KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia’s cycling community shares the same passion as cycling nation France, says Tour de France organiser and license holder Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO).
This was shared with The Vibes following the success of the world’s prestigious amateur cycling race, L’Étape by Tour de France, held in Desaru Coast, Johor on June 4.
Its senior project manager Dara Rith Uy said he witnessed incredible cooperation between the local government, public authorities, organisers as well as corporate partners and brands saying that “it is important they work together to give the best to the participants.”
The positive collaboration was translated into the large number of participants registered for the event, which came close to 5,000 – making Malaysia the second largest L’Étape by Tour de France series after France, which recorded 14,000 to 15,000 riders.
“Malaysia has a very good turnout with almost 5,000 riders, it was absolutely huge.
“If you take the average number of L’Étape participants, it should be around 1,500. This means that the Malaysian edition has three times the average number and indicates that Malaysia has a very strong cycling community,” said Uy.
ASO is well-known for owning, designing, and organising top international sporting events.
Other than cycling with Le Tour de France, they are also involved in four other major sports – motorsports with the Dakar, sailing with the Tour Voile, mass events with the Schneider Electric Marathon de Paris, and golf with the Lacoste Ladies Open de France.
Uy added that Malaysia exhibits unique features when organising a successful sporting event such as L’Étape by Tour de France due to several reasons.
“The brand that we represent is the Tour de France. Usually, when you take a world event such as Tour de France, fans fly to France to see it. But this time, Tour de France is travelling all over the world to see their fans.
“Then, as we talk about figures for participants… 5,000 is a lot. This means we contributed to creating and expanding the cycling community in Asia.
“Finally, for local authorities and local businesses, it was very important to reactivate the economy after the period of Covid-19,” the French added.
ASO has organised nothing less than 30 Tour de France events in 20 countries including Brazil, Mexico, Columbia, Thailand, and Malaysia.
The most common issue they faced when having an open road cycling tournament is facilitating a full-day road closure, which often resulted in collisions.
“From what I can see all over the world, it can be very hard to close the road for a full day due to the local activities. Cycling is a very dangerous sport. If you watch any cycling events, accidents are common.
“Coming from an organisation that has organised many sporting events, we realise that having a perfectly-organised event would be hard to do, although we always look for things that can be improved.
“Whereas as a sportsman, you also need to be cautious of your surrounding. Keep in mind that L’Étape is an amateur event, participants around you are also amateurs, so their reaction on the road is not the same as the professionals.”
Seeing that L’Étape is the biggest event post-Covid-19, Uy said it is also important for ASO to be part of the economic reactivation and the impact it brings on the local community.
Above and beyond, ASO hopes to see L’Étape Malaysia as a yearly event.
“We never work on a short-term basis. This is because we are representing a tour that has been around for more than 100 years. We are looking at 3, 5, or 10 years for Malaysia. The idea is to work for the middle and long term.
“I cannot imagine that fans of Tour de France will disappear in the next few years. We want to give them the taste of the tour again,” Uy added. – The Vibes, June 11, 2022
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