sharing the podium

“Get in, get in,” says the taxi driver. “Hurry. Something amazing is happening.” Two friends and I jump in and slam shut the taxi doors while the driver, a dark, plump, middle-aged man, turns up the volume dial on the radio. “It’s incredible,” he says in animated Spanish, “I reckon he’s going to win. They’re not going to catch him.”

Juan Mauricio Soler Hernández, 25 year-old Colombian cyclist, is close to winning the mountainous ninth stage of the Tour de France. A thousand miles away, in central Medellín, our taxi driver is close to tears.

This is the beauty of sport: the rare occasion in which the larger than life achievements of one individual touch and inspire another person who shares the same accent, same slang, same favourite foods, music, liquor and humour as the person achieving greatness. It's not patriotism so much as a common place in the world. The cyclist and taxi driver might be brothers or neighbours, and so for a brief moment the achievement and greatness is shared.

The driver’s excitement is contagious. Goosebumps tickle my back and when the driver tells me the cyclist’s story, I too find myself close to tears. I think of another time, ten years ago, huddled around a radio in the misty, Blue Mountains bush at dawn with my dad and his two brothers, listening to Pat Rafter winning the US open. We were five days walk from the nearest tennis court, but that didn't matter.

2007 is the first year Hernández has competed in the tour de france. Normally it takes a cyclist many years to reach his or her peak, but I need only look out the taxi window to see the big, steep advantage Hernández has on a mountainous course. He started cycling at age 17 and within a couple of years won several national competitions, without a coach, fancy bike, or sponsorship. There’s no such thing as a Colombian Institute of Sport, just determination.

An Italian cycling team scouted Hernández, and the rest is (a short) history. A week later he wins the spotty ‘King of the Mountain’ jersey in his very first tour de france, and for a brief moment he takes our taxi driver to the podium.