June 1, 2017

Best Stage Winning Grand Tour Debuts

Cartoon Gaviria

The sprinting sensation of the recent Giro d’Italia was Fernando Gaviria. Still just 22 years old, the Colombian won four stages on his Grand Tour debut. He was also the only rider to win more than one road stage. His fourth and final win on Stage 13 to Tortona was incredible. With 100 metres to the line he still wasn’t even visible in the overhead shot of the front of the bunch. But he launched himself past everyone over the line and into the history books.

Gaviria is the first rider to win four stages on his Grand Tour debut for 38 years.

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May 29, 2017

Grand Tour Trebles

Merckx Cartoon

Winning two Grand Tours in the same year has been achieved 17 times throughout cycling history. If we consider all of the years where this was actually possible, that’s an average of a Grand Tour double roughly every six years – a relatively common occurrence.

Despite Oleg’s Tinkov’s wishes, no rider has ever won all three Grand Tours in a single year. The best performance by a rider across all three in one year is a toss up between Raphael Geminiani in 1955 and Gastone Nencini in 1957. Geminiani finished the Vuelta, Giro and Tour in third, fourth and sixth overall respectively. Adding these finishing positions together gives a total of 13, which is the lowest total ever achieved. In 1957, Nencini managed ninth, first and sixth – a total of 16 which is not as good as Geminiani but since Nencini actually won the Giro, depending on your criteria, perhaps this should be considered a better set of results.

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July 19, 2016

Yellow and Green – The old one-two

Stage 15 - 1972. Merckx celebrates prematurely as Guimard takes another win.

On Stage 11 of this year’s Tour de France we witnessed something on the streets of Montpellier which is extremely rare in the history of this great race. We were treated to the sight of Peter Sagan winning the stage in the Green Jersey ahead of Chris Froome in second place wearing the Yellow Jersey. The leaders of the two most important classifications finishing first and second on a stage of the Tour de France is something which has only happened on six previous occasions.

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January 2, 2016

Debutant Winners of a Monument Classic

Cobbles

A new year, a new cycling season and a new set of five monument classics waiting to be won by the strongest riders. Whenever talk turns to contenders for these one-day races, it’s often the case that we look to the names of previous winners as the riders most likely to battle it out for the win once more: John Degenkolb, Alexander Kristoff, Tom Boonen, Fabian Cancellara, Philippe Gilbert, Simon Gerrans, Dan Martin, Alejandro Valverde.

Failing that, there are plenty of other riders who have come close and have not quite made the top step of the podium, but who we would also expect to see in the thick of it in the monument classics: Greg van Avermaet, Sep van Marcke, Zdenek Stybar, Geraint Thomas.

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April 9, 2014

Cancellara – Record Breaker

Cancellara wins the 2014 Tour of Flanders - his seventh monument classic.

Twitter is a transient beast. Almost as soon as you plop a thought or a fact or a piece of nonsense on the screen…it’s gone. For all it’s worth, an adequate Twitter search engine still does not exist, rendering this transient information largely inaccessible.

During Fabian Cancellara’s displays of strength in this year’s Milan San Remo and the Tour of Flanders, I happened across a few facts pertaining to his incredible consistency in the monument classics, tweeted them, but now they’re gone. So I’ve collected a few of the better ones here to illustrate just how impressive Cancellara has been over the past few years.

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October 17, 2012

As if from nowhere…a Tour winner

oly_g_fignon_400

The Tour de France is like life. It’s not a game, or a series of games. It’s a two-thousand-mile, month-long odyssey that creates and breaks heroes, elevates some while diminishing others. There’s unspeakable triumph and heartbreak, not in fleeting moments but washing over you for sustained periods. There are disasters, and illnesses. Babies are born while racers speed simultaneously away from and toward home. Deep friendships develop. Rivalries, too. Bikes crash. So do cars. There are cheaters — and there always have been, though the methods have varied. The Tour de France is the only sporting event, someone once said, so long that you have to get your hair cut in the middle of it. This messiness and glory is what I think of when I say the Tour de France is like life itself. It was always where I had most desired and most sought to prove myself.

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