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ListsAn Unholy Alliance
ODDY, Nicholas (2023) An Unholy Alliance. In: 29th Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science, 2-5 July 2024, University of Strathclyde, UK.
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| Creators/Authors: | ODDY, Nicholas |
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| Abstract: | The relationship of cycling to sport and competition is long and binding. Cycle sport was established in the brief ascendency of the velocipede bicycle in the late 1860s and was to become almost the defining feature of cycling in the 1870s and 80s. This was the period of the high (or ‘ordinary’) bicycle, a machine gendered male and conceptualised around increasing speed over all other considerations. In the UK of the early 1890s cycle competition on the public road had become so toxic to other road users that its own legislative bodies moved to ban it, establishing the more discreet, but equally competitive ‘time trialing’. This paper is in the form of a historical overview of the relationship of cycling to competition and sport during seismic changes to the nature of the activity on the public road in the UK during the 20th century, as it went progressively down market while becoming a genuine form of utility transport, its subsequent eclipse by automobilism and its resurgence in the 21st. This paper considers the legacy of what it argues is an unholy alliance between cycling and competitive sport framed up in the gender conventions and social class structures of the 19th century, which inadvertently contrived, and continues to contrive against cycling in the UK (at least) as a near universal day to day form of utility transport. It takes, as a case study in the present day, the hosting of the UCI World Championships in Glasgow in 2023 and the ‘Festival of Cycling’ that was created around it as an exemplar of the current (mis)understanding of cycling that is a direct inheritance of the way cycling was conceived some 160 years earlier. |
| Output Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
| Additional Information: | Overall strand content and speakers below. A critical appraisal of the potential legacy effects of Cycling World Championships on transport and recreational cycling INTRODUCTION: 1,480/1,500 characters including spaces Summer 2023 saw Glasgow and Scotland host the 2023 UCI World Cycling Championships where a record number of disciplines, countries and athletes all come together for the largest event of its kind. Global and local stakeholders spoke directly of the legacy that the event would have on tourism, economic development and, of course, number of children and adults cycling. This symposium will be multi-disciplinary in nature as speakers come from three different discipline backgrounds – Design History, Sport Economics and Health. The chair (Harrington) had a unique view of the championships from multiple viewpoints - as a volunteer, a spectator, a physical activity researcher and a city resident who should be a beneficiary of any legacy. She will lead this inter-disciplinary symposium which will take a critical appraisal of the potential of a legacy from such an event. A provocative opening on the historical relationship between cycling and sport (Oddy) will be followed up with data from the World Championships in Bergen, Norway in 2017 (Denstadli) and supplemented by an exploration of behaviour change in relation to making a change towards cycling for transport or recreation (Harrington). This symposium will be of interest to ECSS members involved in the planning, delivery or evaluation of large sporting events. It will also attract interest from cycling enthusiasts and those with a healthy skepticism of the rhetoric around legacy effects of big sporting events. An unholy alliance – cycling’s relationship to sport 2,404 with biog/3,000 characters The relationship of cycling to sport and competition is long and binding. Cycle sport was established in the brief ascendency of the velocipede bicycle in the late 1860s and was to become almost the defining feature of cycling in the 1870s and 80s. This was the period of the high (or ‘ordinary’) bicycle, a machine gendered male and conceptualised around increasing speed over all other considerations. In the UK of the early 1890s cycle competition on the public road had become so toxic to other road users that its own legislative bodies moved to ban it, establishing the more discreet, but equally competitive ‘time trialing’. This paper is in the form of a historical overview of the relationship of cycling to competition of sport during seismic changes to the nature of the activity on the public road in the UK during the 20th century, as it went progressively down market while becoming a genuine form of utility transport, its subsequent eclipse by automobilism and its resurgence in the 21st. This paper considers the legacy of what it argues is an unholy alliance between cycling and competitive sport framed up in the gender conventions and social class structures of the 19th century which inadvertently contrived, and continues to contrive against cycling in the UK (at least) as a near universal day to day form of utility transport. It takes, as a case study in the present day, the hosting of the UCI World Cycling Championships in Glasgow in 2023 and the ‘Festival of Cycling’ that was created around it, as an exemplar of the current (mis)understanding of cycling that is a direct inheritance of the way cycling was conceived some 160 years earlier. Nicholas Oddy is Head of Design History & Theory at Glasgow School of Art. He is Chair of the Cycling History and Education Trust, which is responsible for the National Cycle Archive housed at the Modern Records Centre in Warwick University, UK. He has been involved with academic cycling history since giving a positioning paper on Kirkpatrick MacMillan at the First International Cycling History Conference in 1990. He was also active in founding the Cycling & Society symposia a decade later. During the 1990s and 2000s he was consultant to Phillips and Bonhams for their annual Cycling and Cycling Memorabilia sales. His most recent publication is the ‘The Visual Culture of Cycling’, part 7 in The Routledge Companion to Cycling (2022). Can hosting the World Road Cycling Championship inspire more people to pick up the bike? Evidence from Bergen 2017 2,959/3,000 characters Cities planning to host major sport events often expect to generate economic, infrastructural, social, and health benefits. The prospect of positive payoffs is often emphasised in applications for financial funding for the events from the public sector. A much-debated issue is to what degree such events are capable of increasing participation in sport and physical activities in the population. Organisers contend that major international sport events are catalysts for sport participation and physical activity. This research investigates the existence of such effects related to the 2017 World Road Cycling Championship that was hosted in the city of Bergen, Norway (population approx. 280,000). In the years leading up to the Championship, representatives of Bergen municipality emphasised impacts that had the character of externalities. In the application for governmental funding from the Ministry of Culture, it was argued: “The Championship will be used to stimulate and inspire more people to choose an active life-style, so that it creates several long term impacts, and in many ways…strengthen the use of cycling as a transportation mode, and hence contribute to reduce pollution.” To achieve these objectives, the Championship was surrounded by campaigns and programmes to stimulate residents’ motivations and attitudes toward cycling as a means of transportation and exercising. These included a: • Bicycle education programme for children (2015–2017) • Public health programme called Cycle to the World Championship (2017) • Cycling World Championship for older people (2017) • Teaching plans for schools (2016–2017). Pre- and post-event residential surveys show that the Championship had limited impact on local resident’s motivation to exercise. Although some 10% of the sample reported higher cycling frequencies in the year following the Championship, this was a temporary effect that could not be traced back to the event. Neither did bicycle traffic data indicate increased cycling activities. We found that cycling frequencies were higher in the years ahead of the Championship. Also, data from National Travel Surveys for the period 2014 to 2022 shows that the modal share of cycling for daily mobility in Bergen remained stable at 3% throughout the period. This is lower than what is observed for other major cities in Norway, and, also below the national average. Taken together, the Championship was considered a big success with respect to spectator numbers and, as we reported, creating a festival atmosphere in the city but that was not enough to initiate a modification of behaviour. Jon Martin Denstadli is Professor in Marketing at NTNU Business School. His research focuses on sports events, transportation, and environmental attitudes/behavior. This work is in collaboration with Harry Arne Solberg a Professor in sport economics / sport management at NTNU Business School at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Exploration of the potential legacy effects of the Glasgow 2023 Cycling World Championships using behaviour change theory 1,692/3,000 Behaviour change towards cycling for transportation or recreation is complex and requires actions on multiple levels. In this symposium the author will use an auto-ethnographic approach by putting her own cycling story at the centre of her argument. She herself is a legacy product of a large cycling event – when the infamous 1998 Tour de France Grad Départ visited Ireland. The effect of seeing this spectacle in person laid latent for many years until a constellation of different actions happened to and around her. She will map her journey from rural Ireland (where she was told bicycles were dangerous) into recreational, competitive and commuter cycling onto the socio-ecological model (individual, interpersonal, community, policy). She will demonstrate the need for a systems-approach to be in place to supplement big sporting events. Actions within the system would also fit with popular behaviour change theory including those represented in the COM-B (capability, opportunity, motivation – behaviour) model. The author will then identify the campaigns and programmes that happened in Glasgow in preparation for the 2023 World Championships that may indeed set the stage for a legacy effect, but also what might be missing. Deirdre Harrington is a Senior Lecturer in Physical Activity and Health at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. She has over 17 years of academic research experience under her belt in Ireland, the US, England and now Scotland. During this time she has developed and evaluated studies that use physical activity in the prevention of obesity and type 2 diabetes. She is the lead of Strathclyde’s inter-disciplinary research and practice Active Mobility Hub. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Cycling, cycling sport, road use, Glasgow Festival of Cycling. |
| Schools and Departments: | School of Design > Design History and Theory |
| Dates: | Date Date Type 22 December 2023 Accepted |
| Status: | In Press |
| Related URLs: | |
| Event Title: | 29th Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science |
| Event Location: | University of Strathclyde, UK |
| Event Dates: | 2-5 July 2024 |
| Copyright and Open Access Information: | This paper is to be delivered in July 2024 and therefore is still work-in progress. |
| Output ID: | 9347 |
| Deposited By: | Nicholas Oddy |
| Deposited On: | 01 Mar 2024 16:16 |
| Last Modified: | 06 Jul 2024 03:30 |
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