The Heroes are back from Denmark. Photographs are being processed and stories are being written.
We covered the races held in the circuit town of Rudersdal and Copenhagen’s Rådhuspladsen (City Hall Square) but for much of our visit we maintained Hero Headquarters in the Swedish city of Malmö. The train ride across the Øresundsbroen/ Öresundsbron bridge and tunnel that links Sweden to Denmark takes cycling fans, workers, lovers and Heroes through a modern engineering feat costing 5.7 billion dollars. Completed in 1999 the bridge provided a dramatic boost to the aspirations of the entire region, no more than the urban renewal of Malmö. On every journey the Heroes admired the technological colossus and its its train stations peppered with public art that was subtle and curious. Its influence on our reporting should not be underestimated.
The 2011 UCI World Championship had many stories on hand. In the coming weeks we will give you reports both small and large of Marianne Vos, Swedish Muesli, Giorgia Bronzini, The Honey Badger Mark Cavendish, The Squadra Azzura, Dream Cake, Santiago Calatrava, and Swedish Folkhemmet. Our work is of course dedicated to cycling but we imagine ourselves in the boots of Danish author and poet Hans Christian Anderson and his impeccable journey and tales of Sweden and much of Europe:
“Get on my back,” says the stork, our green island’s sacred bird, “and I will carry thee over the Sound. Sweden also has fresh and fragrant beech woods, green meadows, and corn fields. In Scania, with the flowering apple-trees behind the peasant’s house, you will think that you are still in Denmark.”
Pictures of Sweden, Hans Christian Anderson