This book analyses the Tour de France over its long history both as France's most prestigious and famous sporting event and as a European and, increasingly, a world cycling competition. This study provides interdisciplinary and varied perspectives on the sporting, cultural, social, economic and political significance of the Tour within and outside France, giving a comprehensive and authoritative investigation of up-to-the minute thinking on what the Tour means, now and in the past, to competitors, to France, to the French public, to the cultural history of sport, and the sport of cycling itself.

This edited volume gathers together studies examining various aspects of physical culture in literature written in French from Europe and around the Francophone world. We define “physical culture” as the systematic care for and development of the physique, and interpret it to include not only sport in the modern sense, but also all the athletic activities that preceded it or relate to it, such as bodily forms of exercise, leisure, and artistic creation. Our essays pursue diverse interpretive approaches and focus on texts from a wide variety of periods (medieval to the present) and genres (short stories, novels, essays, poetry) in order to consider the fundamental—yet highly neglected—place of physical activities in literature and culture from the French-speaking world. Some of the questions the essays explore include: Does the genre “sports literature” exist in French, and if so, what are its characteristics? How do governments or other political entities mobilize sports literature? What role do narratives about sports—especially the creation of teams—play in the construction of national, regional and/or local identities? How is physical culture used in literary works for pedagogical or ideological purposes? To what extent do sports performances provide a metaphorical and figurative discourse for discussing literature and culture?

Bringing together many of the most influential scholars in sport and media studies, this book examines the diverse ways that media influences our understanding of the world’s most important sport events, dubbed sports mega-events. It sheds new light on how these events have been changed by the media, and have, in turn, adapted to media to further their brand’s cultural influence. Focusing on the central concept of "mediatization" – the permeation of media into all spheres of contemporary life – the book presents original case studies of major events including the Olympics, FIFA, rugby and cricket World Cups, Tour de France, Super Bowl, World Series, Monaco Grand Prix, Wimbledon, and many more. Written from a truly international perspective, this is a seminal work in sport and media studies that reveals the growing political, economic, and cultural influences of sport mega-events in contemporary society. Sport, Media and Mega-Events is an essential text for any course on the sociology of sport, event management, sport marketing, or featuring a cultural, communication or media studies approach to sport.

When Henri Desgrange began a new bicycle road race in 1903, he saw it as little more than a temporary publicity stunt to promote his newspaper. The sixty cyclists who left Paris to ride through the night to Lyons that first July had little idea they were pioneers of the most famous of all bike races, which would reach its centenary as one of the greatest sporting events on earth. Geoffrey Wheatcroft's masterly history of the Tour de France's first hundred years is not just a hugely entertaining canter through some great Tour stories; nor is it merely a homage to the riders whose names -- Coppi, Simpson, Mercx, Armstrong -- are synonymous with the event's folly and glory; focusing too on the race's role in French cultural life it provides a unique and fascinating insight into Europe's twentieth century.

The nearly 150-year-old sport of cycling had its first competition in France in 1868. Soon afterward, the need arose for purpose-built cycling tracks because of poor road conditions at the time. Racing on blocked off pieces of street or grass soon evolved into racing on special tracks called velodromes. This development marked the split into what are still the two main forms of cycling competition: road racing and track racing. Initially, track cycling was more popular in terms of public attention and money to be earned by racers, but this gradually changed in favor of road racing, which has been the most popular form of cycling since at least the end of World War II. The Historical Dictionary of Cycling takes a closer look at the sport, as well as discussing the use of bicycles as a means of fitness, touring, and commuting. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, photos, a bibliography, and over 500 cross-referenced dictionary entries on cycling's two main disciplines—road and track—as well as brief overviews of the other forms of cycling. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about cycling.

Over the past decade, a growing body of academic literature on the economics of road cycling has been amassed. This book is the first volume to bring together a majority of the academic research and knowledge on the economics and management of professional road cycling. Each chapter treats a particular economic aspect of the sport, from organizational structure to marketing, labor, game theory, and competitive balance. By discussing the existing research and complementing it with the newest concepts, ideas and data on professional road cycling, this book sets an agenda for further academic research while providing insights for all stakeholders in cycling: governments, cycling's governing bodies, team managers, race organizers, sponsors, media. Furthermore, the unique characteristics of the sport of cycling explored within this text inform broader management and industrial organization research, as they extend analyses of team labor, broadcast revenue generation, and sponsorship financing models. This book is equally of interest to academic researchers, students studying sports economics, and policy makers, such as race organizers, team managers, and sponsors.

Tourism is one of the largest industries in the world, yet leisure travel is more than just economically important. It plays a vital role in defining who we are by helping to place us in space and time. In so doing, it has aesthetic, medical, political, cultural, and social implications. However, it hasn't always been so. Tourism as we know it is a surprisingly modern thing, both a product of modernity and a force helping to shape it. A History of Modern Tourism is the first book to track the origins and evolution of this pursuit from earliest times to the present. From a new understanding of aesthetics to scientific change, from the invention of steam power to the creation of aircraft, from an elite form of education to family car trips to see national 'shrines,' this book offers a sweeping and engaging overview of a fascinating story not yet widely known.

Contemporary society is highly media-saturated, and no sector more so than sport. Drawing on case studies from the Tour de France to fitness apps, this book introduces the concept of ‘mediatization’ and examines how media - historically and currently – are significant drivers for social and cultural change in sport. Utilizing different analytical approaches, case studies illustrate how so-called legacy media have historically been involved in the establishment of the institution of sport and have persistently been heavily involved in structural changes in the same domain. However, digital media currently add significantly to the development of a more complex picture of globalized interdependencies and still growing media presence in all aspects of the everyday lives of both sporting organizations, athletes and audiences/fans. The book seeks to eschew media centrism, acknowledging that changes are not only ’driven’ by media but also related to other macro-social forces of change, such as globalization, commercialization, and individualization. Offering a new analytical framework, Sport and Mediatization enables students and scholars in the transdisciplinary field of media and sports studies to analyze and understand the influence of media in a much more complex environment.

“The holy grail for disillusioned cycling fans . . . The book’s power is in the collective details, all strung together in a story that is told with such clear-eyed conviction that you never doubt its veracity. . . . The Secret Race isn’t just a game changer for the Lance Armstrong myth. It’s the game ender.”—Outside NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD The Secret Race is the book that rocked the world of professional cycling—and exposed, at long last, the doping culture surrounding the sport and its most iconic rider, Lance Armstrong. Former Olympic gold medalist Tyler Hamilton was once one of the world’s top-ranked cyclists—and a member of Lance Armstrong’s inner circle. Over the course of two years, New York Times bestselling author Daniel Coyle conducted more than two hundred hours of interviews with Hamilton and spoke with numerous teammates, rivals, and friends. The result is an explosive page-turner of a book that takes us deep inside a shadowy, fascinating, and surreal world of unscrupulous doctors, anything-goes team directors, and athletes so relentlessly driven to win that they would do almost anything to gain an edge. For the first time, Hamilton recounts his own battle with depression and tells the story of his complicated relationship with Lance Armstrong. This edition features a new Afterword, in which the authors reflect on the developments within the sport, and involving Armstrong, over the past year. The Secret Race is a courageous, groundbreaking act of witness from a man who is as determined to reveal the hard truth about his sport as he once was to win the Tour de France. With a new Afterword by the authors. “Loaded with bombshells and revelations.”—VeloNews “[An] often harrowing story . . . the broadest, most accessible look at cycling’s drug problems to date.”—The New York Times “ ‘If I cheated, how did I get away with it?’ That question, posed to SI by Lance Armstrong five years ago, has never been answered more definitively than it is in Tyler Hamilton’s new book.”—Sports Illustrated “Explosive.”—The Daily Telegraph (London)

In this highly original history of the world's most famous bicycle race, Christopher S. Thompson, mining previously neglected sources and writing with infectious enthusiasm for his subject, tells the compelling story of the Tour de France from its creation in 1903 to the present. Weaving the words of racers, politicians, Tour organizers, and a host of other commentators together with a wide-ranging analysis of the culture surrounding the event including posters, songs, novels, films, and media coverage Thompson links the history of the Tour to key moments and themes in French history. Examining the enduring popularity of Tour racers, Thompson explores how their public images have changed over the past century. A new preface explores the long-standing problem of doping in light of recent scandals.