5 minutes with Tour's Matt Keenan
Tuesday, 01 July 2008 06:42
Let's be honest and say that Matt Keenan is not a household name .... yet. Over the past two European seasons, Matt has quietly gone about his trade as one of the few English speaking cycling commentators in the world. Matt's cracked the big-time now, co-commentating SBS's Tour coverage alongside the biggest names in cycling, including the likes of guru Phil Liggett, and working on some of cycling's other top races, including Paris-Nice and the Vuelta (Tour of Spain). We hit Matt with a few quick questions about the Tour, this season's hopefuls and whether this Tour will be a drug-free one.
We’re really happy to hear how well your cycling commentary career is going for you. The Tour de France is something you've always wanted to follow and now, you're not only following it, but you’re right in the middle of it.
The first time I really came across the Tour de France was in 1986, on a Saturday afternoon watching Greg Le Mond become the first non-European to win the Tour. Then that was when my dream started – to ride the Tour de France. As a kid I had lofty ambitions and dreamed of being the winner of the Tour, or even just to ride the Tour.
Twenty one years later, I got to be involved in the Tour in 2007, albeit from the other side of the fence in a commentary role, doing the lead in to Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen. It was surreal to be there amidst such a massive circus. It’s the biggest annual sporting event in the world. It actually took me probably the first whole week to come to terms with how big the race was and just to reel back and realise that at the end of the day, it's still just a bike race, so keep yourself in tact and under control.
Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen appear the consummate professionals on camera. What are those guys like off camera once the lights go off?
They're fantastic blokes. I've been so lucky to work with Phil Liggett. He comes out to Australia on a regular basis, particularly to do events like the Jayco Bay Cycling Classic in Summer, which is when I got the first chance to work with him. I feel as if he’s taken me under his wing a little bit, because the opportunities that I've had with ASO, the organizers of the Tour, have been through Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen. It’s been their recommendation.
I've done a couple of interviews with Paul Sherwen on radio, but the Tour last year was the first time I actually had the opportunity to actually meet him. On the first day he actually realized just how nervous I was and pointed out he and Phil were still nervous despite the fact that he and Phil had 60 years of experience between the two of them. But Paul Sherwen took it upon himself to show me a little thing he had on his video on his computer,five minutes before we got under way which was just a little bit of light relief, a comedy sketch. He was trying to help me relax. He was so supportive. Let’s face it, he didn’t need to be it’s a cut throat business. There’s not too many gigs going around for English commentators in the cycling world. So to have him that supportive of me, I was absolutely stoked. I couldn’t speak more highly of either of them.
The Tour de France is a race you know back to front. But this year’s Tour has a little bit of a different vibe to it.
It’s a completely different Tour this year to what we’ve been used to. Last year was very different because there was no distinct leader going into the Tour. This year it’s even more like that. Cadel Evans is the big stand out favourite, yet he's only been on the podium once previously in a Grand Tour and finished 4th in the Tour de Spain last year. He finished 15th in the Giro d’Italia back in 2002 and last year of course he was 2nd in the Tour de France. Now he’s starting in the race as the favourite. He hasn’t had that pressure in the past, at least not on the road.
We had that period for 7 years when Lance Armstrong just dominated and there was a clear figurehead and everybody knew what the pecking order was. The same in the mid 90's and in fact back to the early 90's with Miguel Indurain . This year there’s going to be a lot of wild cards and a lot of aggression.
The other thing that is so different in this year’s Tour is that there are no time bonuses. If you took the time bonuses out of last year’s race, it could have changed the whole shape of the bike race.
Another of Cadel's rivals is another Spaniard in Alejandro Valverde, who’s a prolific winner. He’s won stages of the Tour in the past. He’s won Spring Classics like the Liege-Bastogne-Liege. The thing is, it's going to be a very interesting Tour but really difficult for any one team to control because of the lack of that Armstrong-type figure.
There’s no defending champion at the Tour again, after the ASO's decision to ban the Astana team. Every year I get asked a lot about drugs in cycling and the way that the sport is presented to the public. The ASO and the UCI (the governing bodies of the sport of cycling) are doing the job necessary in order to make sure the sport is kept clean.
Yeah it's a Catch 22 situation. Every time you hear there is a drug test that someone has tested positive in cycling, you think "not again, how much longer can this go on for?" The good side of this is they are catching them, the big fish are getting fried. There are a lot of big names being kicked out of the sport over the last couple of years. We saw last year pretty plainly when Rabobank sent Michael Rasmussen home when he was in the yellow jersey within sight of Paris. Nobody is bigger than the Tour de France. No individual will be spared because no one wants to see the sport fall over as a result of a lack of credibility because of drugs within the sport.
I believe it’s not 100% clean it’s never going to be 100% clean. I don’t know that any sport can be 100% clean, but it’s a lot better than it has ever been in the past in my view. It’s a great sign that guys like Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich have been punished by the governing bodies of the sport, because they were the biggest fish in the pond and they were prepared to kick them out as well.
But I think the strongest step that's been taken recently was last year's decision by the ASO to send the entire Cofidis team home after Christian Moreni tested positive for testosterone. All of a sudden the peer pressure is changing; in the past the peer pressure was to take drugs, now it is don’t take drugs, because if you take drugs and you get caught – I get sent home from the Tour as well and I don’t want that to happen. So the peer pressure is heading in the right direction and I think that is going to be one of the most significant steps in terms of confining drugs in the sport.
Matt also gives us his Tour Predictions
