The legendary celebration of the Tour de France risks turning into a sad farce. On one hand, the positive test of the German Patrick Sinkewitz prompted the dramatic decision of the public channels ARD and ZDF to suspend the broadcast of race footage. This doping revelation is all the more embarrassing because this cyclist belongs to the T-Mobile team, which championed the anti-doping fight at the start, in the wake of the Fuentes affair that already implicated Jan Ullrich, a former Tour winner, last year. On the other hand, the equally loud announcement by the president of the Danish federation about the exclusion of the national team of Michael Rasmussen, the current leader, effectively bars him from the World Championships next September and the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. The International Cycling Union and the Danish anti-doping agency indeed blame him for his management of a schedule over the past three months that allowed him to escape two surprise tests. A third infraction would have been considered a positive test, subject to a suspension ranging from three months to two years.
Beyond this news, which is somewhat sensational due to the summer period, these two cases, likely to see more developments, undoubtedly call for a clear reflection on the perverse links increasingly connecting sports performances, media, and the general public. From football to cycling, and even rugby, what sport today could boast of being healthily independent from giant global means of communication?
The individual stardom of athletes, invited year after year to surpass themselves “by all means,” aligns with the financial demands of sponsors. Ready to invest colossal sums to promote their products, they do not hesitate to select a human “support” quickly transformed into a hero for the brand’s needs. The legitimate but excessive enthusiasm of the general public further fuels this non-virtuous spiral: no enlightened amateur of the “little queen” is fooled by the dubious practices established within the teams. But ultimately, only the image of the performance matters, and the pleasures of the spectacle thus favor a tacit law of silence among these three players. Calculated in millions of euros, the broadcasting rights endure no disruption: concerned about a potential “loss” for the Tour, its organizer, the ASO group, had no difficulty immediately finding German, privately-owned channels to continue the broadcast. Without a sports department, the private channel SAT.1 nevertheless managed to capture nearly 500,000 German viewers from the first broadcast. A decision deemed “shameful” by the head of the Sports Committee at the Bundestag, Peter Dankert. One must welcome the “late” reaction of ARD and ZDF: the disengagement of these two public channels could trigger potential advertisers like Adidas, Audi, or Gerolsteiner, who are reluctant to see their names associated with illegal practices, offering a glimmer of hope.
With a 39% audience share and 5.4 million viewers for the first week, France Tรฉlรฉvision doesn’t seem to ask as many questions: it is true that with hundreds of thousands of gifts distributed by dozens of brands along the Tour route, it remains very popular. It is unfortunately necessary to be convinced: despite favorable times for sustainable development, good governance, and fair trade, in the battle between junk food and sports ethics, the outcome of the fight is hardly in doubt.
