For the first time it will be possible to listen to the radio communications between runners and cars during the most prestigious round of world cycling
A vast majority of the squad -specifically 17 of the 22 teams participating in the Tour de France– has accepted that fragments of the radio conversations between cyclists and team managers by the earpiece. The organization of the ‘Grande Boucle’ thus wants to promote the show and transparency towards the fans.
This model has already been a success in Formula 1 and promises strong emotions during this Tour de France in order to understand the behavior of some teams. Only five of them have refused to accept the 5,000 euros that the organization will pay by squad to be able to retransmit their radio messages.
The French teams of Groupama FDJ and Cofidisjust like him Jayco australian, the Alpecin belgian and the Movistar spanish han refused the offer of the organization so that its messages can be known. The three teams with higher budget of the peloton -Ineos, Jumbo-Visma and UAE-, on the other hand, have not had major problems in giving access to the organizers to broadcast their messages.
It all started with a documentary
It is curious that Movistar, which started these ‘Big Brother’ in the world of cycling with his documentary ‘The least expected day’‘, has refused to leave. We assume that the Spanish squad will have the intention of saving audios and stories for the aforementioned self-produced series and which already has four seasons.
The team led by Eusebio Unzué surprised locals and strangers especially with the broadcast of the first season of his documentary -corresponding to the year 2019- where you can see in first person the tense relations between Mikel Landa, Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde. Those videos were tremendously commented within the peloton and subsequent editions have wanted to sweeten certain controversies within the team.
The Tour de France, seeing the tremendous success that that series had and the recently released one that they have made for Netflix, wants to give more drama to some broadcasts that to a certain extent had been squared. The organization wishes to involve more the spectators who, through the radios, will be able to be judges and part of the team’s decisions during the race.
The penguin debate
You have to remember that earpieces were introduced in the late 1990s and since then there has been a vigorous debate about its permanence. In fact, the UCI tried to remove them in the late 2000s after complaints from spectators. However, the teams argued that they were strengthening security measures in the peloton due to unforeseen events on the road and that is why they earned to continue.
The gala round always was a pioneer in this sports broadcasting with the inclusion of cameras on motorcycles and helicopters since the 1960s. Since 2015, cameras have been added Go-Pro cameras on the bikes of some cyclists allowing us subjective shots that especially leave spectacular images when falls occur.
Now the Tour was not satisfied that there were only spectacular images and bet because the sound is a fundamental part to get the most out of the competition. In Formula 1, the teams have learned over the years to give their radio messages in a cryptic way in the face of the help they provided to their rivals. We will see what happens in the Tour in this first experimental phase, but I’m sure more than one will accidentally discover their cards.