November 20, 2011

The World champion has been breaking rules!

The UCI, cycling’s governing body, take their image rights of the rainbow stripes very seriously. The five colours, arranged as they are in order blue, red, black, yellow, green are a registered trademark and their use on any piece of bicycle equipment must be approved by the UCI themselves. They have many pages of rules and regulations regarding the rainbow stripes of World Champion available on their website.

Mark Cavendish, the current World road race champion has broken these rules.

The following is a photo of Cavendish on the podium in Copenhagen shortly after accepting his prize for winning the biggest one-day race in cycling. ~ Continue reading ~

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October 7, 2011

World champion team-mates

By winning the World Championship road race in Denmark, Mark Cavendish became only the second British rider to wear the rainbow jersey after Tom Simpson in 1965. But this coming weekend the world’s best sprinter has a chance to achieve what no rider, Brit or otherwise, has ever achieved – win Paris-Tours as World Champion.

Unlike most other one-day races, the World Championships road race takes place on a different route every year. Often it is won by riders who could be classed as ‘sprinters’. To illustrate, recent winners of the rainbow jersey include Mario Cipollini, Oscar Freire, Tom Boonen, Thor Hushovd and now Mark Cavendish. ~ Continue reading ~

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August 24, 2011

If there’s a man who has a right to be tired…

Mark Cavendish had a chance to make a bit of history this week. There have only been three riders in the history of the sport who have won a stage in all three Grand Tours in the same year, Miguel Poblet (1956), Pierino Baffi (1958) and Alessandro Petacchi (2003). Having already won two stages of this year’s Giro and five stages at the Tour, Cavendish had only a stage of the 2011 Vuelta to cross off his list to complete the hat-trick.

But, as we now know, Cavendish abandoned and in doing so forfeited his chance of joining the trio of riders who have achieved this remarkable feat. But the question is, should we really be all that surprised? ~ Continue reading ~

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July 25, 2011

The 2011 Tour de France by numbers

This year’s Tour has thrown up a whole feast of stats and facts. Some records were broken and others were equalled in what was an amazing three weeks of racing.

I’ve spent the last few days putting up a large amount of these stats on twitter. But if you’re not on the twitter or you missed a few I’ve compiled all the facts that have entered my head in the last week or so, right here. There’s also a few here that I haven’t mentioned at all yet.

Througout the Tour, the site’s traffic increased quite a bit so hello to any new readers. I’m kind of overwhelmed by the tweets and emails I’ve been getting thanking me for the constant stream of cycling trivia during the Tour. It’s great to know I’m not the only nerd who appreciates and gets excited about these sporting tidbits. So, on to the stats…. ~ Continue reading ~

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July 19, 2011

Green jersey points breakdown: Is the system actually geared towards Cavendish?

Stephen Roche wrote in an article yesterday that he thought it would be an interesting exercise to calculate who would be leading the green jersey competition if the intermediate sprints were ignored and the points were assigned on the stage finishes alone.

Well, Roche’s wish is my command. His comments were made in relation to Mark Cavendish, so does this year’s points classification suit the Manxman more than last year’s?

Currently the green jersey standings in this year’s Tour de France are as follows: ~ Continue reading ~

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June 30, 2011

The Tour de France for stats geeks

Alberto Contador is aiming to win his fourth Tour de France. Should he be successful he will leave the company of Philippe Thys, Louison Bobet and Greg LeMond and be in a category of his own just behind Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain,  who all have five. It would also be Contador’s seventh Grand Tour victory which would see him move up to fourth on the list of all time winners, level with Indurain, Fausto Coppi and Lance Armstrong.

However, even if Contador makes it to seven Grand Tour wins, the CAS hearing in August could see him stripped of two Tours de France and a Giro d’Italia landing him right back down at four wins. ~ Continue reading ~

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