A Beautiful Evening
Last night I attended a reception hosted by Consul General of Belgium in New York, Filip Vanden Bulcke, as part of the week-long series of events building up to the excellent Grand Fondo New York this Sunday. It was a spectacular evening, held in a Fifth Avenue apartment, 10th floor with park views, that, in a city where real estate is considered the official religion, would qualify as a sacred cathedral.
Raúl Alcalá, the first Mexican to race the Tour de France and winner in 1987 of the Young Rider Classification, among many other accomplishments, was in attendance, looking, at 60, as trim and fit as he was in prime. Raúl spoke to me with evident pride about the current crop of Mexican racers, headed by Issac del Toro, promising that there are many others in the pipeline. He attributes this new-found success to a national program that takes young Mexican riders, beginning at 15-years old, to spend months racing in Italy. “For example,” he said, “At 20, del Toro already has five years of European experience in his legs.” Warm and friendly as ever, Raúl is going to race the UCI portion of the GFNY, now one of only two UCI races in the USA: I’m sure he’ll put in an excellent performance. It was a pleasure to see him again.
When I realized that Tomas Van Den Spiegel, the CEO of Flanders Classics, organizers of the Tour of Flanders, Gent-Wevelgem and Omloop het Nieuwsblad, was in attendance, I made for him, parting the crowd like a mad field sprinter. Van Den Spiegel, who at 7’1” was clearly a professional basketball player, has deep passion for cycling. He said something that I’ll never forget: “I am not really a promotor, rather consider myself a preservationist, a protector of an important Belgium legacy. To maintain our traditions yet introduce modernity are two different threads that must be carefully woven together. I hope we do it well.” I think we can all agree that the 111-year-old legacy of De Ronde is in wonderfully capable hands.
It was also a thrill to meet Kim Clijsters, the four-time Grand Slam winner (three-times US Open plus the Australian Open). Disarmingly modest and charming, Kim added to what really was a glam evening.
Uli Fluhme, organizer, along with his wife Lidia, of the GFNY was there, looking surprisingly collected and calm given that his massive event was right around the corner. “Go big or go home” must be their family motto given the sheer scale of closing all those roads in the Greater Metropolitan New York area. Truly a monumental accomplishment. Not content with simply doing that, the duo has added a UCI race onto their program, intelligently eschewing the UCI.1 and UCI.HC categories (highest level pro racing) in favor of the UCI.2 which is pro-am, and was my favorite playground for race promotion. I told Uli that they can be the ones to rescue our collapsed domestic road racing circuit with their formula of combining mass participation with top international competition, combined with their incredible organizational skills and strong stomachs.
I strongly believe that the constant push for those higher category UCI stages races were what ultimately hollowed out our racing scene. It would have been so much better to have focused, as I conveyed to Ambassador Vanden Bulcke, on Belgian style one-day races, which are much more digestible and affordable for an interested yet inexperienced American public. Perhaps the wonderful evening could become the start of a Belgo-American collaboration that would properly organize the great American racing circuit that we’ve all been working on for so long.
Ultimately, my greatest joy of the evening was to be able to thank the Belgians for all their country has done for American, Canadian, UK, Australian and New Zealand racers. To have opened their homes and racing culture to us for over 70-years, and to continue to do so. They have been incredible friends to us, and for that, and for the marvels of their races, we all owe them our heartfelt gratitude.
