Every sport has its handful of fans just looking to grab some attention for themselves. Baseball has fans running on the field. Football has loyal fans dressing in costumes. Cycling has people dressing up in chicken costumes and chasing a passing cyclist as they pedal their way up a hill.
Well, it has one of those, at least.
The Tour de California served up one of the more light-hearted sports moments yesterday when a man dressed in a chicken costume stepped on the road and gave chase to Peter Stetina of Colorado and the Trek-Segafredo cycling team.
While certainly fun in spirit and good for a laugh (or two or three), it does illustrate the concern in the cycling world where athletes are traveling by so close to fans. The proximity of the sport and those watching have become a bit of a concern over the years as incidents like these (and worse) have popped up. Fortunately, this incident had no harm intended and was purely for fun. That’s great, and now you are aware the Tour de California is a thing that is happening. But it is another demonstration of how easy a fan (or dog) can make his or her way on to the course and potentially cause a problem to various degrees in the cycling world.
