Tour de Pologne – Polish Cycling’s success story

Few sporting events make the Polish public as proud and passionate as a French-language named cycling race that used to be an afterthought and gets no respect compaired to the Tour, Giro and Vuelta.

#sports #sport #journalism #journalist #sportsjournalist #sportsjournalism #dziennikarz #dziennikarzsportowy #kolarstwo #cycling #tourdepologne #TDF #uciworldtour #langteam #CzesławLang

hello and welcome back to the channel uh now you wouldn’t think of Poland as a cycling country and you wouldn’t think of a town like V Vita where I come from population just 21,000 as much of a sporting venue I mean we don’t we have never had a uh top slide uh Sports Club in any of the major team sports but yesterday we had one of those rare occasions where vad Vita became a an important part of a sporting country when the sixth stage of the to P started in the papal town and then finished in bovina uh now to the PO why is our main cycling race not called uh the tour of Poland or vski in our native language well because the first edition was held in 1928 and the the organizers then simply copied uh the tur of France title and uh put it in to French because back then French was still the predominant uh administrative language in European Sport and the thing is for the first 65 years of its life the to of P was a feeder race it wasn’t too big of a national race in terms of Eastern Europe and in terms of amateur cycling I mean it certainly never was the third of France or the jur the Italia or the ver espia the the three big tours but still it was a considerable um level of an event but starting in 1948 the main cycling event in this country and throughout the Eastern block was the Peace race uh which passed through Czechoslovakia East Germany Poland and in later Years also uh the USSR and and then once com communism fell the peace race lost its statue because it was no longer the main U the main race uh for those from the Eastern Blog the Riders who could only immigrate uh in order to turn professional it was uh no longer necessary to compete uh simply because many of them like chess Lan the now director of the to to the PO U could now switch uh to European Western European pro teams more easily uh but the tour the P from 1993 it has been organized by Lang team by Mr Lang who was an Olympic silver medalist in 1980 and back then like it was once and every Blue Moon Moon that Poland hosted a big Continental or Global even uh sporting event and certainly we we never had had enough money back then to properly organize it at a top level but Mr Lang who wrode in Italy for a few years uh in the late 80s early ’90s he had all the connections from Italy and from France to gather up the cash and year by year more and more top Riders started coming to the to the pon even though if back then it was held during the first week of September at the same time as the Vela and by 2005 it was part of the UCI protor now know known as the world toour which is the main series of the big races and it is a wonderful polish success story that this after fought of an of a race in the past 30 years became an an integral part of the cycling season globally because um as far as the one week as the one week long National tours the in betweeners between uh the the grand Tours and the major Monday races The Monuments uh I’d say that it is the best organized by far it’s a broadcast to over a 100 countries these days and and also even though Poland has never been known for high mountains like uh I mean we certainly don’t have uh the big altitudes that Riders do during the tour of Switzerland which was an another major onewe race but still in just the terms of both the fans on on route but also of the opinions of the Riders themselves and the teams it is always worth coming to the to the toour the P uh and and also uh even though we only won it three times in my lifetime Cesar Z in 2004 raal m in 2014 and M kovski in 2018 it has been a big part of the Renaissance of Polish cycling in the past 25 years I mean we had our first cycling Olympic medal this Century uh last week Daria pulik and track cycling won the Sila and and also I mentioned Mi and the RAF Rafa won the tur of FR King of the mountains the Poke the poker dot Jersey miow was the world road race champion in 2014 something that has previously been done by Rashard shovsky and leety but at an amateur level back then there were two World Championship Road Racers and we of course participated in the amateur race and uh and really the cycling culture in Poland thanks to the to to the P has grown so so much in the past 30 years and together with this growth and infrastructure combin that was coupled with our entry into the European Union you might very well say that Poland is now not just a province of the cycling world but one of the major players uh and today is the final stage of the tour with the Finish Line in kov and uh in about an hour’s time in about an hour’s time I’ll be on my way to CL to cover it and uh yesterday at the vad V stage I did some materials uh and you will see those on Tik Tok and possibly on this YouTube YouTube channel also uh next week and uh and also uh later today we might have our first ever to the France winner Kat is leading in the general standings with one stage to go in the women’s tur of FRS which uh only became a thing in the last few years uh only a 19c Advantage but still we have huge hopes that the national the national anthem will be played tonight at Al us uh it’s even if you’re from a small town it is one of those great sporting occasions that makes you feel alive makes you feel proud of your country but also proud as a fan that because cycling then again is one of the last few remaining Sports uh in which you don’t really need to pay for a ticket to be a part because you just have to be by the root of the stage even though uh VIPs can ride the full stage uh in one of the sponsor casts uh so that is it for me for now but as I’ve said there will be full footage and full report of yesterday and today later on