Mick Hartley

The Tour de France always manages to make the news in the wrong way. Usually it's drugs. This year the drug saga has been rumbling along in the background. Alberto Contador failed a test after winning last year's tour. He appealed, and until that appeal's been heard he's free to compete in this year's tour – even though he may subsequently be banned and have his yellow jersey retrospectively stripped from him. All of which does the Tour's reputation – whatever there is left of it – no favours. So far this year Contador's not been doing too well, though it is early days. That old zip going up the hills seems to have deserted him, and the cynical among us can't help but wonder if he's missing a bit of chemical/transfusional help.

But no, it's not drugs which are the main talking point so far this year: it's crashes. There've been so many of them. There always are, of course, but this year it's worse than ever. No one's been killed so far, thank goodness, but the casualty list gets longer every day: Britain's great hope Bradley Wiggins with a broken collar bone, Alexandre Vinokourov with a fractured femur, David Zabriskie, Tom Boonen….

And then, yesterday, there was this:

It looks like the car driver was deliberately aiming at the cyclists – "gotcha, you bastards!" – though in reality it was a spectacularly ill-judged swerve to avoid going too near a tree. They've been thrown off the Tour now, that particular French TV crew. The response of Team Sky, whose rider Juan Antonio Flecha was one of the riders sent sprawling, is awaited with interest. They offered no comment last night. [Update: they may take legal action]

What's going on? Could the Tour organisers, despite throwing up their hands in mock horror, not really be too concerned by all this carnage? Here's cyclist Fabian Cancellara:

"It's the most particular course I have known on the Tour de France. I hope that it will become a cycling race from now on because up to now, we had the impression they were looking for the most dangerous roads…"

They were indeed: narrow, twisty, slippery. Well, it makes for more excitement, doesn't it? And if a few more crashes, a few more broken bones, are the price to be paid, well…it's a tough sport. That's cycling.

The thing about the Tour is, it's commercial through and through. None of your Coubertinian Olympic ideals here. It's not France vs. Spain vs. Italy, pour la gloire de la patrie; it's Rabobank vs. Omega Pharma-Lotto vs. HTC-Highroad. It's all about the sponsors. It's all about getting bigger audiences to see those names on the shirts, to hear the team names from the commentators as they call out the leaders. The breakaway phenomenon, where a small group of riders power ahead early on in a stage in a usually doomed attempt for glory, is as much about getting publicity for the teams as it is about the riders' individual ambitions.

So yes, the Tour organisers aren't too bothered. The cyclists, as we see from that crash clip, are the poor bloody infantry going over the top here, the cannon fodder. In no other sport are we invited, in the old gladiatorial spirit of blood and pain, to revel so much in the sheer suffering that the participants go through. No where else are you likely to see so much blood spilt, bones cracked, spirits broken. And after all that the life of a post-Tour cyclist can be a dismal anti-climax.

If the Tour was an American event, it'd be commonplace to dismiss it as brutal, exploitative, fatally compromised by its commercialism. As it's French, it just about gets away with it. And it's more popular than ever. We're coming to the mountains soon, where the fanatical crowds at the top of the climbs crowd in on the cyclists more and more every year. It's an accident waiting to happen – but, hey, it's a tough sport, right? And it's certainly compelling. I'll be there, in my armchair, watching enthralled as Cadel Evans, Andy Schleck, Contador, grind their way up the Pyrenees, then the Alps. What agonies are they going through? Who'll crack first?

The Tour making the news in the wrong way, did I say? It's making the news, and that's what matters.