Diary – 5 July 2003

On Saturday, I shall be beside the Eiffel Tower, hoping to see David Millar win the Prologue of the centennial Tour de France. Until last year, I’d long followed the Tour at a distance, but never in person. Then I was asked to write a history of the race, and to cover it for the Daily Mail, subsequently transferring to the Financial Times on not quite Beckhamical terms. My reinvention as a sportswriter – FT columnist, Tour historian, not to say lecturer on sport in English history at the University of Texas – has surprised me as much as anyone, but very enjoyable it is. The Tour in particular is the most extraordinary of all sporting events, and anyway, if one is going to cover any such event, France is the country to do it in. Three weeks around the hexagone only increases my already besotted francophilia, and not just because of the hotels and restaurants, though they are exhilarating enough for anyone who knows our own.