So here’s a shocker – Unibet is pulling its sponsorship of a pro cycling team. Combine that with the impending loss of Astana’s ProTour license (even the manager has confessed – if only to being naive) and the folding of Discovery Channel, and there might just be a reasonably sized ProTour next year. The organizers…
Tag: Dopage
The Tailwind Backstab, Tour of Germany
Man, I feel really sore all of a sudden. I’m thinking maybe this had something to do with it? I mean, this is a new era in cycling. I was jonesing hard for that “I’m about to get busted” confession. I suppose with old Johan looking over his shoulder, we should have never expected anything…
Contador's Clouds Gather, Germans Love Cycling
So am I the only one getting that sinking feeling for tomorrow’s (well, technically today’s) big announcement? Postal one-upped a seemingly stacked Astana on the Tour results sheet; are they looking to do it in the dope convictions arena as well? I’d like to feel bad about Kashechkin’s coming up positive, but honestly, nailing a…
CRAP: The New Cycling Authority
After the omnipresent specter of doping, cycling’s biggest problem is an obvious shortage of Oligarchical Oversight Organizations Whose Names Readily Form Acronyms. While existing OOOWNRFAs such as the UCI, ASO and WADA, control a few important aspects of professional cycling, the sport still lacks a unified body with ultimate authority over who can race and…
Sebastian, Denmark, Millar
So while I took another weekend off, another exciting Clasica San Sebastian came to a close. This year’s winner? Leonardo Bertagnolli, who, as his Wikipedia page so starkly suggests, isn’t exactly the biggest name in the sport. True, his win completed a nice comeback story, but it’s still another second-tier winner at what should be…
San Sebastian Approaches
The good news is, come the weekend, you can stop pretending to care who wins the Tour of Denmark stage each day. Why? Because San Sebastian is coming up. You know, the one-day race with a lot of climbing and the funny hat? If you still don’t know what I’m talking about, it might be…
Racing, Tabloids, Drugs, Tabloids, Beef
So I’m going to start the day in Denmark, where Matti Breschel became the first Dane to win a stage at the Tour of Denmark in nearly half a decade. No word yet on whether to chalk that winless streak up to bad luck, or an active anti-Danish campaign by embittered Rasmussen teammates. Speaking of…
Timing and Shifting
So I don’t know who to blame. Sackless editors? Lazy writers? Why is it only after the Tour de France, when no one else is paying attention, that the “mainstream sports are dirty too” and “at least cycling tries to be clean” stories come out? Maybe I’m just a cynic, but it seems like the…
Untangling the Tour de France Dope Stories
So the 2007 Tour is finally finished. Time for me to return to this blog’s normal topics of telecommunications billing, with specific emphasis on reports generation, postpaid offline rating, journaling, and – new for August – general ledgers! (Are the new viewers gone yet?). Yes, the ’07 Tour may only be a memory, but the…
Tour de France '07 – And Now We Can Sleep
Yes, after 24 hours of on-and-off 503 errors, I am finally able to make my last post on the 2007 Tour. The finish, despite the cagey “maybe I will, maybe I won’t” attitude of Cadel Evans, and rumors of a mass protest, was a confirmation win for Danielle Bennati. His Lampre team hadn’t been having…