Women's Tour of Britain
There have been advance road closure signs around town for several weeksthe event they advertised finally happened this morning. My home townMarlow, in Buckinghamshirewas the starting stage of the Aviva Women's Tour of Britain this morning.
I got our younger daughters up and out fairly early, and we made our way into townfollowing the sound of the PA system to the high street, which had been transformed overnight into a scene you typically only see on televisionwith banners, hoardings, and an army of marketing people giving out concessions to the crowd. Within minutes of our arrival, we had blagged baseball caps, and inflatable stickswhich the girls delighted in drumming against themselves, each other, and anything nearby.
I took one look at the layout of the high street, and figured out that everybody was standing in the wrong placewith fifteen minutes until the start I grabbed the girls, and ran up the road, grabbing a place behind an advertising hoarding where nobody could push in front of us, or obscure our view. That didn't stop peopletrying.A television camera-man seemed to think that the crowd management rules didn't apply to him, and tried to setup his camera in the middle of the street. Twice.
After all the build-up, the cyclists finally set off, and I managed to get the above photo of the lead group. The girl in the rainbow jersey is Laura Trottmultiple Olympic and World champion. I'm not 100% sure of the rest, but we did see quite a few famous faces in the packincluding Sarah Storey.
Our girls shouted “GO LAURA!” at the top of their voiceschiefly because she was the only name they knew among the entire field :)I can't help feeling that this morning was a great example for the childrencoming at the same time as the Women's World Cup. The evening before last our youngest ran from the house with a football under her arm, and shouted “I'm going to be Fran Kirby I imagine later they will grab their bikes, and “be” Laura Trott