A slow day indeed. The big news is Jan Ullrich is going for the TdF/Deutchland Tour double next season. Big Jan, who lost the ’05 edition of the Deutschlandtour to Levi Leiphiemer, possibly because of a misaligned front wheel, feels the ’06 parcours is better suited to his riding style, and would rate a victory at the event nearly as important as one at the Tour de France. Interesting as that may be, it’s not very funny, so up next is this story about a new American sponsor for team Saunier Duval – Squirt Lube! With product names like the “Squirter” and the “Sweatsucker,” the possibilities for outrageous humor are virtually endless. Have fun!
There’s a general mish-mash of other news out there, too. Robbie McEwen will be doing a little track racing this offseason, adding some spice to the distance events at the Sydney Thousand. Tom Boonen got another strange Flandrien award, which he intends to use to keep his other strange Flandrien awards company. VeloNews has another interesting-but-arcless story about Greg Lemond. Seems he was upset with the French favoritism in his racing days. Now why does that sound familiar? (scroll down) And for the record, Lemond wasn’t the best young rider in 1984. Laurent Fignon was. Lemond only wore white because from ’83-’86, the award only applied to young riders in their first tour.
Jan Ullrich is maybe the most talented cyclist of the last 10 years. In my opinion he has gotten too much crap over things such as his weight etc. The guy has been one of the very best cyclists of the last 10 years! You could say that he rides more with his heart and less with his brain, but his results haven’t exactly been poor. I think (hope?) that 2006 will be Jan’s return to the top spot on the podium.
Mags
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