Braking Bad by Richard Poplak

Author:Richard Poplak [Poplak, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-385-68082-0
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 2013-06-11T04:00:00+00:00

6.

The Kinshasa Criterium

The man doing circuits around the Kinshasa national stadium makes Carlos Sastre look like a foodie three weeks into a duck fat binge. He is so thin that his skin-tight gear flaps in the humid breeze. I suppose this is what outsiders assume most Africans look like—skeletal wraiths—but for the most part, central Africans are big people. This cyclist must be the slightest man in the region.

“Will you look at that,” I say to Kevin.

“Look at what?”

“The cyclist. Look at that guy!”

The stadium consists of a vast circle of rotting concrete ribs, and I find a patch of shade and watch the cyclist pedal by. He rides a yellow Trek, the bike that the company released to celebrate Armstrong’s 2001 victory. Kevin rolls his eyes. He doesn’t share the passion, although we watched the bulk of the 2011 Tour on assignment in Zambia, and he was screaming at the hotel television—“Climb, you skinny fucks. Climb!”

The next time the Congolese Sastre loops around, I wave him over. He looks annoyed at the interruption, but rattles toward me nonetheless.

“Bonjour,” I say.

“Oui?” says the man, whose name turns out to be Wally.

“Je suis un cyclist,” I say, pointing at my chest.

“Mm-hmm.”

In broken English and destroyed French, he informs me that he spends at least three hours doing loops here every day. He must wind his way out from the unpaved tracks of the outskirts, then along the new asphalt road that follows the Congo River as it heads toward the centre of this city of seventeen million. When he hits the broad busy boulevards built by the Chinese in one of the infrastructure-for-commodities deals that have come to define New Africa, he starts winding it up. Then he arrives here, in this perfectly paved kermesse, dust blown and garbage strewn but smooth as newly waxed legs.

“Does the national team race here?” I ask.

“Meh. Rarement, mais c’est possible.”

The Kinshasa Criterium—what a concept. Every year, the NGO Transparency International releases its Corruption Perceptions Index, which scores countries “on how corrupt their public sectors are seen to be.” The Democratic Republic of the Congo scores a dazzling 21 out of a possible 100, and ranks 160th in the world. That said, the Kinshasa Criterium, should it ever become a fixture on the global racing circuit, would have much to learn about filth from the series of criterium races that take place after the Tour de France—two kilometre or so circuits that whip through towns and villages across France and Belgium. In these contests, the custom is to secretly decide on a winner before the race starts. The point of the autumn criterium circuit, which does nothing to enhance a cyclist’s points ranking or to secure a position with a team, is to provide a spectacle, a sixty-kilometre-an-hour circus, and to pad the cyclist’s pocket with euros. The speed and the effort aren’t simulated. But the contest is. This is cycling’s version of professional wrestling.

It’s not uncommon for cyclists to wheel and deal on the bike during a race—money is promised, and results assured.

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