Chris de Bode

Tour du Monde

Tour du Monde
Colombia, Cuba, Senegal, Eritrea, Qatar, China

 

They wind their way through the landscape like a snake. Men in colourful clothing, testing themselves to the limit. Followed by cars that leave an amazed and equally enthusiastic public in a cloud of dust. The sweat streams from their bodies. Splashes of blood on the asphalt after a fall. Joy following a heroic victory.

 

Cycle races lasting several days are not peculiar to countries like France and Italy. They are also held in many non-Western countries, all over the world. The big difference is the setting: a landscape devastated by war, baking deserts, the vibrant streets of Cuba. 

 

The goal of all cyclists is to win the Tour in Paris one day. After all, the Avenue des Champs Élysées is heaven. The participants in other cycling tours will do anything to race there. It would be an escape from every-day life and, for some of them, a way to a better future. See Paris and then die. Only a few make it. But the longing remains.

 

After Chris de Bode won a World Press Award in 2001 with a photo in which Lance Armstrong allows Marco Pantani to win a stage, the photographer decided to turn his unique view on this sport in the direction of less well-known races elsewhere in the Third World. De Bode has a keen eye for the cruel but also aesthetic forms of poverty and the struggle of the cyclists  among themselves against a background where people struggle for their daily existence. 

 

Chris de Bode (1965) is a self-taught photographer. He made his first photos as a mountaineering instructor. By travelling all over the world he developed himself as a talented photojournalist. His work has been published in several Dutch, German, French, Italian, UK and USA based magazines. He won prices at amongst others the Dutch Silver Camera awards and World Press, especially with his work on Cycling competitions.

 

Design: Heijdens Karwei, Amsterdam