Close encounter of the cycling kind.
By David Tea
1 September 2008
It was a sunny day in Cork City. The Tour of Ireland was rolling it's way towards the popular Munster capital, on the final leg of the Tour. Being a fan of Cycling I made my way to the center of the city and decided to set up camp with my Nikon D70s and 100mm lense. Once there I waited like everyone else for the riders to appear. During this the first eventful situation happened.
A press photographer was complaning in general that I was in the poisition on a corner that I was and being only young-ish he seemed to think I was a push over. Before I could reply to him a Garda(policeman) decided to speak up and said "He got there before you and you can either move on or deal with it". Neadless to say he moved on, not too happy by the looks of it. Again before the riders even came a car decided that it would drive onto the course unaware that it was infact the course. Chaos insued with him attempting to reverse while oncomning Gardaà on motorbikes and some team cars were oncoming. He managed to get out of the way thankfully!
The leading group of about five riders made their way past the cheering and clapping crowds and were followed about three minutes later by the rest of the group. Being the first lap of the final stretch of the stage I decided to move to another location of the second pass. This went off pretty uneventfully with the flurry of colours riding pass the welcoming crowd.
My final location was at a corner before a hill which was behind the finish line and infront of the team area. Riders dropped out unable to attack the hills anymore or simply finished their bit for their team. It was here that I got some amazing shots of tired riders, enthusatic fans and riders still doing the 15km laps.
As the final lap approched, more people began to gater around the barrier and not many had cameras. The winner came through and was swamped by press but the overall winner was yet to come in. Marco Pinotti reached the finish to a huge cheer and was swarmed like he was made of gold. After the press, radio and media had their way with him he made his may towards the team area where he was greeted by team-mate and winner of the stage, Frantisek Rabon. This is the point at which I got the shot of them hugging and the look of pure joy on Pinotti's face.
Being in my hometown to be able to capture that moment was woth the day spent watching a sport with such a big following around the world and with such a range in the age of fans, and such a passionate and exciting sport overall.
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