Don’t worry, I know exactly why I wrote down these words after each other. As I mentioned before among the blogging news on my official page I’m currently re-organizing my PelotonTales blog. First and foremost I transport the most popular stories to
a little sub-project called simply Vintage Cyclng Stories.
Oddly enough I never noticed before how many posts’ titles include these wordsm.The first Vuelta-Tour double. Eddy Merckx’s last day in yellow jersey. The first conqueror of Covandonga. The last Tour de France before World War I. Etc.
And it makes me wonder, when it comes to representation of past in general, does it define what kind of stories we (re)tell too? How important are in case of fictional or fictionalized stories from and about the past, that something happened for the very first or very last time?
And what kind of stories they are?
I suppose when it comes to telling a story of something happened for the very first time it’s rather an optimistic or even more triumphant story. A glorius one. And when it come to tell something happening for the last time, there is a sense of loosing something very valuable. It’s obviously a sad story.
(Maybe that’s why I was a bit confused a bit when I watched the first season of The Last Kingdom. Last? In what sense? And why there is a won battle at the end? Triumph? Joy? Success?)
Anyway. It looks like a story must be some kind of definitive, a clear cut to be good. Either a beginning or an end.
As a Central-European, it’s quite obvious which one of these roads is more preferable to me. Telling a story about something is fading, something is escaping and never coming back, something disappearing, and people sense this loss is always more preferable to me than a triumphant story of anything what happened for the very first time.
Then why is it different when is comes to sport, especially telling stories from the past od road cycling competitions? Is it just a practical thing? Because jt’s easier to get a grip and help the audience getting a grip on a story that way?