Veneration of Sports Venues

It seems like the ancients had stories, poems, an actual affection and personal connection to the natural world that we can barely imagine. We don't think of the Sun as a conscious entity. When it's blazing hot out in August, we don't curse or plead with him, and we don't worry about his health in the dwindling light of late fall.

However, there are entities that we do anthropomorphise and venerate in daily life. Some sports venues have a personality that's been imbued in them through years of fans and sports writers talking and thinking about them.

l'Alpe d'Huez

Two larger-than-life venues that spring to mind come from pro cycling. The l'Alpe d'Huez stage of the tour is one of the most spectacular sports venues on the planet. It's served as the site of many battles over the decades. Every turn on the climb is named, and tribes of fans camp out in traditional zones along the road. The televised coverage of the race lavishes high definition scenery of the climb on the millions who watch.

Another legendary cycling venue that draws reverence from cycling fans is the Roubaix Velodrome which serves as the finish line for the Paris-Roubaix spring classic. The velodrome serves to coronate a solo winner, and in rare cases to determine the winner in a final sprint that renders the prior several hours of brutal racing a futile exercise for the runners up.

These venues are imbued with personality and they exist as entities in the imagination of fans that perhaps parallels what people thought of as gods in older eras.