In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

204 ARRAYS
and the risk of death, is generally accepted as an element that adds to
the thrill of the show.
More, perhaps, than any other form of competition based on physical
endurance, six-day bicycle races appeal to the fascination with pure
movement-movement that can no longer be seen or functionalized as
bridging the distance between two places. [see Polarities] Even though,
during the 144 hours of the competition, the best six-day racers end up
covering around 3,000 miles, they remain in the same building, circling
around a wooden track with dangerously steep curved sides. In addition
to being confined in this space, six-day bicycle races, like the popular
relay races [see Endurance], are deindividualizing. They typically involve
thirteen teams, each consisting of two athletes who regularly take turns.
Rather than the movement of individual bodies, the continuous movement
of a six-day race is therefore the movement of small systems. A
third level of denaturalization, besides those of the racetrack and of
deindividualization, lies in the arbitrariness of the rules that set the pace
for the competition. Although the reporter Egon Erwin Kisch, half ironically,
associates the six days of the bicycle race with the six days in which
God created the world (Kisch, 229), the contrast between the seven days
of the week as a "natural" time frame and the six days of racing underscores
such arbitrariness. [see Uncertainty vs. Reality] The morning
hours of each race, when very few spectators come to the arenas, are
discounted as "neutralization time." The teams must continue their
movement around the track, but they can neither gain advantage over
nor fall behind their competitors. From early afternoon until the wee
hours, in contrast, the race is frequently accelerated by "chases." [see
Present vs. Past] Individual spectators or companies offer cash prizes or
samples of their products to the winners in many different mini-races,
for which the sponsors are free to set the rules. Such prizes may go to
the team that wins "the next five laps," posts the fastest lap of the night,
or covers the greatest distance in a given amount of time. This procedure
enables spectators to buy influence over the speed of the competition,
and since each prize is announced publicly, they can also compete for the
attention of the crowd.
In the sports arenas of Chicago, New York, Paris, Brussels, and Berlin
(Annees-memoire, 100ff.), six-day races turn the structures of the external
world upside down. They absorb energy and attention so completely
that athletes and spectators alike become blind to events in their every-