Accusations, praise and plenty to discuss: the Netflix series "Tour de France: In the peloton" has made the world's biggest cycling race accessible to an even wider audience.
One sign of its success is undoubtedly the fact that the streaming platform has commissioned a second season and the film crews will once again have exclusive access to the current tour. Not everyone among the riders is enthusiastic.
Screenplay
To maintain continuity, the same eight teams are taking part as last year. The teams include Bora-hansgrohe and Jumbo-Visma with Tour winner Jonas Vingegaard. The teams will receive around 50,000 euros, while the organiser ASO and French television will receive five times that amount. The second season will focus a little more on the riders' private lives. "We want to show the people more than the professional cyclists," said producer James Gay-Rees. There will again be eight episodes, which will possibly be released in 2024 - similar to this year - around one month before the Grand Départ.
Exceptions
In order to have Mark Cavendish's possible stage record in the series, one team accompanied the British superstar. His Astana team is not one of the eight teams that the series is centred around. The film makers will not be able to tell the record of a total of 35 Tour stage wins. Cavendish retired after a crash on the eighth stage. At least that leaves a dramatic story.
Criticism
As in the Formula 1 series "Drive to Survive", the makers are accused of exaggerating things. Belgian star Wout van Aert in particular feels that he has been misrepresented. The series gives the impression that he has his own interests in mind rather than the Tour victory of team-mate Vingegaard. "For me, the series aims to create excitement," said van Aert. Bora pro Nils Politt agrees: "They took exactly the sequences that the viewers want to see. I can completely understand Wout saying that it's not like that and that he doesn't agree with it. I wouldn't be in my situation either."
Praise
Many professionals praise the series and find that it brings cycling closer to the viewer. In particular, the point that cycling is not an individual sport but a team sport is conveyed well. Although sprinter Jasper Philipsen also sees himself overdrawn at times, he praises this: "Of course they have created a bit of a character. But I think they did a good job and I have nothing against it." In the series, the Belgian is portrayed as a scatterbrained professional who sometimes forgets parts of his equipment or arrives late.
Doping
Probably the biggest point of criticism is the issue of doping. This is completely ignored. The fact that a rider, Nairo Quintana, was subsequently disqualified because a banned substance was detected in him, does not feature in the series. After all, the Colombian had finished sixth in the 2022 Tour.
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