Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 19, 1994 TAG: 9401190160
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By STEPHEN FOSTER staff writer
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
"The Tour DuPont is coming back to Blacksburg" for a finish, he announced at a news conference Tuesday morning.
The announcement came as little of a surprise, but with much fanfare inside the town council chambers.
On the wall hung four bicycle jerseys emblazoned with a gaping shark, a cheetah, a mountain goat and an eagle. The yellow jersey of the overall leader was up front on a mannequin's bust. A big banner hung across the bar and a television showed riders careening through streets, crashing into hay bales, raising their hands in victory.
To hear Steve Brunner, vice-president of Medalist Sports, the Tour's organizer, say it, Blacksburg couldn't have done Medalist a better deed in agreeing to be a stage finish.i
"We are coming to Blacksburg," Brunner said. "It's a blessing in disguise."
He spoke of the logistics that go into organizing a 1,050-mile event with 11 stages - "like a great jigsaw puzzle" - and of the "creative solutions" that went into making the change.
Originally, Stage 6 of the Tour had been scheduled to run from Lynchburg to The Homestead on May 10. The following day, the cyclists were to be transported by car to Blacksburg for a Stage 7 start that would have ended in Beech Mountain, N.C.
Last year's start in Blacksburg was "the best in the five-year history of the Tour," Brunner said.
But when the Tour and The Homestead weren't able to agree last week on specifics, the plan was changed. Now it's Lynchburg to Blacksburg on May 10, and Wytheville to Beech Mountain on the 11th.
"There are certain parts within a race that make it climactic," Brunner said, "and this is going to be one of them." The terrain around the town presents Tour organizers with "one of the few times that we have choices of mountains" for riders to climb.
While the exact course from Lynchburg to Blacksburg has yet to be worked out, the mountain climbs will "weed out the men from the boys," before the riders hit town.
When they do, Brunner said, they'll probably be spread out, and they'll come down Harding Avenue, sling through the curve of Owens Street onto Roanoke Street, turn right onto Main and then fly down the Mall onto the Virginia Tech campus for the finish.
"Virginia Tech . . . will be on television all around the United States," said Ray Smoot, Tech's vice-president of business affairs.
And so will Blacksburg.
"A community of 35,000 doesn't regularly get events like the Tour DuPont," and the Motor Coach Convention, Secrist said. "This truly is a community effort . . . that has enabled the town of Blacksburg to pull off some of these coups."
Of course, with the added exposure of ESPN television flashing a Tour finish into homes across the globe, comes added expense.
Where a start usually costs $5,000-$8,000 for the venue, local organizers will have to raise $30,000 for the finish.
"Everything that goes into the finish has to be paid for," said Beth Ifju, president of the Greater Blacksburg Chamber of Commerce. That includes meals, banners and possibly 80 hotel rooms. The chamber will seek out local businesses for sponsorships.
The town will contribute $10,000 to the cause, Secrist said.
But because Tech holds it graduation the following Saturday and many of the town's hotel rooms will be booked, the Tour worked out an agreement with Wytheville to put up most of the riders and staff after the race, and start Stage 7 there the next day.
Normally a finish could cost the local venue $80,000-$100,000 but, "Tour officials have worked with us to allow us to have a finish without all the responsibilities," Secrist said.
Ifju envisions a bountiful economic feast for Blacksburg: hotels with full rooms, restaurants with full tables, and a downtown with "everyone shopping to their hearts' content."
by CNB