{"id":237562,"date":"2025-07-04T14:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T14:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/237562\/"},"modified":"2025-07-04T14:00:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T14:00:10","slug":"were-not-entertainers-enough-quinn-simmons-calls-on-tour-de-france-peloton-to-embrace-american-approach-to-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/237562\/","title":{"rendered":"‘We’re not entertainers enough’ \u2013 Quinn Simmons calls on Tour de France peloton to embrace American approach to sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sporting long fiery hair, a handlebar moustache and multicoloured sunglasses, American champion Quinn Simmons<\/a> instantly stands out at the Tour de France<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the Lidl-Trek rider believes that he and his colleagues in the peloton must do more to grow the sport and elevate their own profiles and celebrity status.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up with American sports, and you\u2019re used to these hockey players who are true sports stars,\u201d the 24-year-old said ahead of his third Tour.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAnd then in F1 you watch these press conferences that they give, and they have personality. Maybe sometimes it\u2019s a bit of a show, maybe sometimes it\u2019s real, but I think we kind of lack that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have guys winning a Classic and they sit there and say, \u2018Yeah the legs were good, eh, thanks to the team\u2019. Like, that\u2019s boring for the 15-year-old kid watching at home. It was [Peter] Sagan who made me want to be a bike racer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Highlighting the gulf in wages between American sportspeople and a professional cyclist \u2013 the current average salary in the men\u2019s WorldTour is just north of \u20ac500,000, but the median is around \u20ac300,000 \u2013 Simmons continued: \u201cI think if you want to talk about the whole model of the sport, it\u2019s a bit messed up that we don\u2019t know make these big salaries with the amount of people who watch it. But some of that is on us that we\u2019re not enough of an entertainer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simmons is one of five riders from the United States competing in the Tour this July<\/a>, with he and Neilson Powless of EF Education-EasyPost representing the best chances of victories from the breakaway. Matteo Jorgenson and Sepp Kuss are part of Visma-Lease a Bike\u2019s GC train for Jonas Vingegaard. There\u2019s also Will Barta at Movistar.<\/p>\n

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Referring once again to his home country\u2019s approach to sport, Simmons suggested that sometimes his compatriots feel like they can\u2019t be their true selves in their adopted continent of Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not European, and you see a lot of times American riders come and they think they have to pretend to be European,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can stand here and fully respect the sport and all the other riders, but you don\u2019t have to copy their appearance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simmons comes into the Tour after his strongest start to the season yet, winning a stage in each of the Volta a Catalunya and most recently at the Tour de Suisse<\/a>, with his second American road title sandwiched in between.<\/p>\n

Asked if he\u2019s an entertainer, he responded that first he had to become a regular winner. \u201cI think what\u2019s left for me is that I need to start winning big bike races,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just enough to [act like an entertainer]\u2026 I think the American influence side of the sport takes the entertainment too far and forgets you need to perform first to win the bike race, then you can have a bit of style.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me the next step is performance based. First in sport, you need a performance, but let\u2019s give the people something to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simmons\u2019s win in Suisse, courtesy of an attack 20km from the line, gave him belief that he could maybe take a victory in this year\u2019s Tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuisse confirmed what I\u2019ve always known I have in my legs,\u201d he said. \u201cI think they talk a lot about the power I did that day and everything, but I do this in training \u2013 I know I can do it, but I\u2019ve never really shown it in a race.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sporting long fiery hair, a handlebar moustache and multicoloured sunglasses, American champion Quinn Simmons instantly stands out at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-237562","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114795329903769625","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}