Sport was all motion this week. Left you ruined just trying to follow the pace with your eyes. Thousands turned out to cheer on the colourful Tour de France lads whizzing through the Dublin streets and smashing all sorts of speeding laws with Garda co-operation.

Time was on provincial final weekends that this country's main thoroughfares were burdened with a healthy stream of solemn native cyclists making steady and reverent progress towards the big game (and so it should be; the GAA ought to introduce legislation stipulating that All-Ireland tickets be furnished only to supporters who promise to cycle to games, lest tradition be eclipsed by that bastard of a Tiger altogether).

But cycling, as the Tour underlined, has changed greatly from the days of the slacks stuffed unfussily into the black socks. Luminous colours, outlandish head-gear and bikes which look like they'd quake at the sight of the first half-decent pothole; these are the current criteria.

Even though we were told this was the Tour de France, it was difficult to reconcile the images with the same; the old Tour was the stuff of exhausted Spaniards slogging it out on baking cobblestones with a bunch of locals offering curious chants of encouragement and the occasional helpful shove. The Dublin prologue focused on lone riders whipping along beneath overcast skies as though they were determined to finish their pedalling before the heavens opened.

It was, as RTE noted, a massive achievement bringing the Tour here, but the most memorable sights will surely be based on the fantastic images of the peloton snaking through the Irish countryside. The prologue revealed just a glimpse of that, leaving RTE to assure you that this was "the greatest moving sporting event in the world", a blatant slur on the World Ploughing Championships.

As with all events, the Tour seems to be based upon a "to hell with the quality, check out the width" mentality; Ryle Nugent breathlessly delivered stats on the massive media presence, the enormous viewing figures, the intense security operation.

We also learned that the Tour had moved on-route residents to apply a hasty paint brush to their garden walls and prompted business owners to go nuts with the Windolene. Nothing more off-putting than a murky window when you're trying to break the speed of sound on the back of a bit of fibreglass.

Over on the Beeb, departing briefly from their extensive coverage of the golf at Loch Lomond, they attempted to crack the joys of the RAC Touring Car Championship, a sort of economy version of Murray Walker's game. The show was presented by an Aussie named Charlie Cox, who spent his time bounding out of helicopters with the sort of zest not seen since Annika Rice was fronting that treasure hunt show.

It's possible the Beeb told the Touring Car lads that they had a single afternoon to attract viewing figures of at least 15 million, because they certainly went to pains to portray their sport in an alluring light. Shots of the Audi's and Ford's zooming along were eye-catching, but most of the time they just reminded you of a load of Northern lads setting off for a match at Clones.

We were granted lengthy interviews with exotically named drives like Alan Menu and Rickard Rydell - "oh, rock `n' roll Rydell" screamed the commentator at one stage - and Charlie happily relived the day when he was pulverised to near death in one of the Touring, eh, cars. That, in turn, led on to a nostalgic chat with the lads from the medical services, and at this stage you realised that there was a startling lack of spectators at the event. Not so much as one, in fact.

The athletes competing in the WWF show (no shying away from the fringe sports here) had few such worries. Mankind, Kane and the Undertaker entered the ring confident that their every move would be received with rapturous enthusiasm. No more than with the bikes, the old wrestling has undergone frightening changes since the days of Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy.

"I wanna title shot and I want it right now," yelled the Undertaker, and you felt someone should guide him towards the boxing racket. But sure enough, seconds later an enormous brute by the name of Stone Cold Steve Austin trundled down towards the ring to grant his request.

All manner of bucklepping and diving followed, much to the chagrin of the compere, a young Ronald Reagan look-alike and seemingly popular enough with the crowd to consider running for Congress.

Even the memory files on television this week were concerned with sport in motion. RPM relived the day in 1982 that Ayrton Senna turned up at Mondello to compete in the Leinster Trophy. The heedless ravages of time were symbolised perfectly through presenter Alan Tyndall. Alan initially showed himself in his current guise, thin, greying and distinguished, and then, without so much as a wink of warning, the picture shot back to 1982 and to a younger, fuller Alan looking unnervingly like Ray Burke. Seconds later, and we were back with modern-day Alan and the gimmick wore a bit thin.

The day was recaptured through interviews interspersed through the footage. Senna - or Da Silva as he was then known - was 21 and saw Joey Greenan, with whom he shared pole position, as his main threat. After nine or 10 laps of trailing the Irishman, he left him lagging with an audacious outside manoeuvre and cruised through to the finish line.

"He was incredibly intense," recalled David Kennedy, who also competed in the Mondello race.

He told of sitting beside the Brazilian on a flight to Japan hours after he had lost a race in England. "He spent the entire flight explaining the technical reasons behind his loss. That was a 12-hour flight. He was just besotted with his sport."

It was regrettable that they there never got an interview with the youngster that day. But maybe the pictures of him grinning and waving from the car are more poignant. Naturally, those who raced against him then were asked about his untimely death. "I still vividly remember where I was when I heard," said Joey Greenan. He's not the only one.