I was very glad to see a report in yesterday's Scotland on Sunday which said that Scotland was bidding to hold the first stage of the Tour de France, possibly in 2017. I've become a big fan of the event in the last couple of years and the thought of such a major international sporting event taking over the country for a week is very pleasing to me.
This is just one of the competitions EventsScotland is trying to lure here - apparently moves are afoot to make good use of new arena and facilities being built for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games by having curling, gymnastics and equestrian championships in the country. I also like the idea of capitalising on Andy Murray's success by giving him a home tournament to play in.
All this is a great way of extending the tourist season by attracting people to the country outside the normal May to September time.
If we're going to do this, though, we need to make sure that our own up and coming athletes have the proper training and facilities to enable them to compete in these championships on level terms. It's about time decent resources went into sports outside football.
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