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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-02-17 Daily Xml
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TOUR DOWN UNDER

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (17:28): I rise to congratulate the government on its wonderful Tour Down Under, which was celebrated in January of this year, and particularly to pay tribute to Mike Turtur, race director of the Tour Down Under and the person who came up with the original idea back in the late nineties. The first Tour Down Under hit Adelaide streets back in 1999. That was the same year that Lance Armstrong won the first of his record-breaking seven Tours de France. It was an absolute delight to have Lance here this year to participate in our Tour Down Under.

Lance's involvement this year took the race to another level. It has grown each year from a race that attracted Australian teams and some of the best overseas teams, to last year, when we won ProTour status, attracting the very best teams and the very best in-form riders to come to Adelaide and compete. This year not only did it have the ProTour status that we had worked so hard to achieve but it also had the great man, Lance Armstrong, in his first race back after retiring from cycling at the end of the 2005 Tour de France. He was a major drawcard. Not only did he attract many overseas and interstate visitors, but also hundreds of journalists and photographers from around Australia and around the world. As a former sports journalist who worked at the ABC, I believed in this event from the very first day and used to sell it to news and sports directors interstate, in both radio and television within the ABC. I guess the ABC is always an easier place to get a run for a new sporting event than perhaps the commercial media outlets.

Right from the very beginning, the ABC has always given the Tour Down Under good coverage. I congratulate the Grandstand crew and our own John Thompson-Mills here in Adelaide, who has now become the cycling guru of the ABC, after I left following the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, which I was very proud to cover here in our home country.

This year, for the very first time, we saw the Tour Down Under achieve front and back page coverage interstate and overseas. As I mentioned, it is really hard to cut through and get that sort of media coverage. We all look at the Stawell Gift that gets media coverage each year. Oakbank gets media coverage each year, as does the Sydney to Hobart race. Why is that the case? Because of tradition, and tradition is a hard thing to build, particularly with a race that is just 11 years old.

What we have done now is put it at the forefront in the minds of newspaper editors and sports directors at television and radio stations around Australia, and we have really bitten through into that interstate market. So, papers like the Melbourne Herald Sun and the Sydney Daily Telegraph are taking the Tour Down Under seriously. We can thank Lance Armstrong for cutting through and making sure that the race got big coverage this year, which will then follow on next year, the year after and the year after that. It is a world-class event, a fantastic event that not only puts Adelaide on the map but generates huge economic benefits for the state.

The economic figures are not out yet, but I can give some anecdotal evidence of some of the events held during the week of the Tour Down Under. It is not just a bike race: it is a festival. Phil Liggett addressed the South Australian Press Club—a sell-out crowd, one of the club's biggest ever functions here in Adelaide. I met two triathletes there who I then ran into around the course. They would just bob up at different events. They were at the Legends Night, which nearly 2,000 people attended, and where Lance Armstrong was interviewed. What a lovely, charismatic guy he is. He just won the audience over, like he won over the people in the streets of Adelaide and surrounding areas during the week.

The people of McLaren Vale, Willunga and Aldinga came out in force again this year to back the Tour Down Under and to celebrate the fact that it comes through our region each and every year, throwing up the greatest challenge to riders in Willunga Hill. This year, for the first time, those riders had to compete over Willunga Hill twice instead of the normal one trip over the top of the hill.

Lance Armstrong was very complimentary in what he had to say about Willunga, McLaren Vale and Aldinga. We were proud to present Alan Davis—the eventual winner—with a six-litre bottle of McLaren Vale premium shiraz, which is what McLaren Vale is famous for. I would like to thank Jock Harvey and his partner, Emily Shepherd, for providing the wine, the bottle and, of course, the label, to promote McLaren Vale wine around Australia and around the world.

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