"Steve Gerdemann" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:
[email protected]...
> While watching the Tour de France when I was on vacation in Australia,
> I had dangerous thought.
>
> Australia already has some great rides what they need now is a grand
> tour. After all there is a tour of Italy, Spain, Germany, Georgia.
>
> Australia doesn't have any fun mountains but it does have heat and
> 4-wheel drive tracks. So instead of mountain stages there could be
> heat stages 100 miles in 40C heat. Then the 4-wheel track stages. For
> real fun you could combine both.
>
As Ken pointed out, there's the Tour Down Under, which is the top UCI stage
race in Australia at the moment. There's also the Tour of Queensland and the
Sun Tour, and even the Tour of Tasmania every now and again. But there are a
few problems with running a major tour in Oz. The two biggies are a) money:
the TDU is a government funded race and is very well organised, but it's
"only" six days); b) fitting it on the calendar: the Australian UCI stage
races fall outside the main season at the moment because it's simply too
hard to convince the UCI as well as attracting a top quality field to
Australia in (say) May. Disrupts the schedule too much.
Finding the right terrain isn't too hard. The Sun Tour does this pretty
well, as there enough mountains in Victoria and southern NSW to present a
sufficient challenge. They're not Col du Galibier standards, but there are
plenty of 10-15 km climbs in that area with nasty gradients. Just ask Baden
Cooke about Mt. Baw Baw
But the Sun Tour suffers because it's in October, and also because it's made
use of the split stage format for quite some time (road stage in the
morning, criterium in the afternoon). The Australians are used to it, but
most of the Europeans can't stand it. I tend to agree, as it's better to
have a road race with finishing circuits as crowd pleasers than to have two
separate events. It's a hassle for everyone. Maybe this is no longer allowed
now with the rules for a 2.3 classed race.
I'm not saying it won't happen, but there are some big obstacles to having a
10 day, highly ranked, well organised and well patronised Australian Tour.
Jeff
