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.