Since 1is January 2023, the former BikeExchange-Jayco team is now called Jayco AlUla. AlUla is the name of a new cultural destination in Saudi Arabia at the heart of a vast development project. This naming testifies to the country's desire to use cycling as a tourist showcase. This frequent phenomenon is increasingly present in the world of cycling.. All these strategies illustrate the place taken by the soft power in sport more generally.
The challenges of sport
“If France shines abroad through its thinkers, its scholars, its artists, it must also radiate through its athletes. A country must be great by the quality of its youth and we cannot conceive of this youth without a sporting ideal. It is with these words that General de Gaulle, in 1960, lays the foundations for a new, more aggressive sports policy, closer to politics than sport. In response to the Olympics (Rome, 1960) particularly disastrous for France (5 medals including 0 en or, 25The Tour of the Pays de Vaud competition nation), the French government understands the need to shine through the sporting achievement of its citizens.
Beyond simple personal consecration, it's a whole nation that shines behind its athlete. With the development of mass media, it is now inconceivable for a country not to use them. By implementing them, a country can propose an improved image of its territory, its culture and politics.
Whether radio or television, and now all media related to the Internet, the media helps make cycling, and sports in general, an open-air “stadium”. Events are no longer limited to the routes taken by the peloton. All, wherever we are, can we take the test. And this voice broadcast, the image or pen is a showcase of the region concerned. Since 8 July 1958 and the first broadcast of the Tour de France, it is a whole country more generally that benefits from these benefits. The landscapes borrowed in July are now known throughout the world. These landscapes convince thousands of people every year to visit our cities and countryside..
Geopolitics, the science of relationships
Beyond this simple tourist interest, the geopolitical issues revolving around cycling are legion. But before we look at a geopolitical analysis of cycling, let's define these two terms and pose the issues that arise from them. Jean-Baptiste Noé, historian and geopolitician, editor of geopolitics magazine Conflict defines this science as "The study of the relationship of forces in spaces. And also, its corollary, the study of mental representations, in space and time. To simplify this academic definition, we can therefore retain that geopolitics is the study of the confrontation of two entities. This term designates both a country, a cyclist alone, a team, the organizer of a race or even an equipment supplier. And in this study, we take into account the geographical criteria, policies, economic, social and sports related.
Regarding the stakes of sporting events and the reason for the study that we are going to carry out, it is Jean – Baptiste Guégan who gives it to us. He thus explains that since the games of ancient Greece, appeared in the 8th century BC (2700 years ago) until today's globalization, sport reflects international relations and helps to understand current challenges. We are therefore going to analyze cycling beyond the physical and competitive issue alone., by looking at the relationships and exchanges that lead to the construction of cycling as we know and appreciate it today.
To end this more academic and less sporty part, must address the topic of soft power. Soft power opposes the hard power. This theory advocates the use of military power or economic sanctions in order to impose one's will.. Par opposition, the soft power is the ability of a state to influence and direct international relations in its favor. It is the American Joseph Nye who theorizes these two key concepts of geopolitics in 1990. To radiate, States therefore have several tools for soft power to be mobilized like the media, culture and therefore sport.
Cycling, soil of soft power ?
When we look behind the scenes of cycling, we realize that nothing is the result of chance. Building a team, its naming but also the recruitment, are the conclusion of an in-depth reflection and are part of a broader communication strategy. The creation of a race and its environment, everything is calculated. Cycling takes, for some people, that the role of one political tool among many others. If we leave cycling only as a sport, the bicycle is the first means of transport used in the world, far ahead of the car. Politically, it crystallizes more and more opinions and occupies a considerable place in the development of a territory. It is inconceivable today not to talk about bicycles in the public debate. In our reflection on cycling, we will confine ourselves to sports practice.
Cycling as a sport has experienced an explosion for several years. L’application Strava gives us a whole series of numerical indications to understand the anchoring of this practice in our habits. More than 16 billion kilometers have been traveled and recorded on the application in 2021 across the planet. This figure needs to be qualified because it also takes into account the commute. France is one of the driving countries with almost a billion kilometers recorded (993,9 millions) in that same year.
These two statistics allow us to better estimate the share of the population receptive to professional cycling. It constitutes a reservoir of individuals potentially interested in following runners from all over the world.. Beyond the only practitioners, it is therefore hundreds of millions of individuals who are affected by the world of cycling. This audience reaches non-negligible proportions for countries around the world and private actors who can thus practice a policy of soft power which will surely be received by the population.
A file to understand everything
across continents, beyond the oceans but also in the village next to us, we will concretely study how this soft power expressed in professional cycling. Every first Friday of the months from February to July, I will take you on a journey through the geopolitics of cycling. From the land of a thousand hills that is Rwanda to the Champs-Elysées taken by the best riders during the Tour de France, we will try to understand the path and the discussions that build professional cycling. Using numbers, maps and other statistical tools, I will give you a behind-the-scenes picture of this sport that makes us all vibrate: cycling!
Meet on Friday 3 February to talk about Saudi Arabia and the Jayco-AlUla team.
