Night of Stars Team Presentation
16 January 2007
by
Andrew Bull
The
Night of Stars Team Presentation was held at the Adelaide Superdrome last
night with all the action, spectacle and warm conditions you expect at Tour
Down Under time in Adelaide.
A series of scratch races got the estimated 1500-strong crowd warmed up before the lights dimmed, the rock anthems started pumping out of the PA, and a smoke machine-induced haze began to fill the arena around 8.30.
The teams were all introduced in a spectacle of crisp, clean and brand-shiny-new lycra, bulging thigh muscles and matching socks.
Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen were on hand to question a handful of riders, providing light entertainment to all present in their tried and trusted style.
Incidentally, the Golden Apostrophe award for services to grammar goes to Liggett for referring to the plural of the TDU as Tours Down Under, a concept most Australian commentators seem unable to grasp. In contrast, Sherwen, while impressing us all by being able to speak to a handful of French riders in their mother tongue, went ahead and translated their responses to the audience without first translating his own questions, leaving listeners to guess what he was trying to ask from the riders’ out-of-context replies.
The presentation was capped off by a completely spontaneous sprinting match between Australian riders Robbie McEwen, riding for Predictor – Lotto, and Ryan Bayley, who just happened to be in attendance and was wearing his riding kit.
An Olympic gold medallist, Bayley went into the race expecting to win and, after both riders impressed the crowd with their ability to stop still on the steepest part of the track, went on to do so.
More racing action kicks off tonight from 5.30 pm in the East End of Adelaide as the Tour Down Under Classic and race one of the UniSA Women’s Criterium Series get underway.