It's a while since we had one of these.
This week's entry is a little-known gem selected especially for Bierzo Baggie.
No Tengo Tiempo
by the Spanish electronica ensemble Azul y Negro.
The track was used by the Spanish television network TVE as the signature music for its coverage of La Vuelta Ciclista de España (Tour of Spain) from 1982 to 1985, including the infamous 1985 Tour. That was the year when Scots rider and legendary climber Robert Millar led the race with only two stages to go.
Millar should have won the Tour that April, by all standards of performance, and according to the established customs of racing etiquette, but his eccentric personal style (sometimes mistaken for arrogance) left him with a fatal lack of friends in the peloton.
Millar was far too good to care about such details - his combative approach generally depended simply on putting pedal to the metal on the steepest hill he could find and leaving his opponents panting far behind in his wake.
But on the penultimate stage down from the mountains of Segovia that year, Millar's luck ran out. First a puncture, and then a delay at a level crossing (some say the railwaymen conspired against him) left him dangerously isolated and far off the back of the field.
The Spanish teams attacked (some would say unsportingly, but fantastically effectively) and Millar lost over seven minutes, enough to give the yellow jersey to Pedro Delgado, who won the race after the customary uneventful cruise into Madrid the following day.
Delgado went on to win the Tour de France, achieving national superstar status some years before Miguel Indurain, but found his reputation tarnished by a positive drugs test in the fading light of his career.
Applying the Marion Jones principle, that now makes Robert Miller Vuelta champion for 1985. According to me, at least.
Millar, meanwhile went on to win a couple more famous stages in the Tour de France, earning the King of the Mountains title several times, but, unlike Delgado, he never won a major tour. He now lives in obscurity on the Scottish island of Islay.
Meanwhile, back to the music. It's post-punk electronica at its best and worst. Think Kraftwerk, mixed with Yazoo, and sung in Spanish. Que aproveche.
Thanks for that Nigel (although I can’t seem to get the song to play for some reason).
Read the Robert Millar book. He was lucky that the author wrote about him in such a respectful way as he certainly upset a few people on the way. Thoroughly enjoyed the read and can only marvel at what the guy achieved in the toughest and most competitive of all sports. And to think that when I was in my teens I had to scour the newspaper with a magnifying glass to find out where Millar was in the Vuelta or in the Giro. At least they used to put the Tour de France on Channel Four.
Many people in Spain still remember Millar, probably more than in the UK. He’d definitely be on my top ten list of British sportsmen from the 20th century. The Irish cyclists Roche and Kelly were legends as well. To put in perspective what they achieved you’d have to imagine some Frenchman or Spaniard coming over and becoming world class cricketers or something like that. The UK produces decent track cyclists and time trialists but a top climber like Millar was a complete one-off.
As I said most people of my age seem to remember him over here so it’s no exaggeration to say that he was a household name on the continent. The little earring and the 80s perm helped. On the other hand the last three winners of the so-called “sports personality of the year” are unheard of outside the British Isles. Zara who?.. so what does she do then?
“Azul y Negro” are still going by the way.
Posted by: bierzo baggie | Sunday, 23 December 2007 at 09:20 AM
Just disturbing the tumbleweed to update this post by posting up a link to the YouTube video.
If you keep your eyes open towards the end (can you stand this music that long?) you'll see the cyclists racing down to an exciting sprint finish along the Avenida Marítimo in Almería.
Well, it looks like it anyway. It could be just about anywhere in Spain, in fact.
Happy New Year, y buen año nuevo a todos ...
Posted by: Rockhammer | Monday, 07 January 2008 at 10:37 AM
Zara who ? Over the holidays, I read an excerpt of an interview with English rugby star Mike Tindall, the devoted squeeze - and soon to be husband - of Zara Phillips.
'I'd love her if she were a shelf-stacker at Tesco's,' he said, gamely. 'But it just so happens that she's the daughter of Princess Anne.'
Truly, I tell you, it's heart-warming stuff.
Posted by: Rockhammer | Monday, 07 January 2008 at 10:41 AM