Having never been a sports fanatic - I recently pored over some primary school reports, which featured hilarious assessments of my P.E. skills that generally used phrases like "attempts all activities with enthusiasm" and the dreaded "good effort" - the idea of settling in to religiously watch televised sports is somewhat foreign to me.

Take the new digital sports channel, One - nothing could be more mystifying to my televisual tastes. How do they even find 24 hours' worth of sport, let alone 24 hours' worth every day? Do they end up showing obscure ESPN repeats of the coon-skinning finals at a deep south town fair? Endless re-runs of ancient Grand Finals?

No, I am a different kind of sports fan: the meditative viewer.

There are times of the year - generally evenly spaced - where I welcome the arrival of an annual sports event, not because I'm particularly interested in the result (though I will occasionally become hooked), but because the telecasts serve a certain purpose: relaxation.

I'm sure there are many of you for whom this seems like a "well duh" proposition, but I don't mean relaxation of the "crack open a tube and chill out with the cricket" variety; I mean the Zen-like mantra of reserved commentary and the distant sounds of sport.

Take the Australian Open. When it's 40° outside and you can't be bothered thinking, on goes the Open coverage, and that soothing combination of thwacks and the occasional "oooh"/"aahhh" from the crowd; it's cooling and calming:



I do have a passing interest in the tennis, but cricket is another story (unless we're talking about the golden era of Lillee and other championship moustaches of the '70s and '80s, in which case I can watch it forever). I have no idea what's going on, nor do I care - but there's something so relaxing about the sound of a one-dayer on in the background as you drift in and out of sleep on the couch.

There are other sporting events that, due to their non-prime-time nature, I discover during the odd witching hours of the morning thanks to a bout of TV-watching narcolepsy.

Nothing can compare to the sheer lunacy that is championship level Curling, a sport I saw once or twice as a background gag in either The Goodies or Help! but never really experienced until waking up on the couch after drifting off during the Winter Olympics one year.

You know, ice curling - where they "throw" a big stone... thing down some ice, and then team-members sweep wildly around it while everyone barks at each other.

This:



Brilliant! Completely mental!

But if there's one sporting event I do genuinely hang out for each year - for both its meditative qualities and entertainment value - it's the Tour de France.

For just under a month I become glued to SBS, inexplicably amused by the names of various cyclists (Tom Boonen! Thor Hushovd!) and fascinated by the amount of cyclist-specific advertising they manage to sign up (Bike banks! Bike personal ads! Bike insurance! More bikes!).

The major appeal is the commentary from Phil Liggett, long-time "voice" of the Tour (at least for anyone who watches it on SBS), whose commentary swings between that of a measured expert and a psychotically excited fan, depending on the action. Plus there's always a good chance of a quality "Liggettism" along the way (a recent favourite: "He's wearing so much green, if he were in a garden someone would put a watering can above his head.").

Here's a highlights package from the '90s, put together celebrating 20 years of consecutive service to Le Tour:




A possible explanation for my dedication to Le Tour is because Liggett's voice reminds me of another notable British sports commentator, the great Murray Walker, whose work I spent a childhood soaking up during my brief love affair with Formula One racing (now? Too boring; too much money has leveled the field):



It likely also has a lot to do with the fact that the Tour passes through such disgustingly picturesque French landscapes that watching it is like taking a mini-holiday. Couple that and Liggett's commentary with the wonderful symphony of Tour-specific background soundscapes (cheering, bikes whizzing past, fans honking horns and ringing cow bells) and you have an irresistible package.

In other words, you can pretty much guarantee that, come Tour time of the year, I'll be getting stuck into my personal brand of sports television meditation: on a couch somewhere, possibly drooling a bit, wondering what the bloody hell is going on but enjoying it just the same.

Which is what happens to me at yoga class, anyway.