October 7, 2014

The Million Dollar Nonsense

“If Quintana, Froome, Nibali and Contador all agree to ride all three Grand Tours, I’ll get Tinkoff Bank to put up €1 million. They can have €250,000 each as an extra incentive. I think it’s a good idea”

The words of Oleg Tinkov speaking recently to Cycling News as he once more offers to throw money at the sport of cycling for his own amusement.

Trying to win all three Grand Tours in the same year is seemingly impossible, but Tinkov seems to think that every rider has their price. With that notion, he might be right, €250,000 is a lot of money. Perhaps not worth as much to these multi-million euro contracted riders than to you or I, but a lot of money nonetheless.

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July 22, 2012

2012 Tour de France Trivia

General Classification

  • This is the first Tour de France victory for Bradley Wiggins and for Great Britain. The previous best for both was fourth place in 2009 (Robert Millar also finished in fourth place in 1984).
  • Along with Roger Walkowiak, Wiggins is now one of only two Tour winners who have never won a road stage in any Tour de France (although of course, Wiggins still has a few years to rectify this).
It is also the first time since 1968 that the Tour winner has finished outside the top 10 in the mountains classification. Jan Janssen did so in the Tour directly after Tom Simpson died which was raced over a more cautious route with less demanding mountain stages.

  • Wiggins is the first Olympic track gold medalist to win the Tour de France. The closest any rider had come to achieving this previously was Guy Lapebie who won the 4km team pursuit in Berlin in 1936 and finished third in the Tour in 1948 behind Gino Bartali and Briek Schotte.
  • Having taken the yellow jersey on Stage Seven, Wiggins and Team Sky defended the race lead all the way to Paris for 13 stages. This is the most stages a Tour winner has held the yellow jersey directly before Paris since Bernard Hinault defended successfully for 15 stages in 1985.
  • Since trade teams were re-introduced to the Tour de France in 1969, the one-two finish by Wiggins and Chris Froome is the first time that two riders from the same team and same country have finished first and second in the Tour de France. It is the first time since Bjarne Riis and Jan Ullrich in 1996 for two riders from the same team and it is the first time since Laurent Fignon and Bernard Hinault in 1984 for two riders from the same country to finish first and second.

  • The last two times where two riders from the same team have finished first and second at the Tour (Riis-Ullrich 1996 and Hinualt-LeMond1985), the younger rider who finished in second place behind his team leader went on to win the Tour the following year. (This ‘two times’ ignores the team one-two by LeMond-Hinault in 86, where the following year Hinault retired and LeMond had been shot).
  • By finishing on the third step of the podium in Paris, Vincenzo Nibali has now finished on the podium of all three Grand Tours (2nd – Giro 2010, 1st – Vuelta 2010). He is the first Italian to achieve this feat since Felice Gimondi.
  • Starting with Andy Schleck’s inherited Tour de France in 2010, Wiggins’s victory makes it seven Grand Tours in a row where the winner has never before won a Grand Tour (Schleck, Nibali, Scarponi, Evans, Cobo, Hesjedal, Wiggins). This has only ever happened once before between the Vueltas of 1965 and 1967 (Wolfshohl, Adorni, Gimondi, Gabica, Aimar, Motta, Janssen).
  • Nicolas Roche’s 12th place finish overall goes one better than his father achieved in his final Tour de France in 1993 where he ended the race in 13th place. Roche junior also bettered his own personal best at the Tour which was 14th in 2010. His performance this year is now the highest G.C. place for an Irishman since Stephen Roche’s ninth place in 1992.

Stage Wins

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May 13, 2011

Spaniards vs. Italians – Each in t’others race

The Tour de France is still waiting for a French winner. Since Bernard Hinault last delivered a home victory in 1985, the Tour has been a free for all.  It has been won by five Spaniards, two Amercians, an Italian, a German, a Dane and an Irishman. So while the biggest Grand Tour of them all has been a largely international affair, the same is not quite true of the Tour’s younger cousins.

Of the past ten years in the Vuelta, the race has been won six times by five different Spaniards. The Giro fares even better with eight victories by five different Italians. Unlike the Tour, both the Giro and Vuelta have managed to maintain a steady stream of home victories.

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May 3, 2011

The best recipe for Giro success

Lance Armstrong gets a hard time. He is regularly accused of something he didn’t do. He is renowned for doing it, he is blamed for others having subsequently copied him doing it but he didn’t do it at all. Everyone who says he did do it is wrong.

He never focused solely on the Tour de France.

It is common practice in this modern age of cycling to slowly build race-winning form over a number of preparation races. Although every race that a team leader participates in is either a goal, or is preparation for a goal, the attitudes exuded by cyclists in each of these races can be quite different. In 2010, the two most polarised examples are Alberto Contador and Bradley Wiggins.

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April 5, 2011

A world class stage racer should be winning stage races

He has finished on the podium of the Tour de France. He has finished on the podium of the Giro d’Italia. He has won the best young rider’s jersey in both the Tour and the Giro. He is one of the most prodigious stage racing talents to emerge in the last decade. His name is Andy Schleck and he has never won a professional stage race.

It’s almost hard to believe, but it’s true. As an amateur, Schleck won the five stage Fléche du Sud in 2004 (a race once won by Neil Martin, Dan Martin’s Dad!), but since then he has never stood on the top step of the podium at the end of a stage race.

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January 4, 2011

Liquigas Made History in 2010

In 2010, Liquigas didn’t win the Tour de France, they didn’t win any classics and none of their riders won medals at the World Championships, and yet they have had a remarkable year for two main reasons:

Firstly, they won two of cycling’s three Grand Tours. Ivan Basso won the Giro d’Italia, reclaiming the race for the Italians after Alberto Contador (2008) and Denis Menchov (2009) had interrupted an Italian monopoly on the race stretching back to 1997. Then Basso’s team mate Vincenzo Nibali won the Vuelta a Espana becoming the first Italian to do so since Marco Giovannetti way back in 1990, thus completing a Grand Tour double by the Liquigas team.

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