Going nowhere, on two wheels
Posted by Mark on July 11, 2008 under opinion | 
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You’d think the riders would have learned by now, there’s no hiding the drug usage. Manuel Beltrán of Liquigas has tested positive for EPO. What an idiot.
Posted by Mark on July 9, 2008 under opinion | Be the First to Comment
Mark Cavendish gets his first Tour de France win! Hoorah!
And what a win it was. The speed at which the Columbia team dragged the peloton to the finish was astounding, poor Nicholas Vogondy must have felt totally dejected when his 230km break came to an end about 10 metres before the finish line.
Still, I can’t remember the last time I got so excited watching a sprint finish. Go Cav’ go!
Posted by Mark on July 1, 2008 under opinion | Be the First to Comment
So Rasmussen was a naughty boy last year and told porky pies about where he was. Through all the reading I’ve done, it looks very much to me like:
a) He should’ve been in Mexico, or at least that’s what he told the UCI
b) He was actually in Italy, training, and his team knew this
c) The UCI knew all this two weeks before he was in yellow, but only decided to release the information to the world during the Tour de France, hence creating a massive media storm.
Rasmussen has never tested positive for anything. In amongst all this were rumours he’d missed a couple of out of competition tests. There was also a rumour, from a former team mate when he was mountain biking, that said team mate had received a shoe box full of drugs from Rasmussen. But rumour was all it was.
Now let’s look at ole Chicken Legs’ performance. He’s been able to climb like a daemon for a couple of years, but time trialling was never his strong point (remember that 2005 time trial where he binned it at least a couple of times en route?!). Then last year he picks his game up a bit. Big deal. Lance couldn’t climb for toffee before his cancer, but he trained and trained and became a superb climber. Surely Rasmussen is capable of improving his time trialling in a year without recourse to drugs?
I dunno. There’s so much finger pointing these days, and so much “guilty until proven innocent” in cycling. Am I missing something here, or is Rasmussen being penalised with a two year ban without actually being found guilty of using drugs?
Posted by Mark on July 25, 2007 under opinion | Be the First to Comment
Well there we go – another selfish bastard means a whole team leaves the 2007 Tour de France. This time the Italian Cristian Moreni has caused the whole of Cofidis to leave. This, of course, means our own [if you're a Brit 
] Bradley Wiggins is going home.
Makes the Mouvement pour un cyclisme crédible a bit of a farce too, eh, since Cofidis were one of the founding seven teams.
*sigh* It’s far from over, isn’t it?
Posted by Mark on July 23, 2007 under opinion | Be the First to Comment
Crikey, what an awesome weekend!
Vino’s stunning time trial, followed by the brilliant action on the Plateau de Beille.
After my last post it’ll come as no surprise that I was glad to see Evans cracked. He never makes any effort to lead up the climbs, let alone do something as brave as make a break himself. Watching Rasmussen, Leipheimer, Contador and mostly Soler wear him out was justice if you ask me.
Interesting comments by Contador at the end, saying Rasmussen broke an agreement they had about working together to rule out Evans. Contador claimed Rasmussen attacked him, after they’d agreed to work together. Of course, we’ll never know what the exact words were that were exchanged between them, but from my [TV] spectators point of view it looked awfully like Contador got bored of leading Rasmussen and complained. At which point Rasmussen then took the lead. After that they seen to be squabbling over taking the lead. Odd.
Oh well, it worked. Contador up to second, Evans in third three minutes off the lead.
In the ITT on Saturday Contador only pulled 37 seconds out of Rasmussen. With one ITT left, and a lead of 2 minutes 23 seconds on Contador, does this mean Rasmussen is our 2007 winner? I’d certainly like to see it that way. It was a complete surprise, to me at least, to see Rasmussen take the yellow jersey, and his effort in the ITT on stage 13 was stunning (41 seconds slower than our own Bradley Wiggins, not bad!) compared to his past ITT efforts. His climbing has been fantastic, and his tactics smart and calculated. A worth winner? In my mind, yes. Roll on Paris.
Posted by Mark on July 17, 2007 under opinion | Be the First to Comment
What a great few days racing! A very exciting weekend, with a fabulous ride by Rasmussen.
I’d never put him as a GC contender, what with his renowned time trialling ability (or rather, lack of it), but with GC contenders dropping like flies, can he really boost himself enough to afford some losses in the time trials?
Getting kinda bored of Cadel Evans being discussed as a GC contender too. Yeah, so he’s up there, but only because he follows the right wheels. When has that whiny so-and-so actually done anything on his own? (correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall him winning any stages in recent years, or even initiating a break). I was also stunned to see him get upset by Ned Boulting’s comment on ITV (British TV) coverage the other day. When Ned happened to say “you’re getting a lot more mentions now” Evans said “now eh?” and promptly wandered off into the bus. What does he expect? He’s a wheel follower.
Posted by Mark on July 13, 2007 under opinion | Be the First to Comment
Here’s a quote…
“Astana manager Marc Biver when questioned whether he still held hopes of his team winning the Tour: “‘I don’t think so,’ he told reporters. ‘Let’s be realistic. Kloeden is not in the best conditions to ride. Nobody can say if they are in a position to finish the Tour, let alone the stage. It does not augur well. That’s life, that’s sport. There are moments of glory, moments of defeat. We’ve been struck by fate. Today we hope for better news.’”
My money was always on Kloeden, so what do I think now? Could this be Valverde’s year I wonder?
Posted by Mark on May 25, 2007 under opinion | Be the First to Comment
So there we have it. Bjarne Riis won his tour on [at least] EPO. He’s also fessed up to using cortisone and human growth hormone. I wonder if Indurain was clean at the time – and if he was, how cheated does he feel that his sixth win was robbed?
Posted by Mark on May 24, 2007 under opinion | Be the First to Comment
Well, here we go, the confessions are coming thick and fast. It’s hardly surprising though. If you’ve read The Death of Marco Pantani: A Biography
There’s some work to do to clean up our beloved sport, but I think this year could be the biggest step forward.
On a more positive note, I’ve got my Sky card and I’ve been watching the Giro, hoorah! Nasty crash at Pinerolo yesterday, especially for Popovich I thought. Looking forward to todays coverage to Briançon. Bring it on!