I've Been Bamboozled and I'm Mad as Hell!

We've all been bamboozled! Lied to! Hoodwinked! Deceived!

For those of you who don’t remember Tuesday’s newsletter, it was about the long-awaited announcement of Demi Vollering’s move from SD Worx to FDJ-Suez. It’s a titanic shift in the center of power in the world of women’s cycling, and could lead to the first Tour de France GC victory for a French team—men’s or women’s—since 1990.

But as excited as I was about the signing itself, I was just as thrilled about the way it was announced, in a grandiose, artsy video uploaded by FDJ. It featured the 2023 Tour de France Femmes champion in a gown, sitting at a grand piano¹ and playing a tune that conveys the accelerating momentum of the narration and various clips from Vollering’s career. I thought the video was fantastic, especially because it was news to me that Vollering played the piano.

It made perfect sense. In general, elite female athletes tend to adhere less to the dumb jock stereotype than do their male counterparts. Even for someone like Vollering, who was born in 1996 in a fairly progressive European country, professional sports would probably not have been an obvious lucrative career path when she was growing up. So while the boys might stop caring about school right after they learn the three R’s, the girls would receive a more well-rounded education, no matter how fast they can run or pedal.

Even beyond that, the exacting demands and rigid traditionalism of the piano seem to fit Vollering’s persona. She’s very staid and businesslike in public. I would’ve been shocked to learn that she played bass guitar, for instance, but not piano.

Nevertheless, I felt the need to hedge my admiration for this renaissance woman. Especially when a quick Google search and cursory scan of her social media showed no evidence of a previous affinity for music. Here’s my footnote from Tuesday:

Does she actually play the piano? They don’t really show it in the video—at least not face and hands at the same time, which is how you know they’re not faking it—but she must, right? It’d be such a bizarre symbol to use if not.

Nevertheless, I went with it. Playing the piano is such a particular thing, so far removed from cycling. It’s a skill heavy with implication, but it’s also nonspecific. If they wanted to convey a narrative or create an image, there would be other, less complicated, more effective ways to do it. After all, my primary takeaway from the video was less “Wow, she’s so dedicated and so well suited to the team” than “Wow, sick, she could probably bang out ‘Werewolves of London’ on that thing!”

I feel like I’ve got a decent bullshit detector² because I went to journalism school. It’s where I learned how to fact-check, to trust documentation over hearsay, and also to understand the nature of deceit. It’s the line from All the President’s Men: Follow the money. Every bad action is taken for a reason; understanding that reason is a big part of unpacking the puzzle.

So when I’m confronted with something that might or might not be true, the first thing I ask is, “Why would they lie about this?” The second question: “If they’re lying, why this lie in particular?”

And I couldn’t really figure out why “Demi Vollering plays the piano” is a myth you’d make up, even in a marketing video. So it bugged me a little, but I decided to let the matter rest.

Until, 24 hours later, FDJ-Suez released a 10-minute behind-the scenes video.

About 90 seconds into the video, we meet some other woman playing the piano. No worries, maybe she’s just a tech or something, setting it up. Or even if she’s playing most of the song in the recording, that’s fine too. When I thought Vollering played the piano, I didn’t assume she was good. Lots of athletes play instruments or sing—how many of them play at a level required for a professional recording?³ How many hobbyists in general play that well, athlete or not? Maybe the piano is important for Vollering, but she has a stunt double to step in for the tricky stuff.

If only.

Because less than a minute into this production, Vollering is in the makeup chair when someone off-screen asks if she plays the piano.

“No,” says Vollering. “It will be my first time…It’ll sound like shit on the stage. I feel a little bit sorry for all the piano players with big dreams. It’s not so nice that I’m there, like, [mimes hitting the keys] banggggg.”

WHAT?

SHE DOESN’T PLAY THE PIANO AFTER ALL?

Sure enough, when Vollering hops out of the chair and makes her way to the stage, we get to see the piano player, Anna Korobova, walking Vollering through the very basics of how to sit. She teaches Vollering, by rote, the handful of phrases she’ll need to be able to fake so the close-ups look right.

It’s immediately clear that Vollering not only doesn’t play the piano, she has no musical training of any kind. And, like, why would she? She’s spent her entire adult life either on a bicycle or ice skates! It’d be ridiculous to expect her to learn the piano.

But given that fact, why would FDJ-Suez then make Vollering on the piano the central image of their biggest marketing video ever? It’d be like if Substack were making a marketing video highlighting their top sports newsletters and had me flying a plane. Except I bet I know more about flying a plane than she does about the piano.⁴

Why create this extremely specific, nonsensical fiction? You could even have the musical conceit—“it all begins with one note”—without implying that Vollering is herself a musician!

Look, as misleading advertisements go, this is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. I’m not offended that FDJ-Suez gave her stolen musician valor or anything.

It’s just such a bizarre image to create if there’s no truth behind it. So much so that I believed it without evidence. And now I’m been had. I’ve been suckered. I’ve been conned. It’s not a good feeling.