They were thinking how many people would know who Froome is much less what is the Tour de France.
The headline does away with Froome and gives some inkling about what the Tour de France is.
Not really. With the exception of Mr. Ed, horses don’t learn how to tell time/date/age until age 5.
Well, sure. I wish more articles had nice clear, informative headlines that tell me I’ve no interest in reading the article.
By the argument you guys are making, CNN still screwed up. If what you’re saying is true then the headline should have been “Tour de France is a bicycle race”.
But most people aren’t going to see that information as the heart of the story. When it comes to sporting events, people want to know who won and what the score was. That’s the information you put in your headline.
I’m dying here. Soccer team wins second World Cup!
As for those who say “not all Americans know what the Tour de France is,” well if somebody doesn’t know, they could glance at the article. That’s hardly onerous.
I didn’t know there were two Tour de Frances. Who won the first one? 
A standard rule of headline writing is not to use proper names unless they are well known and instantly recognizable to the audience. ESPN should have used his name, CNN shouldn’t have, at least for an early article. You’ll see that every headline has his name today.
“Pilot Crashes Plane” or “Driver Caught In Hit And Run” are interesting unless they are named. I’m interested in a plane crash or hit and run, I’m not interested in someone I don’t know named Bob Smith fucking up his life.
Winning an athletic event is virtually inevitable unlike a car wreck. The interesting part is who won and the details. So a headline “Fastest Tour de France win ever” would be interesting, or naming who won, or simply “Tour de France concludes”, or “French cyclist wins Tour de France” but simply announcing that a cyclist won adds no information and seems silly.
That’s gonna put some butts in the seats.
That’s not what the headline was, though.
The only additional information was that some anonymous cyclist had won twice, which is not terribly remarkable. Four cyclists have won five times each (and “nobody” won seven times in a row;)). In fact, since that’s the only non-obvious information imparted, it makes it sound more unusual than it is. It’s both silly and misleading as to the importance of the information.
It’s very subtle!
I think it’s surreptitiously suggesting A Streak? :eek: Test him for Steroids NOW!
–G!
No good deed goes unpunished.