You know what happens when you wake up at a reasonable hour? You miss reporting on Stage 1 of the Tour of Qatar, which is one of my favorite training races, as it visits such exotic locations as “Khalifa Stadium” and “Camel Race Track”. Interesting though it may be, the result was no surpise, as Tom Boonen took a field sprint. Blackout Boonen did the same thing again today (and, because I slept in, I can report on it), he claims it was more difficult this time, due to road conditions. This makes, what, five in a row for the World Champ, who has yet to lose since slipping on those rainbow stripes? I’m not really sure how, but it seems this Pez reporter was watching the action. If you really want to see it, you can probably catch the highlights later on Cycling.TV (where last year’s race is currently available for your viewing pleasure).

No Comments »

Arrrg…So much news for me to re-report. And all because I was lazy and didn’t post yesterday. I shall begin with ‘Cross Worlds (which I choose to write without the apostrophe - I see “Worlds” as a plural, short form of “World Championships”, VeloNews apparently sees it as a possesive, I guess from “The World’s Championships”), where late-race mishaps felled favorites in both the women’s and men’s Elite races. Strangely, in each case, the country that lost a rider still went on win the overall title, with Marianne Vos of the Netherlands winning a two-up sprint after teammate Daphny van den Brand flatted, and Belgian Erwin Vervecken rolling home to the win after Sven Nys found himself sprawled across the frozen mud, and apparently pretty badly injured. (It’s hard to tell, probably because of the difference between Babelfish’s Dutch Dutch and Het Laatste Nieuws‘ Flemmish Dutch.) The Belgian was thus unable to continue his streak of winning World Titles after having his wife pose provocatively in a popular magazine.

1 Comment »

Man, I was so excited by yesterday’s racing. Such a letdown to have none today. There’s some ‘Cross Worlds results, but it’s just juniors and U23s. News of ‘Cross Worlds is the course is fast with a lot of stairs, which, if the U23 results are any indication, are something lacking from ‘cross courses in the USA and Zimbabwe. Beyond that, there is a report from CSC camp that makes things sound a lot rainier than they actually were. Heck, I’ve got space to fill, why not throw in these photos from FdJ’s training camp in Brittany. Sure, it’s over a month-and-a-half old, but check out that foliage; winter comes a lot later to Northern France than you might expect. It certainly seems much nicer than “the sun”, where Sean Kelly’s team plans to train this spring, apparently unaware that they’ll be burned alive. And, to finish off the team news on a domestic note, HealthNet is apparently going all out for the Tour of California.

3 Comments »

Ah, nothing like the election of what the US government calls a a terrorist group to kick off the Middle Eastern racing season. World Champ Tom Boonen has picked up right where he left off, taking today’s GP Doha ahead of Robbie Hunter and Erik Zabel (though I’ve got no clue why the Flandrian did it wearing a Team España helmet). According the the CSC webpage, however, Stuart O’Grady totally should have won, but was denied only by a a broken chain. And if you think that’s a skeptical claim, check out Bode Miller’s latest, allegedly from a forthcoming issue of Rolling Stone:

No Comments »

Have I railed against the mainstream media recently? Well, allow me to do so. First - this headline. “Mentor young American riders”? Ol’ One-Nut is mentoring no one. It says right there he’s got a bloody contract, which would indicate he’s getting paid. Probably getting paid a whole lot. Mentors don’t get paid; consultants do. And “young American riders”? Where did the two-for-the-Euro hack that wrote this pull that out of? Again, the article specifically says he’ll be working with Team Discovery Channel, which has all of three Americans on it. And, at ages of 27, 32 and 32, none of them really qualify as “young” (for a cyclist), do they? Though I’m well aware of Armstrong’s history of philanthropy, I don’t think he needs to be given credit for “mentoring the young” when he’s simply doing his job. Honestly, I’d expect this sort of ignorace from the AP, but the French, who actually follow this sport, ought to know better.

2 Comments »

A stylistic look at CSC’s 2004 season. Directed by Tomas Gislason. Color, 105 minutes. (My apologies, but I simply cannot properly express my thoughts on this film in my typical criteria-driven format. I’ve just got way too much to say for informational bursts.)

3 Comments »

The Saunier Duval media blitz (remember yesterday’s run on David Millar stories?) continues! First I thought it was just an American phenomenon (the team is somewhat notorious for giving token Americans one-year contracts), designed to sell pens, but now I see that it extends across the Atlantic. In this L’Equipe story we get a basic rundown of the team, including director Maxtin’s (I guess he’s a one name kinda guy) assesment that Gibo Simoni could be Lance’s successor. No, wait, don’t laugh yet; first, read this excerpt on Gibo from Spanish daily AS by way of Velo-Club:

No Comments »

It’s baaack! And you thought I had gotten sick of it. Today’s match-up: Utah’s own Dave Zabriskie vs. the 1970 counter-culture classic Zabriskie Point. Click here for a listing of the previous battles.

5 Comments »

Are you getting sick of reading AFP stories yet? It must be that someone is on vacation over there at VeloNews. Anyway, there’s plenty to expand on from the wire service story. For example, Millar states “There are a lot of idiots out there who think you can’t win anything without drugs, but we have to convince the young generation that this isn’t the case.” And it’s a very nice sentiment, but it ignores the factors that motivated Millar’s own drug use. The Scot admits here that he first began taking EPO simply because he “wasn’t going well” in 2001, years after he’d burst onto the scene, winning a TdF prologue and wearing the maillot jaune. The article goes on to describe how he cleaned up in 2002, but even after winning another Tour stage, when things got tough again, he went right back to drugs. Add to this some comments Millar made here, about his salary and wanting a “guaranteed” win at the ‘03 Worlds, and it becomes clear that it wasn’t insecurity in his own abilities that drove Millar to cheat, but laziness and greed.

No Comments »

It’s a slow day. Everyone else is leading off with the T-Mobile Tour selections, but I will be different and slightly ironical (yeah, that is a word) by linking to the ‘07 London Tour Departure on the T-Mobile website. Besides, what’s the big news about T-Mobile not selecting riders with a proven record of success at the TdF? Oh, I get it: the news isn’t that Giuseppe Guerini (two stage wins, inlcuding Alpe d’Huez) and Oscar Sevilla (3rd overall in ‘01) haven’t been selected, it’s that they haven’t been dinged. In other team news, Caisee/Balears has finally been presented. But no mention is made of the two-jersey system I was so excited about earlier. I would have asked about it if I had been on hand, but, for some reason, I wasn’t invited.

3 Comments »