September, 2010

Longo is still active in cycling as of 2010 and is widely considered one of the greatest female cyclists of all time. She is famous for her competitive nature and her longevity in a sport where some of her competitors were not yet born during her first Olympic competition in 1984.

The women only get two big races at the 2010 Worlds – the 23km Time Trial race later today and the 127 km Road Race on Saturday. And because Collingwood and St Kilda have apparently arranged for a repeat of last weekend’s AFL Grand Final, the crowd for the women’s big event of the week – the Road Race from Melbourne to Geelong – looks like it will be watched by a couple of blokes and their dogs.

Young people, feeling hopeless, began to tell each other to follow their ancestors and kill themselves like Purrukapali. But the real story said something else. The true story was about creation, how our first man died to create the Curlew, from the spirit of our first woman, his wife, and how the moon was created from the spirit of Purrukapali’s treacherous brother. This was the real story. How can we sort it out?” he asks. “How can we change the ending of the story?”

Frankly it was a crappy morning that greeted me, and I battled through a very dreary Sunday morning in Alice. A photographer friend suggested going for a drive to see if we could find a break in the cloud cover anywhere – we couldn’t…I’d had enough, so I started the trudge back to the car, when something flapped in a red gum over my shoulder, and I looked up to see two Grey Falcons studiously ignoring me – as is their regal right… what a bird!

The paradox of cycling as a profession is that, if we consider both the lack of long-term career paths and the high volume of commitment required to even begin a professional career, it seems highly undesirable…[T]aken as a form of employment, it would be hard to tell why the average professional has devoted themselves so intently to a career which they themselves recognise as tenuous and likely to have a negative impact in the long-term.

I do not wish to use the conference as a “soapbox,” nor do I wish “hijack” the world championships. I will not and cannot discuss events or circumstances related to the ongoing investigations and lawsuits involving Lance Armstrong and certain of his current and former business associates and teammates, including what I saw and heard during the relevant time periods.

I can’t think of a single incident in the past in which the Warlpiri residents of Yuendumu have not respected non-Warlpiri residents’ neutrality in such matters. They respect our right to be kept out of it. This respect is not reciprocated by “mainstream” society, that has the arrogant belief that it is entitled to interfere and dictate to remote Aboriginals how they should live their lives. The Intervention epitomises this arrogance.

The New Cycling pathways research project will release it’s first report; “I Wish I was Twenty One Today – Beyond Doing in the Australian Peloton”. The report’s focus is on the perspectives and experiences of Australian professional cyclists and their cohort as they relate to new directions for their sport. This study engaged with, and ultimately represented the views of those directly affected by anti-doping policy.

The best band of the night for mine on the night was the Iwantja Band from the remote South Australia town of Indulkana. They didn’t have the slick moves and showmanship of Papunya’s Tjupi Band but they sure had their musical chops down.

As I said earlier – if this is September then it must be Alice Springs.