Giant of Provence
By Leslie Varsha


This year, Tour de France organizers decided that the stage before Paris should finish atop the “Giant of Provence,” Mont Ventoux.  While that may have made the Tour the most epic race ever, it created an epic challenge for our Versus crew.

In the morning, we were met by high winds that put the transmission of the satellite feed in jeopardy. Despite the fact that the TV compound was at the bottom of the mountain, French Television decided to place the transmitter at the top of Mont Ventoux where the wind was causing trouble.  We don’t have our own cameras for the race (we use the French world feed).  Eventually, we got a feed, but technical difficulties ensued.  About an hour into our live coverage, French Television worked out the kinks in the feed and our show started to go smoothly. 

The finish on Mont Ventoux also meant that we had the most “Epic” road trip of the Tour de France going to Paris.  The riders took a plane, but we took our cars!  We drove over 400 miles (seven plus hours) to make it to the final stage on the Champs-Elysees.  Logistically speaking, it was a miracle that everyone and every piece of equipment made it to Paris.  It has been a wild odyssey through France for the Versus crew, but once we arrived in Paris we quickly forgot about the long hours and the long drives and felt a great sense of accomplishment that we made it through the Tour.  That and we were all looking forward to the wrap party!