The raw speed of the sprinters as they position themselves, the team lead-out-man, burying himself with his last bit of energy to present the sprint specialist with a clear run to the line. The impossibly gruelling climbs, gradients that normal people would find difficult to walk up, and yet these icons of the cycling world, speed up the mountains, round the hair pin bends, pulling on the handle bars as they drive on through the spectators crowding the road.
These spectators are a spectacle in themselves having camped for a couple of days to find a position to view the race they are hyper by the time the riders arrive. Some dressed in pantomime costumes run alongside the riders for a few yds, eager to capture the limelight as the cyclists peddle by. The climbers carry the names of the gods of past races, it is the climb that sets the mortal from the immortal and it is the climb that ones jaw drops open as the leader finds more energy to slowly draw away to stamp a mark on their opponents.
Dropping down the other side of the mountain, hairpin bends, as on the assent, now are a stamp of the courage of the man who can descend in a way that makes one truly fear for their lives. A drop that would lead to awful injury or death if he misjudges anything, makes a fast decent only for the very brave or very stupid.
Impey carries on his shoulders the South African dream. A dream, which in another context is dying as your most famous person begins his own final journey.
Would the outcome of the Rainbow nation have been different if Mandela had been a younger man and contested the longer race ?
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