I got addicted to the Tour de France several years ago, when Lance Armstrong was in his prime. The Outdoor Life Network (now Versus) did an excellent job of covering it, with Phil Ligget and Paul Sherwin providing amazing commentary as the bikers sped through France. Each stage of the race takes hours to complete, but Ligget and Sherwin seemed to know how to bring out the drama, even through the mundane portions. They also helped out novice viewers like me to understand the subtle but complex strategy behind the race.
For those who don't know, the race is basically a three week bicycle tour through France, but what a tour. It goes through the burning hot summer countryside of Southern France, over the tallest mountains of the Pyranees and then, if that's not enough, over the taller mountains of the French Alps. Since he semi-retired three years ago, Lance Armstrong has been running marathons, and as you watch him, you know that this is just another training day for him.
The Tour de France seems to me to be the ultimate endurance event in all sports, without questions. It seems like running a marathon a day for three weeks, with the course going over the steepest inclines you can imagine.
The Tour de France reflects both the best and worst that sports has to offer. The best it has to offer is the sheer enormous test it demands of the human body, mind and spirit. It takes someone totally trained in all three areas to achieve success. I'm glad there are things like the Tour, because it inspires the best in people.
Sometimes, we don't want to make life challenging for ourselves, our children, our parishioners or anybody else, lest we think we push them too much. Yet it is these challenges that push our limits that show us who we are, and what we can achieve. I find myself guilty of letting people off easy. I don't demand enough as a pastor and teacher. I want to be pastoral, caring, loving, empathetic. Yet a challenge, a demand pushes people to grow better than anything else.
The Tour de France for me is a reminder that life is about pushing ourselves to our limits, going beyond what we even dream we are capable of. That is what God does with us time and again.
The dark side of the Tour is the other side of the coin. The competition in the Tour is so fierce, the demand to climb mountains in superhuman time has made cycling into the sport with the most flagrant and widespread doping scandals. The Tour has been marred for the past few years with doping scandals. The worst is when American Floyd Landis had to give up his victory crown in the Tour when they found testosterone in his blood.
Theologically, this scandal, along with all other doping scandals throughout sports is one of the primary examples of idolatry in our age. The ancient Hebrews knew all about idolatry. They made the golden calf, Ba'al when Moses was gone too long and their God seemed distant. They worshipped Ba'al only to find out that a golden image is not alive, it is not God. It did not save them - it only made them guilty of breaking their covenant with the real, living God.
These cyclists, like other athletes are much like these idols. More and more is expected of them. They are expected to be demi-gods, superhumans. They pressure must be enormous. Fans invest so much of themselves into these idols. Of course, if they are pushed too far, these idols just can't deliver. They are human, and limited to what they can do.
How hard it is to admit your are a human being with limitations! We want to push ourselves in so many ways to do more, to be more than we can possibly be. Yet time and again, we get knocked down off our pedestals, like the golden calf. The demi-god becomes the lowest of the low with one small positive test for performance enhancing drugs.
There is a balance to be achieved in sports, as in life. Pushing oursevles, challenging ourselves is healthy. But knowing our limitations is also healthy. It reminds me of the first road race I ran. Despite the warnings all the books gave me about starting the race too fast, I did it anyway. How cool it was to pass all those people. I felt on top of the world! Then I started to cramp in my side, and my legs started to feel heavy, and all those other people just passed my by like as if I were going backwards.
The good runner knows that you compete against yourself, not against others. You know your limitations, you stay within your limits, and, when the time is right, you push yourself a bit beyond. Your personal best is all you care about. Now, as I run road races, I'm just happy enought not to finish last. Actually, I don't think I would mind that, either.
Anyway, don't let the doping push you away. Watch the Tour if you get a chance, especially as they go through the Alps. It is incredible.
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