It may not have won this year’s Tour de France, but it must have been smiles all around at Saxo Bank last Sunday. It’s young superstar, Andy Schleck, finished in second place, while his older brother Fränk was not too far behind him in fifth. Only the unbelievably good Spanish rider Alberto Contador – all five feet of him – could defeat the younger Schleck.
I’m told that Saxo is trying to quantify how much sponsorship of its cycling team is worth, but apparently it generated more media coverage over the three weeks of the Tour than Coca Cola does around the world, which looks a sound return on its investment. Word also reaches me that loud and raucous singing broke out in Saxo’s hospitality tent on the Champs Elysées when the French organisers awarded Contador his prize for winning the race. “Has Spain’s national anthem been rewritten as some kind of Danish version of a rugby song?” I asked my mole. It seems not. The French played the Danish anthem by mistake. Skol!