comment by
Holger Gertz
With quotes from Brecht as food for the journey, you get through life quite well – and through the Tour de France. “The great sport begins where it has long since stopped being healthy,” wrote the playwright, and who would doubt this wisdom, who also this year watched the gaunt pedallers as they fought their way up the mountains. The Tour of Leiden over 21 stages, meanwhile made even more difficult by the challenges of a warming world. On the way to Carcassonne, the air temperature was 40 degrees and the asphalt temperature was 60 degrees. A refrigerated truck equipped with spray nozzles was launched by the organizers.