They showed this several times on Vs. this morning and it was obvious that the first rider rode right into the gravel on the edge of the road coming out of this corner. At that point the rest were following him down. The root cause of this is the French teams are all be assured a slot in the Tour each year so they don’t really need to go out and build a team that has a realistic chance of doing anything other than the daily doomed break. What’s crazy is that the annual cost to run a mediocre team like B-Box or AG2R is not much less that a team like Columbia.
FFS The reason LPR was not invited is that their team leader epitomizes everything pro cycling should be trying to distance themselves from. Compare them to Skil Shimano who gave L’Hotelliere the boot after his suspicious performances. I know who I’d prefer to see in a race and I’m happy that the ASO agree
To be fair, Gustaf Larsson almost bailed on that corner as well. Crashes are inevitable, especially on a golf cart road like that. Nevertheless, this post makes me laugh.
Diarmuid, if you’re speaking about DiLuca, he was investigated and sanctioned according the rules cycling’s governing bodies have set up. His suspension ended in 2007. On the road, DiLuca is an exciting competitor, and I can’t think of a race that’s been worse because he’s raced it.
Then there’s Petacchi, who was suspended a year for breaking an arbitrarily determined limit on a substance with no performance enhancing effect. He’s performance in the Giro was excellent, and deserved as much as any other rider, to be contesting sprints at this years Tour.
Skil-Shimano earned an entry to the TdF based on their performance this spring. BBox, however, earned an invite by putting down a $1 million Euros in bank guarantees to be a UCI Pro Tour squad. That’s the major reason why, as Frankielof notes, costs are nearly identical across teams.
Not entirely serious, but it is emblematic of the current ProTour structure’s inability to put the best riders into the best races—one of the primary things it was intended to do.
I couldn’t agree more Cosmo. Say what you may about the ASO/RAI/Unipublic “mafia”, they own what makes this sport what it is. The ProTour, or whatever is is called these days, and it creator the UCI have “lost the plot”. When will they realize that what they have created has done nothing for the sport? And how long until the fragile truce that was agreed to this year falls apart?
Doesn’t ‘French cycling’ have a bigger problem of not cultivating strong riders, rather than it being an issue of whether a team can front the cash to be a protour team? While the French may have some specific deficiencies, a genetic inability to cycle cannot be one of them.
As far as DiLuca- three months, right? Pretty rough sanction.
I’m not sure that statement about the asthma drug is quite correct- I think it is a performance enhancer.
And your saying that the costs across all teams is the same? Really? Salaries are the same for Mark Cavendish as for Fumiyuki Beppu?
They showed this several times on Vs. this morning and it was obvious that the first rider rode right into the gravel on the edge of the road coming out of this corner. At that point the rest were following him down. The root cause of this is the French teams are all be assured a slot in the Tour each year so they don’t really need to go out and build a team that has a realistic chance of doing anything other than the daily doomed break. What’s crazy is that the annual cost to run a mediocre team like B-Box or AG2R is not much less that a team like Columbia.
FFS The reason LPR was not invited is that their team leader epitomizes everything pro cycling should be trying to distance themselves from. Compare them to Skil Shimano who gave L’Hotelliere the boot after his suspicious performances. I know who I’d prefer to see in a race and I’m happy that the ASO agree
To be fair, Gustaf Larsson almost bailed on that corner as well. Crashes are inevitable, especially on a golf cart road like that. Nevertheless, this post makes me laugh.
Diarmuid, if you’re speaking about DiLuca, he was investigated and sanctioned according the rules cycling’s governing bodies have set up. His suspension ended in 2007. On the road, DiLuca is an exciting competitor, and I can’t think of a race that’s been worse because he’s raced it.
Then there’s Petacchi, who was suspended a year for breaking an arbitrarily determined limit on a substance with no performance enhancing effect. He’s performance in the Giro was excellent, and deserved as much as any other rider, to be contesting sprints at this years Tour.
Skil-Shimano earned an entry to the TdF based on their performance this spring. BBox, however, earned an invite by putting down a $1 million Euros in bank guarantees to be a UCI Pro Tour squad. That’s the major reason why, as Frankielof notes, costs are nearly identical across teams.
I can’t tell if this is all tongue in cheek or a deep foray into the territory of drawing overly broad conclusions from a micro-slice of information.
Not entirely serious, but it is emblematic of the current ProTour structure’s inability to put the best riders into the best races—one of the primary things it was intended to do.
I couldn’t agree more Cosmo. Say what you may about the ASO/RAI/Unipublic “mafia”, they own what makes this sport what it is. The ProTour, or whatever is is called these days, and it creator the UCI have “lost the plot”. When will they realize that what they have created has done nothing for the sport? And how long until the fragile truce that was agreed to this year falls apart?
Doesn’t ‘French cycling’ have a bigger problem of not cultivating strong riders, rather than it being an issue of whether a team can front the cash to be a protour team? While the French may have some specific deficiencies, a genetic inability to cycle cannot be one of them.
As far as DiLuca- three months, right? Pretty rough sanction.
I’m not sure that statement about the asthma drug is quite correct- I think it is a performance enhancer.
And your saying that the costs across all teams is the same? Really? Salaries are the same for Mark Cavendish as for Fumiyuki Beppu?
It seems your blog is being read in France…strong revenge by Voeckler today 😉
It was a classy win indeed. I’d be flattered if this post was part of his motivation.