputa-
tions of nearly every Tour de France winner since 1996 have been scarred by
doping allegations. In 2007, long after his retirement, Danish rider Bjarne
Riis admitted to systematic doping during his career, including during his
1996 Tour de France victory. Legal fi ghts over doping charges dogged Marco
Pantani after he won the 1998 Tour. Pantani died in early 2004 of a cocaine
overdose after battling depression for several years. The UCI stripped Ameri-
can Floyd Landis of his 2006 Tour victory and suspended him for two years
after a positive drug test during the race. In the wake of the Landis debacle,
important sponsors ended their involvement in cycling, German television
stopped broadcasting the Tour, and commentators around the world called
for the Tour to be canceled entirely. In February 2012, an international court
confi rmed a two- year doping ban on Alberto Contador, the Tour winner in
2007, 2009, and 2010. Offi cials detected banned steroids in Contador’s blood
during the 2010 Tour. The court rejected the Spaniard’s claim that the illicit
d o p i n g a n d t h e t o u r o n t h e w o r l d s t a g e 195
substance was introduced into his body without his knowledge via tainted
beef tenderloin or vitamins. Contador was stripped of his 2010 yellow jersey.
The same court levied a two- year ban from competition on German racer
Jan Ullrich for doping during the 2006 racing season. Ullrich won the Tour
in 1997 and played the part of Lance Armstrong’s primary rival and foil dur-
ing the American’s early Tour triumphs. The penalty was only symbolic, since
German star Ullrich had retired in 2007.
Lance Armstrong’s long, rearguard action against doping allegations
reached a tipping point in 2012. The United States Anti- Doping Agency
(USADA) released a report in October detailing systemic doping and decep-
tion by Armstrong during his Tour victories. The report included damning
testimony from Armstrong’s trusted lieutenants, domestiques, and staff. The USADA stripped Armstrong of his Tour victories, a decision confi rmed by
the UCI. In early 2013, the recalcitrant champion appeared in a televised in-
terview with Oprah Winfrey and fi nally admitted that the charges were true.
How has the Tour been able to maintain its position as the epicenter of
world cycling while persistent drug scandals plagued it for more than a half
century? Part of the answer is that cycling’s ideals have always diverged from
the sport’s unsavory realities. Scandal— athletic and otherwise — has been
an integral part of the Tour’s culture since its founding in 1903. The legacies of many Tour stars have been shaped as much by their character fl aws and
personal failures as by their sporting triumphs. Great champions’ falls from
grace were frequently self- induced and often tragic, such as 1906 champion
René Pottier’s suicide by hanging at the height of his success and the revela-
tions of Jacques Anquetil’s drug use in the autumn of his career. Controver-
sies have long defi ned classic Tours in the popular memory, from the 1924
“galley slaves of the road” affair to the 1998 “Tour de Farce” doping debacles.
Scandal added unparalleled richness to the Tour’s legend, tarnished and re-
pugnant as it may be.
More important, the Tour’s masters and other stakeholders worked con-
sciously, consistently, and successfully to solidify the event’s global pre-
eminence. The Tour’s founding fathers endowed the race with a uniquely
internationalist feel and positioned the event as the unoffi cial world champi-
onship of cycling, a status that the rest of the world freely recognized. After the Second World War, the Tour’s directors and the Amaury Group enacted
strategies that played upon, profi ted from, and spurred globalizing trends
in business, media, sport, and popular culture. They facilitated global me-
dia coverage, welcomed talented cyclists from around the planet to com-
pete, and built an international sport- business empire around the Tour and
other sporting events that they controlled. In the process, the Tour dissemi-
196
a f t e r w o r d
that the sport of cycling readily adopted and emulated. The race’s diverse
stakeholders — European host towns and an increasingly international corps
of sponsors, cyclists, broadcasters, and journalists — participated actively in this process as they invested their money, effort, and reputations in the Tour, all of which served to expand the event’s infl uence even more. In this way,
the Tour constantly shored up its position at the heart of a global sport that
remained popular, despite the ongoing scandals. The race remains world cy-
cling’s crown jewel.
Appendix
t a b l e 1 . Circulation of L’Auto, 1903 – 1938.*
Average copies
Average copies per
Year
Total circulation
per day
day during Tour
1903
14,178,474
45,299
65,000
1905
18,004,484
57,522
1910
37,838,282
120,889
300,000
1913
43,641,875
139,431
284,000
1924
87,640,000
280,000
497,000
1925 – 1929
Circulation did not attain 1924 levels.
1930
93,274,000
298,000
605,000
1933
113,932,000
364,000
730,000
1934 – 1936
Circulation decreased steadily from 1933 levels.
1938
64,165,000
205,000
*Sources: Seidler, Le sport et la presse, 55, 62, 69 – 70, 77; Calvet, Le mythe des géants de la route, 36 – 37; Bellanger et al., eds., Histoire générale de la presse française, 3:585; Augendre, L’histoire, les archives, 14.
198
a p p e n d i x
t a b l e 2 . Classifi cation of Tour Sponsors, 1930s.*
Business or product
Number
Percent of total
Alcoholic beverages
46
20.8
Chain or department stores
4
1.8
Food
44
Furniture and housewares
13
5.9
Cleaning products
7
3.2
Beauty products
5
2.3
Pharmaceuticals
8
3.6
Clothing
11
4.9
Bicycle /auto/moto- related
31
14.0
General promotion and promotion agencies
14
6.3
(government agencies, consortiums, etc.)
Electronics /radio
5
2.3
Entertainment
11
4.9
Tobacco, including papers
4
1.8
Other or unknown
18
8.6
TOTAL
221
100.3
*Derived from a sampling of entities that participated in the publicity caravan, sponsored prizes for the riders, or paid sponsorship money directly to the race organizers. Augendre, L’histoire, les archives, 30; L’Auto, June 26, 1931; and July 27, 1937; Ministry of the Interior, letter to all prefects, July 6, 1936; June 25, 1937; and July 5, 1939; and “Caravane offi cielle du Tour 1935,” ADBP 4 M 102.
a p p e n d i x
199
t a b l e 3 . The Tour and Television, 1960 – 2009.*
French TV
World TV
Hours of TV
TV rights fees
TV rights fees
audience
audience
coverage in
(millions of
as percentage
Year
(millions)
(millions)
France
francs)
of Tour budget
1960
9.3
4.0
1.5
1970
28.4
1980
20.0
50.0
1983
153.0
1986
1,000.0
38.3
1992
32.0
26.0
1995
110.0
50.0
20.0
1997
1,000.0
152.0
1998
85.0
34.0
2001
3.5
50.0
2005
3.4
15.0
2009
44.0
* Télé 7 Jours, June 25, July 2, 9, 16, 1960; June 27, July, 4, 11, and 18, 1970; Jacques Goddet, interview by Jacques Marchand, Cyclisme Magazine 5, April 1960; Intermarco- Conseil, memorandum, January 1981, CL 58 AH 23; Bernard Normand, memorandum, March 9, 1981, CL 58 AH 23; Andreff and Nys, Le sport et la télévision, 144; Vélo Magazine, February 1987; Bourg and Gouguet, Analyse économique du sport, 264; Le Monde, April 10 and June 26, 1995, July 14, 1997, and August 3, 1998; Stratégies 1064, July 10, 1998; Desbordes and Marcille, “Les entreprises et le marketing du Tour de France,” 264 – 65; New York Times, July 25, 2007; Initiative Futures Sport, ViewerTrack Most Watched TV Sporting Events of 2005, 17; Kevin Alavy (head of analytics, Initiative Futures Sport), e- mail communication with author, December 9, 2009; Initiative Futures Sport + Entertainment, ViewerTrack Most Watched TV Sporting Events of 2009, 17.
Notes
Introduction
1. Vigarello, “Le Tour de France,” 885.
2. Scholars often argue that the Tour did not become a global phenomenon until the 1980s, with the advent of regular international television coverage and the beginning of concerted efforts by the Tour’s organizers to “globalize” the event and its participant profi le. Lagrue, Le Tour de France, 166 – 76; Marks, Se faire naturaliser cycliste, 217– 24; Cronin and Holt, “Globalisation of Sport,” 26.
3. On contemporary business globalization, see Jones, Multinationals and Global Capitalism.
4. Debord, La société du spectacle; Kuisel, Seducing the French, 37– 69; Belk, “Hyperreality and Globalization”; Portes, “L’Horizon Américain.” On cinema’s place in such discourses, see de Grazia, “Mass Culture and Sovereignty”; Jarvie, “Free Trade as Cultural Threat”; Montebello,
“Hollywood Films in a French Working Class Milieu.” In their analysis of world’s fairs, circuses, and fi lm, Robert Rydell and Rob Kroes argue that the “Americanization” of global culture began as early as the mid- nineteenth century. Rydell and Kroes, Buffalo Bill in Bologne.
5. The term “long twentieth century” has even been applied by sociologist Giovanni Arrighi to encapsulate the entire 700- year period of state and capital formation, dating to the late medieval period. Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century. Scholte, Globalization, 62 – 63. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 2 – 3, 19. Michael B. Miller locates this sea change in the development of modern global shipping in the late nineteenth century. Miller, Europe and the Maritime World.
6. Works that look at transnational business and cultural relationships between France and America address this theme. See in particular Endy, Cold War Holidays; de Grazia, Irresistible Empire; Schwartz, It’s So French! .
7. Richard Holt and Georges Vigarello were instrumental in making the Tour de France a subject of academic inquiry and delved into the early history and cultural signifi cance of the event. Holt, Sport and Society in Modern France; Vigarello, “Le Tour de France.” The centenary of the Tour’s founding sparked renewed interest in the Tour, including two notable collections of essays contributed by scholars in history, media studies, sociology, and geography. Dauncey and Hare, eds., The Tour de France, 1903 – 2003; Porte and Vila, eds., Maillot jaune. Christopher Thompson has written the best and most complete treatment to date of the Tour’s history in the French cultural context, especially in the pre – Second World War period. Thompson, The Tour de France.
202
n o t e s t o p a g e s 3 – 8
8. Benedict Anderson’s seminal work on the development of “imagined” national political consciousness in the modern era informs this concept. Anderson, Imagined Communities.
Charles S. Maier employs the term “waning of territoriality” to characterize the continuing structural challenges posed by the forces of globalization to the traditional nation- state as a framework for identity since the mid- nineteenth century. Maier argues that nations continued to matter despite the “waning of territoriality,” since states continued to be prime actors in the process of negotiating and renegotiating boundaries — spatial, cultural, economic, and political.
Maier, “Consigning the Twentieth Century to History.” Anthony Giddens points to the creation of standardized global time in the mid- nineteenth century as a key moment when local experiences became separated from place on a global scale. Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 17– 18. A continuing debate among globalization theorists involves the timing of the emergence of “globalized” society. Most agree that the post – Second World War period heralded the emergence of globalized culture, but that the trend had antecedents stretching back generations or even centuries. Scholte, Globalization, 16 – 19.
9. See esp. Kuisel, Seducing the French. Victoria de Grazia identifi es the interwar years as the key moment when the French began to adopt new, American- style regimes of consumerism, business, and marketing. De Grazia, Irresistible Empire. Jacques Portes argues that French ambivalence toward “American” lifestyles and consumerism can be traced back to the early Third Republic. Portes, Fascination and Misgivings.
10. Trubek, Haute Cuisine; Schwartz, It’s So French!
11. Guyer and Bright, “World History in a Global Age,” 1052 – 53; Appadurai, Modernity at Large, 7– 19; Scholte, Globalization, 135 – 36; Osterhammel and Petersson, Globalization, 80 – 89.
12. On these seemingly paradoxical tendencies, see Meyer and Geschiere, eds., Globalization and Identity; Guyer and Bright, “World History in
a Global Age”; Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World. Jessica Gienow- Hecht’s history of Die Neue Zeitung, the infl uential German- language Munich daily brought into existence by the American occupation government and run by a hybrid German and American staff, argues that the German public winnowed out aspects of American press propaganda that did not fi t with its tastes and viewpoints. Gienow- Hecht, Transmission Impossible. Matthew Jordan makes a similar argument in his analysis of how the French assimilated jazz into their cultural identity between 1918 and the Liberation. Jordan, Le Jazz. Bor-derlands studies scholarship offers compelling interpretive models that demonstrate the agency of the local /peripheral in the ongoing process of negotiating and renegotiating cultural, political, and economic relationships and identities. Sahlins, Boundaries; Ford, Creating the Nation in Provincial France; Rogers, Shaping Modern Times in Rural France; Cole, “France as Periphery?”
13. Thompson, Tour de France; Dauncey, French Cycling, 143 – 50, 166 – 73, 252 – 54.
14. Philip Dine employs this term to encompass the uniquely French metaphorical linkages between sport and identity. Dine, Sport and Identity in France, 5 – 8.
Chapter One
1. Wiley, Dans la foule, 84.
2. Jacques Goddet (Tour director from 1947 to 1987), interview by author, tape recording, Issy- les- Moulineaux, France, July 2, 1999; Luc Derieux (Director of sports sponsorship, Crédit Lyonnais Bank), interview by author, tape recording, Paris, November 12, 1998.
3. Dominique Kalifa claims that while 100,000 spectators watched the 1903 Tour’s fi nal stage in person, L’Auto sold more than 130,000 copies of its special fi nal- stage edition in less than two hours. Kalifa, La culture de masse en France, 52.
n o t e s t o p a g e s 8 – 1 5
203
4. Tour de France offi cial website, http:// www .letour .fr /2005 /presentationus /chiffres .html, accessed December 5, 2009.
5. On the emergence of modern commercialized sports and leisure practices, see Cross, A Social History of Leisure since 1600, esp. chap. 10. On the importance of tourism and travel in disseminating sports within and across national boundaries, see Dine, French Rugby Football.
6. Henry Chadwick is credited with inventing the baseball “box score,” which he modeled on cricket statistical models. On Chadwick, box scores, and the communities of baseball readers in the nineteenth century, see Schiff, The Father of Baseball; Tygiel, Past Time, 15 – 22.
7. The importance of printed material in fostering community and a new “public sphere”
of interaction and discourse had antecedents in preindustrial society. Habermas, “The Public Sphere”; Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 189 – 226.