Le Tour Day 2: Getting a taste for VIP

Enjoying the 2012 Le Tour prologue in the VIP section was an experience. But in a lot of ways it isn’t the Le Tour experience I’d expected. I was prepared to stand by the course for hours, brave the sun, ration my food and drink supplies and wait and wait to cheer on the riders. Instead I had free food and drink on hand, a TV screen to watch the coverage, a seat, shade and clean toilets on hand. (If you’ve ever attended any mass event, you know how important this is.)

So when my second day of Le Tour action rolled around, I was looking forward to slumming it like a true fan. Then a friendly Green Edge PR girl offered me another VIP pass.

Stage 1 started in Liege and finished at Seraing, about 15km away. So I intended to watch the start, then catch a train to Seraing to see the finish. On my way to check out the team buses again I ran into another Aussie. Hugh was also looking for the Green Edge bus so we went hunting together. The crew were really friendly and appreciated the support.

Today’s course did a loop through the city so Hugh and I watched the riders go by once, then raced over the footbridge and saw them a second time on their way out of town. We then spent a few hours walking around Liege before heading to Seraing, which was were the VIP section was.

After 10 minutes on the train it stopped on the tracks. There were no buildings. Just tracks and grass. But apparently this was the stop for Seraing. After walking across the tracks, around the back of some houses, through a field and a car park, we found a shuttle waiting to take people up to the finish line. You gotta give Le Tour organisers some credit. They know how to put on an event.

I was inside the VIP section when Dave, Nick and Luke – the Sydney boys I met the day before – spotted me from across the road. I managed to wrangle three extra passes so I wasn’t the only one enjoying VIP for the second day in a row. There were a lot more crew in the area today. Yesterday they were kept at the bus all day, but with the riders all out on the course today they had nothing to do. The families of some of the Green Edge riders were there too, as I found out when I asked Stuart O’Grady’s son who his favourite rider was and he responsed “my Dad”.

At the end of the race we walked around the media section (these VIP passes are gold) and watched Fabian Cancellara being interviewed. He wouldn’t come over to sign some autographs which was disappointing. We also met Scott Sunderland – an Aussie cyclist and former Tour rider who is working for SBS.

Back in Liege I joined the boys, and some team and crew members from Astana, to watch the Euro 12 final betweel Italy and Spain. It wasn’t much of a contest.