This could well be a landmark twelve months for Ballarat when it comes to national exposure, a new benchmark when multiple elite level sports will have been televised from Ballarat across the country. There were the Matildas, the Ballarat Cup and of course the highly anticipated AFL reigning champions playing their first home and away game later this year. But this weekend it is all about cycling and the best road talent in the country on two wheels.
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This year SBS and Fox sports will beam the images of the Sunday event around the country in what wil be a boon for cycling fans but as any promoter knows, offers priceless coverage of just how good Ballarat can look on a summer Sunday and how well it can run an event. This is even more critical in a year when the current contract ends and there will cities around the country keen to snap up such a high profile event.
In the decade that Ballarat has held the Road Nationals cycling has hit the mainstream, helped in part by the spectacular performances of stars like Cadel Evans who graced the podium here in a finish that must rank with the 1956 Olympics for putting Ballarat on the sporting map.
Ballarat has ridden the tide of this rising popularity and continues to capitalise on the higher spending demographic it attracts. The second year of the Gran Fondo on the slopes of Buninyong shows the potential in a whole world of amateur participation that runs alongside elite sports. Think of the the thousands who flock to South Australia for their flagship cycling event, Tour Down Under or the actual millions of riders who throng the roadsides in the European Grand Tours.
All this is good business but it also says a lot about a city to outsiders; dynamic, attractive and more than capable. To the city itself there is the ineffable sense of civic pride; a sense of coming of age, of making its mark that has no small influence on how a city sees itself, how it grows and prospers.
January’s combination of entertainment, sport, art and music and good living are superb example of what growing regional city can offer both to the visitor, those who have experienced the revelations of a tree-change or those long term locals who have tasted its new-found confidence.
Cycling Australia is looking to expand the event and we can go no further in promoting the city’s cause than to repeat the praise of cycling legend Phil Liggett in saying; Ballarat is the home of Australian Road cycling.
