Nails at the Tour de France - Nails at the Monte Carlo Rally
07/27/2012
The facts of the 14th stage of this year's Tour de France are well known. On the difficult Mur de Péguère towards Foix in the Pyrenees, some "cycling fans" scattered nails on the road and around 30 riders were promptly affected by defects, including defending champion Cadel Evans (Australia). Evans had to change his rear wheel three times! Croatian Robert Kiserlovski crashed so badly that he had to abandon the race with a suspected broken collarbone. Evans was only able to catch up again due to the fairness of the other favorites around the Englishman Bradley Wiggins (Sky), who slowed down on the descent. The Foix public prosecutor's office immediately launched an investigation.
Such nail attacks are nothing new in sport on public roads - not even in motorsport. In 1975, the Monte-Carlo Rally made headlines around the world. Piles of nails lay on the asphalt of the special stage "Burzet-Burzet" in the Département Ardèche. Not carpet nails like at the Tour de France - no, really big nails with large heads, the kind used by craftsmen for all kinds of repair work.
Zwischengas reported on this nail attack in detail in the series "100 years of the Monte Carlo Rally" in the chapter "Rally Monte Carlo 1975 - Munari and the very last nail" . There are parallels to the Tour de France. But in 1975, the locals fought back against being forgotten "Le pays meurt - le rallye pass!" and used the media impact of the rally as a multiplier for their justified cause. At the Tour de France, morons wanted fun, just fun! Another chapter of our fun society can be written.
