Just because there’s no big news today, with the UCI and Grand Tours content to stop wailing on each other for the moment – though T-Mobile has a hilarious mistranslation on their homepage today (search “backfires”) – doesn’t mean there’s no interesting news. For example, Belgian Ludovic Capelle had his suspension recinded based on procedural errors in his EPO test. However, most people involved still agree that Capelle did have EPO in his system. As you might expect, all Belgium is quaking in fear about what the UCI, eager to reassert its authority, and Dick Pound, generally just an angry dude, get around to doing something about it. And, does this test still count as positive, since only the suspension was overturned? If it does, no ProTour squad should be able to sign him for the next four years; but with the ProTour no longer including the biggest races around, maybe it’s worth the risk to snap him up?
This lull in breaking events also allows me to thow in some sweet multimedia footage of interesting junk that’s been accumulating over the past few days. Like this series of videos from ‘cross nats (it might look like a picture gallery, but trust me, there’s videos aplenty in there). Yeah, it’s some of the worst weather I’ve ever seen at a ‘cross race, but I can’t shake the feeling that, had this been Belgium, the show would have gone on, especially considering the distinct lack of carnage. If it’s carnage you want, check out this little examination of that incedent at Trexlertown this summer. An opposing viewpoint can be found here, along with a video, which I’d recommend downloading. It’s no Ron Artest debacle, but there are a few extra-curriculars in the infield.
All these videos don’t have to be so grim, though. Check out this cute little piece advertizing live video for your mobile phone. It’s nice to see that, in other parts of the world, people know enough about cycling for this to be effective advertizing. Places like the Netherlands, which, for some reason, T-Mobile feels compelled to profile. And wouldn’t you know it, the place has more bikes than people. Perhaps that’s how Michael Boogerd is able to get a hundred folks out on the road on a chilly December afternoon for Michael Boogerd Fandag. Certainly, it seems the Boogerd’s compatriots have a bit more reverence than the countrymen of the Italians who keep beating him in the hilly classics; in something straight out of The Simpsons, a statue of Gino Bartali on the Milan-San Remo course has been vandalized. Is that anyway to repay a guy for preventing civil war?
In defense of the race promoters nationals, I was walking a flat part of the course after the races were postponed on friday, and I remember thinking I couldn’t have ridden 75% or more of the course. I think the decision was smart.
“9.1 The course shall form a closed circuit of a minimum length of 2.5 km and a maximum length of 3.5 km, of which at least 90% shall be rideable.”
Well, that does sound like grounds for canceling the race. Good thing the rules cater to wimps.