November 1, 2012

Roche, the UCI and the media scrum

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It’s been almost three weeks since USADA released their reasoned decision in their case against Lance Armstrong which included an avalanche of evidence into the doping practices on the Texan’s various teams. With the lack of top level racing in the days since then, it’s unsurprising that much of the cycling news emerging has included the reactions of people within the sport, not least the cyclists themselves.

It is a quirk of the entire Armstrong case that many of the main characters are Irish. Consequently, the mainstream Irish media can seek comment from several of their own when a big story breaks – the unrelenting journalists David Walsh and Paul Kimmage, the president of the UCI Pat McQuaid, the whistleblower Emma O’Reilly, the prominent cycling journalist Shane Stokes. All of whom have appeared on Irish TV or radio over the past number of weeks.

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January 2, 2012

Froome, Cobo, Time Bonuses and the Tour de France

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In the 2011 edition of the Vuelta a Espana, Juan Jose Cobo won by a margin of just 13 seconds over runner up Chris Froome. It’s unlikely that you’ll find a report of this race anywhere which doesn’t state that Froome actually completed the 3,300km distance in a faster time than Cobo.

The Spaniard ended up winning the race because of time bonuses. He accumulated 32 seconds more in time bonuses throughout the race than Froome. Thus, the Team Sky rider actually rode the race route 19 seconds faster than Cobo.

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July 15, 2011

A hat-trick of domestique success

Christophe

In the early years of the Tour de France at the beginning of the 20th century, riders were forbidden from receiving help of any kind. The most famous and extreme example of this came in 1913 when Eugène Christophe was penalised three minutes for allowing a boy to work the bellows as he attempted to fix his own broken forks at a local forge.

On a more day to day basis, receiving no help meant that taking advantage of another rider’s slipstream was also forbidden. This rule was an attempt by the Tour organisers to ensure that truly the strongest rider ended up winning the Tour and not the rider who had received the most help.

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July 13, 2011

Team-mates in the Tour

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A fact I’ve become rather obsessed and impressed with over the last while is that Liquigas are on a run of seven straight Grand Tours in which all of their riders have finished the race. And currently they are one of only eight teams in the Tour de France who still have a full complement of riders.

The other teams still fully intact in the Tour are Saxo Bank, Leopard-Trek, BMC, Cofidis, Lampre, HTC-HighRoad and Saur-Sojasun. Importantly, Contador, the Schlecks, Evans and Basso all have full-strength squads to call on as the Tour finally reaches the mountains tomorrow.

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May 30, 2011

Nerdy facts from this year’s Giro d’Italia

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Vincenzo Nibali could have been forgiven for conceding defeat in the Giro d’Italia with a week left to race.

It was quite clear after the first real mountain stage up Mount Etna that Contador was in a league of his own. So instead of trying to match him, blowing up, losing massive amounts of time and sacrificing any chance of a podium place, why not ride for second place knowing that you may actually be riding for first?

This is the farcical scenario we were left with as Contador continues to race pending the result of an appeal by both the UCI and WADA to the Court of Arbitration for Sport regarding his exoneration by the Spanish cycling federation after his positive test in the 2010 Tour de France. Now the appeal process has been delayed even further which means Contador now seems likely to be at this year’s Tour. Which means if Contador is subsequently found guilty we could potentially see him stripped of a Giro and two Tour de France titles, all because of one positive…lunacy!

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August 1, 2010

San Sebastián Stat Attack

Luis León Sánchez - Winner of this year's Clásica de San Sebastián

In the Clásica de San Sebastián last Saturday, Luis León Sánchez won a three man sprint to take top spot ahead of Alexander Vinokourov and Carlos Sastre. Sánchez’s victory means Spanish riders have now claimed six of the last seven editions of their biggest one day race of the year. It was an attack from Vinokourov, who was capitalising on good Tour de France form, about 30km from the finish which proved decisive as only ten riders managed to make the selection. These ten riders would end up populating the first ten places at the finish but it wasn’t only Vinokourov who was coming off the Tour on good form. Of the ten, eight had ridden the Tour (the exceptions were Haimar Zubeldia and Richie Porte), and all eight of them had finished the Tour in the top 20 places overall.

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