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LES ECHOS

Tweet de France: Cycling 3,430 Kilometers In 140 Characters

Is cycling up and down the Alps, and around every other corner in France, not tiring enough? Now cyclists are expected to tweet in between exhausting stages. And from their bikes?

Tour de France 2011 (Team Garmin-Cervélo)
Tour de France 2011 (Team Garmin-Cervélo)
François Thomazeau and Olivier Villepreux

The 2011 Tour de France has been hit by the full force of the Twitter invasion. Since Lance Armstrong led the way three years ago by announcing that he would communicate with his fans and the press via Twitter, almost every single top cyclist has by now created a profile on the social network.

More or less directed by the communication staff of their own team, the cyclists try to be informative or humorous. Some, like defending champion Alberto Contador of Spain, often make staff members tweet on their behalf.

Among the boldest twitterers, Manx racing cyclist Mark Cavendish posted after Philippe Gilbert's victory at Saturday's first stage of the Tour de France at the Mont des Allouettes : "Gilbert humbled everyone with the equivalence of pulling down his pants to reveal …" His profile description is clear : "Fast sprinter, faster talker. Disclaimer: May cause offense."

The cycling "tweetoshpere" particularly likes British humor. Two years ago, panic had spread after UK champion Bradley Wiggins posted he had revelations to make that would "shake the whole world of cycling!" It was a joke. Since then, the Olympic champion has distanced himself from Twitter.

The most hooked on the network is undoubtedly the very promising American talent Taylor Phinney, who isn't in this year's Tour. Lagging behind in the last stage of the Tour de Romandie, the cyclist described his last 100 meters on the stretch of Geneva asphalt by tweeting from his bike … a real Live Report!

"Eventually, I will do it too"

Still, some old timers still resist the Tweeter invasion. Jens Voigt, 39, the oldest cyclist of this year's Tour, has not yet created his Twitter profile. "Twitter is great when you want to communicate without anyone interfering. But I'm kind of reluctant in using it because I know that if you tweet while you're angry or in a hurry, it can be read all the way to China and it stays there forever! I am a little old-fashioned, I like paper, I need to hold something in my hands to make sure it's true."

Yet, the German cyclist remains one of the last not to have a Twitter page. The Scottish racer David Millar, 34, finally followed the flock. Last Sunday, he created his Twitter profile. "I know," says Voigt. "Stuart O'Grady did the same two days ago. These youngsters are putting me under pressure to create my own Twitter account. Eventually I will do it too…"

For now, the "Boeing" just has a web page created by his fans, jensvoigtfacts.com, on which his admirers give him credit for imaginary performances such as: "Jens Voigt has a handlebar on his Swiss Army Knife." To which he answers: "That's cool. I'm flattered. After all, we are all here to entertain people…"

Read the original article in French

Photo - Team Garmin-Cervélo

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Society

Genoa Postcard: A Tale Of Modern Sailors, Echos Of The Ancient Mariner

Many seafarers are hired and fired every seven months. Some keep up this lifestyle for 40 years while sailing the world. Some of those who'd recently docked in the Italian port city of Genoa, share a taste of their travels that are connected to a long history of a seafaring life.

A sailor smokes a cigarette on the hydrofoil Procida

A sailor on the hydrofoil Procida in Italy

Daniele Frediani/Mondadori Portfolio via ZUMA Press
Paolo Griseri

GENOA — Cristina did it to escape after a tough breakup. Luigi because he dreamed of adventures and the South Seas. Marianna embarked just “before the refrigerator factory where I worked went out of business. I’m one of the few who got severance pay.”

To hear their stories, you have to go to the canteen on Via Albertazzi, in Italy's northern port city of Genoa, across from the ferry terminal. The place has excellent minestrone soup and is decorated with models of the ships that have made the port’s history.

There are 38,000 Italian professional sailors, many of whom work here in Genoa, a historic port of call that today is the country's second largest after Trieste on the east coast. Luciano Rotella of the trade union Italian Federation of Transport Workers says the official number of maritime workers is far lower than the reality, which contains a tangle of different laws, regulations, contracts and ethnicities — not to mention ancient remnants of harsh battles between shipowners and crews.

The result is that today it is not so easy to know how many people sail, nor their nationalities.

What is certain is that every six to seven months, the Italian mariner disembarks the ship and is dismissed: they take severance pay and after waits for the next call. Andrea has been sailing for more than 20 years: “When I started out, to those who told us we were earning good money, I replied that I had a precarious life: every landing was a dismissal.”

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