PPC Cycling Tour of Greece: The difficulties and unknown words of the organization

An audience, however, which we must say is not very familiar with racing cycling.

Few were those who realized last year, the first year of the revival of the Tour, that it is a very big sporting event with many peculiarities, which makes it stand out from other sports events, starting with the constant – daily – movement of the race, resulting in the point at which it will be completed is hundreds of kilometers away from where it started.

1. In cycling tours there is no fixed installation, there is no fixed base!

A huge “caravan” consisting of hundreds of people – almost 400 – (not counting the volunteers), but also dozens of cars, trucks, buses, vans and motorbikes, constantly moves after the completion of one stage and before the start of the next . And mind you, in all of these we didn’t include the 19 teams, so add about 200 more people to the list!

2. The safety of the participants is a top priority

So you understand how difficult it is for the organizers to “command” all this crowd of people and vehicles, ensuring their safe and fast transportation from city to city, their accommodation and of course, the ideal conditions for the race.

3. Polydaidal Organizing Committee

In addition to the athletes and accompanying staff of the teams, there are the members of the organizing committee with an endless number of different responsibilities, the VIPs, the doctors, the sponsors, the commissioners, the judges, the press office, the photographers, the TV crew and of course the Traffic, with the most decisive role in terms of everyone’s safety, before, after and of course during the race.

The project, as can be easily understood, is extremely demanding and very difficult to manage, since “traps” lurk constantly and everywhere. The organizers fight a real – continuous – “battle” with every contingency that may arise during the race, after first having taken care to avoid the “classic” mistakes that can expose the round, such as for example the drawing of the routes (dangerous points etc. ), or hospitality (poor quality accommodations).

The… Chinese of competitive cycling!

Another “problem” is everything that the non-cycling fans do not know, i.e. those who try to follow the race, but do not understand either the complexity or the terminology of the sport.

There are many technical terms that the ignorant (TV) viewer hears and tries to understand what is happening.

Here are some important… “Chinese” of the highly spectacular sport of competitive cycling:

– Peloton: the main group of cyclists in the race.

– Steps: the daily racing route of a Round, either time trial (individual or team), where the athletes start one by one, or with a mass start.

– Breakaway: the athlete or group to break away from the peloton, usually at the start of each stage, taking a time gap and claiming victory.

– Preface: individual time trial race (up to 8 kilometers), with which many international tours start, such as this year the PPC Cycling Tour of Greece.

– Bunch Sprint: the sprint that the group does in flat stages to the final finish line and in which the sprinters of each team are the protagonists.

– Straight Sprint – Uphill Sprint: the points during a stage at which cyclists earn points for the red and orange jerseys respectively (point and mountain scores).

– Broom: the event car with which each stage is officially closed. It is called so because it collects (“wipes”) any athlete who has lost contact – for any reason – with the rest and decides to leave the race.