Local SoCal radio

"Kurgan Gringioni" <[email hidden]> wrote in
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The twins, AM690/1150.

Actually, it's more regional - they have 2 stations, one is in Mexico
w/ a 500,000 watt transmitter.

Anyways, sports talk radio. They were complaining that they'd been trying to get someone from OLN
on the phone for a week to do an interview about the TdF. They were ripping OLN pretty hard
because it's a station with a very large audience and they figured OLN would want the exposure.

That aside, the two hosts were very impressed with the Tour. One of the ripped the country of
France for awhile, but when it came time to talk about the fitness of the riders, they both got
almost reverential. One of them said "off the charts" when discussing the fitness aspect.

These are very much stick and ball sport guys. It's good to hear a mainstream program wish to talk
about cycling, even if it is only once a year. I remember the days of looking the the sports
section for results and they'd have top 5 in the stage and top 5 on GC and that would be it. Back
when Fignon was winning, it was only top 2.

So Lance Armstrong, love him or hate him, has been good for cycling here, at least in the
mainstream. The rednecks will still throw bottles at us, but to much of the mainstream, we're not
freaks anymore.

Yeah, and for all the whining about "cycling is not a sport" type articles, even [censored] like that is
better than being completely ignored.

Happened to catch the end of the show "Around the Horn" on ESPN on Monday. That show has 4
sprotswriters giving comments, and they get scores from the host Max Kellerman, and the winner gets
"face time" at the end to babble about whatever he wants.

Anyway, 2 winners that I've seen have used their face time for the Tour. First was Woody Paige from
Denver Post raving about Tyler; next was Kevin Blackistone from a Dallas paper raving about the OLN
coverage with Phil and Paul. That's time they could have spent talking about Kobe the rapist or
baseball or football training camps. And they're probably writing positive columns as well.

I suspect a combination of the pre-race hype of Lance going for 5 along with the unusual amount of
drama in the race this year contributes to this newfound enthusiasm. With some luck it will also
attract enough permanent new fans in the media so that cycling won't fade back into obscurity after
Lance retires.

NS

"Kurgan Gringioni" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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"Nev Shea" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

Happened to catch the end of the show "Around the Horn" on ESPN on Monday. That show has 4
sprotswriters giving comments, and they get scores from the host Max Kellerman, and the winner
gets "face time" at the end to babble about whatever he wants.

Anyway, 2 winners that I've seen have used their face time for the Tour. First was Woody Paige
from Denver Post raving about Tyler;

<snip>

Wasn't Woody Paige the guy who wrote one of those "cycling is not a sport"

a

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few TdF's ago?

How times change.

Some of the "cycling is not a sport" articles over the years have been written as humor, poor humor,
but not intended to be read as written. For example, the Sports Illustrated Page 2 article about
cycling mentioned earlier. Page 2 is where they put Hunter Thompson.

That said, I've actually heard more interest in cycling than ever before. I was watching my local
NBC morning show the morning when Lance took the yellow jersey and they actually talked about the
Tour (I couldn't believe
it.) and said that Lance was only 33 seconds from the lead. I called a bored guy at the news desk
expressing my appreciation that the Tour was mentioned, but saying that Lance was 33 seconds in
front, not behind. That woke him up and he sort of freaked. Of course they never got around to
correcting themselves.