Aussie's Tour de France
Updated: 2011-07-26 07:57
(China Daily)
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Sorry, forgive my French (haha), and my coming flood of parochialism, but when Cadel Evans stood on the podium at Champs Elysees in that famous yellow jersey on Monday (China time), it was another sporting mountain climbed by the island nation of my birth.
The Tour de France title now assumes a place alongside the country's multiple cricket, rugby and field hockey world cup crowns, Olympic and world championship gold medals in track and field and swimming, numerous Davis Cups and, of course, the fabled America's Cup.
It's hard to explain to a person not born under the Southern Cross why we are so passionate about sport. Mainly because we don't know either; we just are. On a chilly Melbourne day two weeks ago, about 90,000 people turned up to watch an Aussie Rules match between archrivals Collingwood and Carlton.
On a ridiculously balmy Saturday in Beijing last week, about two dozen expats and some Chinese friends came out for an Aussie Rules game all the way down at Xiao Wu Ji. The next day, many of them were back at it again playing 20-20 cricket at the also-distant Dulwich College.
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However, the 34-year-old Evans, who nearly died when he was kicked in the head by a horse at the age of eight, well and truly put the icing on the cake with what some are hailing as Australia's greatest sporting achievement. I rate the America's Cup victory by Australia II in 1983 as No 1, but Cadel's right up there. His solo performance to stay within touch of the ultra-talented Schleck brothers, Andy and Frank, was Herculean and set up his Tour winning time trial on the event's penultimate day.
People with much larger brains than mine (called historians) claim Australia emerged as a nation unto itself on the bloody beaches and hills of Gallipoli during World War I.
With all due respect to those brave, young men; I reckon Australia gained a greater sense of nationhood on the playing fields of the world where a young and insecure nation sent out its best to play the best and, sometimes, emerged victorious.
I believe it gave that great big island of cast-offs a sense of belonging on the world stage.
Maybe we Aussies spend too much time concentrating on sport and much less on important domestic and international matters, but that's not our ethos, not in our sinews and blood.
A local joke says one of the shortest lists in the world is the one comprising Australian philosophers.
We don't care, because we are good sports and one of ours just won the bloody Tour.
Tym Glaser is a sports copy editor who planned to sink more than a few VBs in Cadel's honor last night. He can be contacted at tymglaser@hotmail.com.