So it's national championships day, a day where national pride kicks in and suddenly the entire rule book of cycling is thrown out of the window. Forget teams, alliances and working for your leader...this is every man for himself, battling to be able to pull on those home colours and represent your country around the world. So results are still coming in but lets have an early look at who did what:
Probably the most successful team of the day were Leopard-Trek with Frank Schleck retaining the road race jersey in his and their home race in Luxembourg. Spartacus (a.k.a Fabian Cancellara) retook the Swiss national champions jersey that he wore in his increddible 2009 and spring classics 2010 seasons. Robert Wagner also won a suprise win in a bunch finish in Germany from more formidable sprinters such as André Greipel and John Degenkolb.
Elsewhere world tour leader Phillipe Gilbert finally took the Belgian title and Tommy Voeckler tried but couldn't chase down breakaway specialist Sylvain Chavanel for the red, white and blue tricolour.
Now it was fairly apparent that Team Sky were going to dominate in Britain with the only other pro tour rider being Mark Cavendish who was always going to struggle with no team mates to back him up. This ultimately proved to be the downfall of the Manx Missile as he punctured, making any attempts at the jersey futile and so he abandoned. A 12 man group went away, half of which were clad in black and blue and from there-in nobody could touch them. This group was whittled down to just 3. Thomas, Kennaugh (the top 2 from last year) and one Bradley Wiggins. Experience proved to be the winner of the day as Wiggo, not wanting to leave it to the gamble of a sprint, attacked in the final few km's and when you're the beating Fabian Cancellara in time trials...no one is going to catch you. So the team leader showed who's boss to take the stripes and continue his amazing run of form that gave him his biggest major win at the Criterium Du Dauphiné recently.
Now with these races being so different to the formats of normal stage races, you might think that you couldn't forsee much from this weekend but Wiggins showed he is still smoking and must be bursting with confidence for the month ahead, Gilbert also looks to have carried his form and will be exciting us all from stage 1 and Chavanel will be trying to impress the home crowds by taking the Mailot Jaune once again.
It's certainly building nicely...
Sunday, 26 June 2011
Friday, 24 June 2011
The Tour De France
Now personally i think Radioshack are the team to beat after the season so far (see pot: '2011 continued...') but lets take a look at who might just do it:
Contador is the obvious answer. His preperations seemed to have been marred by the ongoing doping trial that made him hide out in Spanish races alone. However all doubts were shattered when he ripped the entire peloton apart in the first grantour of the year, the Giro d'Italia. Best in the mountains, on top in the time trials...if his recovery program goes well enough its hard to see who can stop him winning another yellow jersey this year.
The Schleck brothers are again the favourites, along with Berty, to dominate this year. Frank has, admittedly, had the better start with a victory at the Críterium International and a fairly good performance at the Tour de Suisse; but the brothers did manage to work over the entire peloton bar Phillipe Gilbert at Liége-Bastógne-Liége and they lit up the Tour of the Basque Country on several occasions. While Andy's Tour of California was less than brilliant and his Tour de Suisse team duties and mechanical mishaps perhaps making a high GC finish attempt futile, Leopard-Trek insist that both brothers are on track and ready to attack Contador in the mountains. It will have to be there as everybody knows their time trialing is STILL not up to scratch and the fact that Andy Schleck skipped the teams home race to scout out some of the mountain-top finishes backs this up.
So those are the bookies picks but who else could be the contenders for at least a podium finish?
We have Cadel Evans who will be very hungry to finally wear that yellow jersey in Paris after twice coming second best. He has had by far the best build up so far with overall victories at the Tirreno-Adriatico and Tour of Romandie so far. This year has been dubbed his last realistic chance to win it so we'll see if the forever-battling Aussie can be the popular winner this year.
Bradley Wiggins is another who's recent win at the Criterium du Dauphiné suprised a few but impressed much more. Overnight his odds were slashed and he will now be one to watch he he battles to get onto that roster which he so nearly did 2 years ago. He will have to just hang onto the strong men in the mountains and rely on his formidable time trial pedigree to make up any lost time. That seems difficult but this is the man who has beaten Fabian Cancellara already and who took well over a minute out of Evans and Vino on the very same course that will be in the Tour this year.
Alexandre Vinoukerov has at last been given the chance to be a GC leader at the Tour de France and in probably his last year before retirement. The question is can he handle the long gruelling grand tour mountains as well as he could in his youth, and can he find the kind of form that won him the Vuelta á Espana?
Ivan Basso has had a difficult season so far after crashing while descending Mt Etna and various other injuries, all of which led to poor showings in Romandie and the Dauphiné but Luiquigas has said that he should be right up with the best come July.
Others such as Robert Gesik and Jurgen Van Den Broek have had very good seasons so far, both showed their faces a lot in the Dauphiné and they could be the dark horses for that podium spot. Gesink certainly has some increddible names behind him, Luis Léon Sanchez, Tjallingi, Tan Dem to name a few!
Roman Kreuziger could also be the main man for Astana giving them a couple of options although he may well be tires from winning the young riders classifications at the Giro.
Don't count out the Olympic Road Race champion Samuel Sanchez either after narrowly missing out on 3rd last year due to a bad time trial, and expect to see the flamboyant Thomas Vockler putting in attacks left, right and centre to show the tricolour he'll hope to be wearing again.
Only time will tell and personally I can't wait!
Contador is the obvious answer. His preperations seemed to have been marred by the ongoing doping trial that made him hide out in Spanish races alone. However all doubts were shattered when he ripped the entire peloton apart in the first grantour of the year, the Giro d'Italia. Best in the mountains, on top in the time trials...if his recovery program goes well enough its hard to see who can stop him winning another yellow jersey this year.
The Schleck brothers are again the favourites, along with Berty, to dominate this year. Frank has, admittedly, had the better start with a victory at the Críterium International and a fairly good performance at the Tour de Suisse; but the brothers did manage to work over the entire peloton bar Phillipe Gilbert at Liége-Bastógne-Liége and they lit up the Tour of the Basque Country on several occasions. While Andy's Tour of California was less than brilliant and his Tour de Suisse team duties and mechanical mishaps perhaps making a high GC finish attempt futile, Leopard-Trek insist that both brothers are on track and ready to attack Contador in the mountains. It will have to be there as everybody knows their time trialing is STILL not up to scratch and the fact that Andy Schleck skipped the teams home race to scout out some of the mountain-top finishes backs this up.
So those are the bookies picks but who else could be the contenders for at least a podium finish?
We have Cadel Evans who will be very hungry to finally wear that yellow jersey in Paris after twice coming second best. He has had by far the best build up so far with overall victories at the Tirreno-Adriatico and Tour of Romandie so far. This year has been dubbed his last realistic chance to win it so we'll see if the forever-battling Aussie can be the popular winner this year.
Bradley Wiggins is another who's recent win at the Criterium du Dauphiné suprised a few but impressed much more. Overnight his odds were slashed and he will now be one to watch he he battles to get onto that roster which he so nearly did 2 years ago. He will have to just hang onto the strong men in the mountains and rely on his formidable time trial pedigree to make up any lost time. That seems difficult but this is the man who has beaten Fabian Cancellara already and who took well over a minute out of Evans and Vino on the very same course that will be in the Tour this year.
Alexandre Vinoukerov has at last been given the chance to be a GC leader at the Tour de France and in probably his last year before retirement. The question is can he handle the long gruelling grand tour mountains as well as he could in his youth, and can he find the kind of form that won him the Vuelta á Espana?
Ivan Basso has had a difficult season so far after crashing while descending Mt Etna and various other injuries, all of which led to poor showings in Romandie and the Dauphiné but Luiquigas has said that he should be right up with the best come July.
Others such as Robert Gesik and Jurgen Van Den Broek have had very good seasons so far, both showed their faces a lot in the Dauphiné and they could be the dark horses for that podium spot. Gesink certainly has some increddible names behind him, Luis Léon Sanchez, Tjallingi, Tan Dem to name a few!
Roman Kreuziger could also be the main man for Astana giving them a couple of options although he may well be tires from winning the young riders classifications at the Giro.
Don't count out the Olympic Road Race champion Samuel Sanchez either after narrowly missing out on 3rd last year due to a bad time trial, and expect to see the flamboyant Thomas Vockler putting in attacks left, right and centre to show the tricolour he'll hope to be wearing again.
Only time will tell and personally I can't wait!
2011 continued...
So then we come to the first real tests for stage racers, the clashing Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Addriatico. You can think of them as a 'mini tour and giro' and that was proven when the organisers of the French event decided to start with a bunch race and the Italians used a team time trial, preluding the main events to come later. Fortunately both seemed to go off without a hitch and Tony Martin put in an impressive climbing and time trialing in France display while Cadel Evans laid down a marker for what has been built up to be his big year by dominating in Italy. Bradley Wiggins' first real test also went well as he helped himself to third place on the GC due to his time trial performance. While last year he seemed to have lost a bit of his strength in that area it looked like there was no such occurance this year.
Now Paris-Nice saw Andreas Kloden take second place which was the start of a domino effect where the teams are lining up and Radioshack are pushing them down. Impressive performances from their 4 (yes 4) team leaders in the various races including a strong showing from Horner in Catalunya, a 1-2 GC finish in the Tour of the Basque Country and another 1-2 finish with 2 stage wins in the Tour of California. Add to that the dramatic wins on time trial day for Sebastien Rosseler in the De Panne tour and Levi Leipheimer in Switzerland and Radioshack really look like the form side going into this years Tour de France. The question is who can stop them?
Now Paris-Nice saw Andreas Kloden take second place which was the start of a domino effect where the teams are lining up and Radioshack are pushing them down. Impressive performances from their 4 (yes 4) team leaders in the various races including a strong showing from Horner in Catalunya, a 1-2 GC finish in the Tour of the Basque Country and another 1-2 finish with 2 stage wins in the Tour of California. Add to that the dramatic wins on time trial day for Sebastien Rosseler in the De Panne tour and Levi Leipheimer in Switzerland and Radioshack really look like the form side going into this years Tour de France. The question is who can stop them?
Thursday, 23 June 2011
2011
So there's been a lot of hype in this country about the year 2012. This has been, among reasons of apocalyptic nature, mainly about the olympics. Now yes, 2012 should be a great year for every sport including cycling but personally 2011 has and will hopefully continue to be brilliant as well. Here's a round up of the goings on so far and a look to the rest of the season.
January was a great month for the Brits with young prodigy Ben Swift coming through with 2 stage wins at the sprinters Tour Down Under. Not only was this good for Swifty but also for the entire Team Sky. They showed textbook leadouts that led to a 1-2 finish with Swift and Greg Henderson respectively.
This proved to be the start of what's been a much better year for Sky in 2011. After the disappointment of last year they went away in the winter, regrouped and came back stronger than ever with a whole new mentality. Still focussing on the Tour De France but with a wider view to possible victories the success started to come thick and fast...
The next headlines were at the Tour of Oman where superman Edvald Boassen-Hagen took the sprinters jersey and an impressive 2nd place in the GC to an in form Robert Gesink. This looks even better when you realise that, unlike the other middle eastern tour around the same time the Tour of Qatar, this was in no way a flat race and included a 13.5% average climb up 'Green Mountain'.
In the Volta ao Algarve jaws were made to drop further when Steven Cummings beat the one and only Alberto Contador to the line on a category 3 mountaintop finish. Yes Team Sky were well and truly rocking with the big boys...
More to come.
January was a great month for the Brits with young prodigy Ben Swift coming through with 2 stage wins at the sprinters Tour Down Under. Not only was this good for Swifty but also for the entire Team Sky. They showed textbook leadouts that led to a 1-2 finish with Swift and Greg Henderson respectively.
This proved to be the start of what's been a much better year for Sky in 2011. After the disappointment of last year they went away in the winter, regrouped and came back stronger than ever with a whole new mentality. Still focussing on the Tour De France but with a wider view to possible victories the success started to come thick and fast...
The next headlines were at the Tour of Oman where superman Edvald Boassen-Hagen took the sprinters jersey and an impressive 2nd place in the GC to an in form Robert Gesink. This looks even better when you realise that, unlike the other middle eastern tour around the same time the Tour of Qatar, this was in no way a flat race and included a 13.5% average climb up 'Green Mountain'.
In the Volta ao Algarve jaws were made to drop further when Steven Cummings beat the one and only Alberto Contador to the line on a category 3 mountaintop finish. Yes Team Sky were well and truly rocking with the big boys...
More to come.
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