The Man on the Scooter

 The Olympic Games are well underway in Tokyo and right now cycling events are taking centre stage. Whilst most sports leave me cold, I enjoy cycling, one of the very few activities that I do myself. I find the strength, stamina and daring of Grand Tour cyclists genuinely impressive. However, the Olympics cuts out pretty well all of this in order to have nearly all of the cycling events take place in a velodrome. So there are no grinding climbs up 1 in 8 ascents, no 70kph descents round hairpin bends, no breakaways and chasedowns... just one long sequence of cyclists going as fast as possible whilst going round and round. "How can we spice this up and add something to grip the wider public?" was the burning question.¹

The answer was a race called the Keirin, introduced in 2000. The competitors follow a man on a scooter (or "keirin") who, grim-faced and unwavering, chunters round the course whilst they follow, forbidden to overtake until the final three or four laps when they are permitted to sprint for the finishing line. Naturally, in the Ramblings household, all attention is on the little man (given that there is not a lot going on behind him, other than the cyclists gradually speeding up to match his gradually speeding-up scooter). Will he ever look to left or right? Will he glance over his shoulder with a "So long, suckers" kind of expression? Will he fall off, leaving a rogue scooter careering up and down the steeply banked sides of the arena while the cyclists scramble to dodge it?

How does one get this sort of job? It requires no physical skill but a fair amount of concentration. Do the Japanese hold intensive week-long exams where the candidates, wearing loose judo-style clothing and headbands, confront each other with glaring eyes and chest-beating? Must they be able to compose, and to illustrate though beautiful calligraphy, haikus in honour of cranes soaring in the morning mist over Mount Fuji? Is there a Keirin Master who asks baffling Zen-style questions such as "If a man falls off a scooter in a deserted arena, is he enlightened or merely bruised?"

This is the only sport where a non-competitor is actively involved. You don't get girls in jodhpurs cantering on a pony ahead of the steeplechasers, casually guiding her steed over the jumps whilst calling back "Come on, it's easy". The rowers, who of course train with a coach on a bike, barking instructions through a megaphone whilst tracking them on the towpath, nonetheless are quite capable of going up and down the pool without, say, a bloke wearing sunglasses in a motor-boat and swigging champagne, going ahead of them. A young woman on very high stilts is not required to encourage the pole-vaulters, nor do frisbee-throwers dance about when the discus-throwers begin chucking things.

My final problem with the Keirin is simply its pure artificiality. Nobody can take part in this sport unless they have access to a velodrome and to one of the little men with a scooter to hand. Anyone can ride a bike but almost nobody who does so will ever participate in a Keirin - it is strictly for the elite, a spectator sport rather than an all-embracing one. Which is why I couldn't care less if they dropped it and we never heard of it again. But if they introduced Keirin jousting, where two competitors ride in opposite directions for a few laps, one higher than the other, until that last lap where they meet literally head-to-head whilst brandishing spears ...yes, that one would definitely be watchable.

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1. I assume it was a team of stupidly over-paid marketing consultants who took on this assignment. They probably drooled over the fantastic commercial possibilities of ad-breaks during the interminable laps before the actual racing began.