January 1 - 2008 Year in Review Part III
|
 |
Thursday, 01 January 09 - 07:28 PM (GMT -08:00) By Colin Gibson in Euro Tips |
| ||
Hello Whitman Cyclists!
Happy New Years Eve and welcome to the third and final installment of 2008 A Year in
Review. Here are the final four moments from 2008 that you might not have heard about.
Enjoy.
Cancellara wins the Monte Paschi Eroica
Monte Paschi Eroica is Italy's latest answer to the spring hard men races in Belgium and the Netherlands. You may thing hard men and Italy are mutually exclusive (the Italians generally thrive in stage races and on high alpine cols rather than battling crosswinds over sections of muddy pave in Belgium). 
But Eroica presents a unique perspective on the single day classic style race. Rather than brutal sections of cobbles, Eroica has le strade bianche (the white roads), seven sections of gravel roads between 3 and 14 km in length. Though this was only the second running of the Eroica as a professional race, it has already managed to attract Pro Tour teams, and occurring at the beginning of March, presents an opportunity for the hard men of the peloton to test their legs before the more important Belgian, French, and Dutch Classics.
The race started with a large escape group that stood little chance of surviving. In the sixth sector of gravel, with 27 km remaining, Ryder Hesjedal of Slipstream-Chipotle launched a solo attack, as the escape group was reeled in. 
At the start of the seventh and final sector, Allesandro Ballan launched the decisive attack, towing Fabian Cancellara with him. With 9 km left, the duo caught and dropped Hesjedal, powering away to the finish. Cancellara proceeded to lead the duo into the finish at Siena's Piazza del Campo, and despite Ballan's better positioning, Cancellara was simply to strong and held off Ballan for the win. A spectacular end to a new and exciting race that will hopefully become a premier race on the spring calendar.
Philipe Gilbert Wins Omloop Het Volk
Omloop Het Volk is a Belgian Semi-Classic, a one day race that isn't quite to the caliber of the "Classics" such as Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris-Roubaix. Nevertheless, it is still a formidable race, and because it kicks off the start of the spring Classics season, is often plagued with notoriously bad weather. While Philipe Gilbert's win here was not his biggest of the season - in the fall he won the very prestigious Paris-Tours - the style in which he won the race was simply exemplary.
Early in the race, a break of six riders went away, accruing a lead of nearly seven minutes. With 50 km left to race, on the cobbled Eikenberg climb, Gilbert attacked, initially followed by Nick Nuyens, who quickly decided 50 km out was far to early for such an escape and backed off. 
Gilbert charged off in pursuit of the disintegrating break, catching the first of them with nearly 30 km left to race. At the 22 km mark, Gilbert decided he had enough of the lead group and again attacked, building a lead of nearly a minute by the time he enter the finishing circuit in Gent, allowing him to sit up and celebrate as he crossed the finish line. In a punishing race, Gilbert won in perfect style, with no one else in the photo.
Boonen gets the last laugh at Scheldeprijs Vlaanderen
Scheldeprijs is one of the many Belgian one-day races that happen every spring and this one usually ends in a sprint finish. That formula held true once again, and in the mad dash to the line, it appeared to everyone, including Tom Boonen, that Tom Boonen was going to win it. So, in typical sprinter style, Boonen sits up and begins celebrating before the finish line. This opens the door for Mark Cavendish, the cheeky lad from the Isle of Man. Cav, coming from some horrible position in the pack, uses his unbeatable acceleration over the last hundred meters and a huge bike throw to pip Boonen at the line. Boonen quickly realizes that he has celebrated too early, and that he should probably stop celebrating and start pedaling, while Cav comes across the line laughing. Hilarity:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2008/apr08/scheldeprijs08/index.php?id=/photos/2008/apr08/scheldeprijs08/bettiniphoto_0026326_1_full
Click previous and next photo links for the whole sequence.
Now, this is far from the first time someone has suffered from premature celebration (Eric Zabel also has some experience with this problem), nor will it be the last. But what made Scheldeprijs especially entertaining was what occurred on the podium. In order to get Cav back, Boonen sprays him with champagne and then runs away. Cav chases after him with his own bottle of bubbly. Unfortunately, he is running in cycling cleats on a champagne-soaked stage. This is the result:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3_Yy4d8s9w&feature=channel
Boonen gets the last laugh after all.
Team Columbia Women Dominate at the Giro della Toscana
Last, but certainly not least, we have a dominant performance by the Team Columbia women, aided by our own hometown hero, Mara Abbott. The Giro della Toscana Int. Femminile is a 6 day 7 stage race that takes place in Italy in Septembe
r. Columbia won 5 of those stages. They started off with a bang, crushing the team time trial and taking 4 different leaders jerseys. The second day saw two stages. In the first, Judith Arndt took over the leaders jersey, and the second Ina-Yoko Teutenberg broke away for a solo win. Day three, the 122 km Queen stage of the race saw Mara Abbott charge out of the peloton with 2 km to go on the cobbled Volterra climb to take a commanding solo win. Judith Arndt also finished third to retain the leader's jersey. 
Day four ended in another bunch sprint, and another win by Ina-Yoko Teutenberg. Day five, Columbia again, with Judith Arndt taking the win on the final climb and adding a few more seconds to her lead on GC. The final stage saw an escape group finish just over a minute in front of the main peloton, but Arndt retained the leaders jersey, giving Columbia a total of five stage wins and the overall. Despite their sponsor troubles, Columbia has proven itself to be the dominant force in women's professional cycling. It was also great to see Mara show the Euros what she is capable of.
Thus concludes our review of 2008. I hope you were entertained, and learned a bit about cycling. Have a great New Years Eve, and I will see you all in 2009. Look out for my next piece coming soon, a preview of 2009.
Love,
Andy
The Enforcer of Euro
2008 Year In Review - Part II
|
|
|
Tuesday, 30 December 08 - 09:25 AM (GMT -08:00) By Colin Gibson in Euro Tips |
| ||
Hello Whitman Cyclists!
Tonight I present the next three "Moments of 2008 You Might Not Have Heard About."
Hopefully you enjoyed the first three, and didn't get too scared by the video clip of
Frank Schleck "descending poorly." These next three are a mix of fantastic performances,
a bit of cycling history, and stunning race tactics. Enjoy.
Katie Compton Wins a Superprestige, US Nationals, and a World Cup!
Despite the growing popularity of Cyclocross in the United States, Americans have not
traditionally done well racing cross in Europe. Most of the top U.S. Cyclocrossers are
sponsored by U.S. companies that would rather see their riders perform in locations where their products are actually sold. For instance, the company that makes Luna bars sees more sales if Georgia Gould races in Colorado rather than the Netherlands. As a result, those wishing to cut their teeth on the demanding World Cup cyclocross circuit are forced to go it alone, teammate-less with a mish-mash of small sponsors and personally purchased equipment. The extra demands of trying to race World Cups with little financial backing and no support system make finding the podium of a World Cup especially difficult. With the exception of Jonathan Page's World Championship bronze medal two years ago, Americans have found little success recently in European cyclocross races. Despite these added challenges, Katie Compton has been utterly fantastic in international cyclocross races this winter. On November 18th, Compton scored her first big win of the season winning the very wet and muddy third stop of the Superprestige series in Aspere-Gavere, Belgium. Compton followed this up on December 14th taking her 5th straight US National Cyclocross Championship in Kansas City. Finally, on December 21st, at the once again very muddy World Cup in Nommay, France, Compton took a stellar win ahead of current World Champion Hanka Kupfernagel. With performances like these, Compton is understandably looking forward to the Cyclocross World Championships taking place in Holland in February, hopefully she can throw down a solid performance and add to her already outstanding season.
Damiano Cunego Wins Giro Di Lombardia
Damiano Cunego had a rough year. Sure, his season started out all right, he won an exciting edition of the first Ardennes classic, Amstel Gold. But Cunego skipped his home Grand Tour, and put most of his hopes for the season on the Tour de France. Despite winning the Giro d'Italia in 2004 at the tender age of 22, Cunego hasn't shown much promise in subsequent Grand Tours, and this years Tour was no different. A lack of form and some gnarly crashes meant an early end to his Tour, and the critics were merciless in their attacks on his ability as a cyclist. Fortunately, Cunego gained redemption with a spectacular solo attack leading to victory at the Giro di Lombardia. His third Giro di Lombardia victory, mind you. If you didn't already know, the "Race of the Falling Leaves," is one of the five Monuments of Cycling (the five oldest one day races), the others being Milan-SanRemo, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, and Liege-Bastogne-Liege, and is steeped in cycling culture and tradition. For example, At the top of the Ghisallo climb, is the church dedicated to the Madonna de Ghisallo, the patron saint of cycling. Inside are a host of cycling memorabilia, including the bike F
abio Casartelli was riding when he lost his life on that tragic day in the 1995 Tour de France. For a cycling looking for redemption, there was no better race to win. Hopefully, Cunego will soon realize, like everyone else already has, that he is better suited to the hilly classics races, and not the alpine climbs and long time trials of the Grand Tours. I would rather see him apply himself to winning Classics races than continually disappoint himself and his fans with sub-par Grand Tour performances. He probably even has a chance at Fausto Coppi's record of 5 Lomardia victories.
Bjarne Riis is a Tactical Genius
This one also got brief mention, but I think the tactics behind Carlos Sastre's yellow
jersey deserve greater mention. On Stage 10 from Pau to Hautacam, of the Tour de France, Bjarne Riis demonstrated why he is the best Director Sportiff in the sport. The stage profile is dominated by the Col du Tourmalet and the final climb to the Hautacam ski area, both beyond category climbs. Between them is about 35 km of gradual decending.
The day began with a large break of 24 riders that had no hope of staying away, present
in this group was Fabian Cancellara. 
As the road tipped upward, the lead group disintegrated as the climbers moved to the front and the sprinters and rolleurs slipped off the back. Meanwhile in the main group, CSC, with Jens Voigt on the front, began to raise the tempo, discouraging attacks and whittling the peloton down to the elite riders.
By the top of the Tourmalet, Valverde and Cunego have both been dropped and their Tour hopes begin to fade. After a screaming decent, the main group hits the long nearly flat run-up to the Hautacam climb, and Riis' genius is revealed. Voigt and Cancellara, two of the hardest working and most powerful cyclists in the world, are on the front, quickly whittling down the gap to the inconsequential lead group and opening a gap on the chasing Valverde group. Riis' knew the valley between the Tourmalet and Hautacam held potential, he just needed Cancellara there to drive the CSC-train. Knowing Cancellara would not be able to hold the pace of the lead group, Riis put him in the days break, allowing him a head start up the Tourmalet. As a result, the main group caught Cancellara at the top of the Tourmalet allowing Voigt and Cancellara to drive the pace though the valley, with Frank and Andy Schleck and Carlos Sastre waiting in the wings to strike on the Hautacam. Although Frank Schleck missed out of the yellow jersey by a matter of seconds, and was tag-teamed by two dopers on the upper slopes of the Hautacam, the tactics of Riis set the stage for CSC to control the race and to launch Sastre up Alp d'Huez , into the yellow jersey, and to ride into Paris as the winner of the 2008 Tour de France. Sastre's victory was, more than any other recent tour, truly a team victory, brought together by a wrecking crew of a team, and Bjarne Riis' tactical genius.
Hopefully these moments were entertaining and you learned a little bit about cycling.
Hope break is treating you all well. Look out for the last four moments tomorrow. Have a
good night!
Love,
Andy
The Enforcer of Euro
Dec. 28 - Euro Enforcer Returns! 2008 Year Review
|
|
Sunday, 28 December 08 - 05:59 PM (GMT -08:00) By Whitman Cycling Team in Euro Tips |
| ||
As 2008 winds down, many online cycling publications have written articles along the lines of "10 Biggest Moments of 2008." Among these biggest moments include CSC's utter domination at the Tour, Alberto Contador's astounding string of Grand Tour Victories, Doping scandals, and of course the return of Lance. As big as these moments are, most of them do not truly represent the beauty that is cycling. So rather than another 10 Biggest Moments of 2008, I am choosing to write "The Top 10 Moments of 2008 That You Might Not Have Heard About." Some of these are
completely serious, others less so, but they all exemplify why cycling is so beautiful, painful, captivating, and inspiring. Hopefully you will learn a little more about this great sport and the culture that surrounds it. The title might be a little misleading, you have probably heard about at least a few of these. And if you already knew about all of these, bonus points for you.You get the first three today, three more tomorrow, and the last 4 the day after that. So without further ado, and in no particular order, because that's just how I roll, I present "The Top 10 Moments of 2008 That You Probably Didn't Hear About."
Martijn Maaskant Finishes 4th at Paris-Roubaix
Paris- Roubaix was one of my favorite races of this year. Actually, scratch that, every year. This year, three giants of the Spring Classics, Tom Boonen, Fabian Cancellara, and Allesandro Ballan established a 3 man break from the lead group, and came into the velodrome together. Boonen, the best sprinter by far in the bunch, crushed Cancellara and Ballan in the sprint, and Cancellara, still on the hoods and in the saddle, bested the lanky Ballan for second. The only thing that could have made it better if it had been rainy, and thus muddy.So why I am writing about the 4th place finisher that no one has ever heard of? Because Paris-Roubaix is a race that favors experience. You are simply not supposed to be able to finish in the Top 5 the first time you race Paris-Roubaix. So who is Martijn Maaskant and how is he capable of this? He is a 24 year old Dutch kid who rides for Garmin-Chipotle (then Slipstream-Chipotle). How Jonathan Vaughters managed to steal him away from Rabobank's juggernaut of a development team, I have no idea, but good move Vaughters.
Early in 2008, Slipstream was the new kid in the European racing scene. They had a new philosophy on running a team, and a strong anti-doping stance. Everyone admired what they were trying to do, but few were expecting them to succeed. Paris-Roubaix would be a testing ground of sort, a chance to prove to the naysayers that clean teams could be successful, plus they had Magnus Backstead, a former Paris-Roubaix winner. Unfortunately, in the Arenberg Forest, where the first key selection is often made, the combo of all 207 lbs of Backstead and the cobbles proved too much for Big Maggy's deep dish carbon wheels, and they broke. On a brief aside, I don't know what possessed Backstead, and for that matter George Hincapie to run deep dish wheels. Probably sponsor obligations, which is unfortunate to say the least. The podium finishers all ran 32 spoke, tied and soldered, box section tubulars; wheels that are nearly indestructible. One would think that with the shear volume of bad luck Hincapie has experienced at Paris-Roubaix, from a god-awful number of flats to broken steerer tubes, he would know better. Apparently not.
Anyways, back to Martijn Maaskant. So all race, this kid is quietly bidding his time in the front group. And nobody knows who he is, so they aren't paying any attention to him. When the selection containing Boonen, Ballan, and Cancellara is made, Masskant can't follow and is left in the chase group containing the likes of Leif Hoste, Stijn Devolder, and Stuart O'Grady. A few kilometers from the velodrome, Maaskant launches his attack, and breaks away from the chasing group. As a result, a few minutes after the podium contenders have finished, one solitary kid rolls in, completing the 1.5 laps in front of a enormous, drunk, and rowdy crowd of Belgians, most of whom don't know who he is and barely know of the existence of his team. As a result, Maaskant established himself as a Classics star of the future, as well as proving to the world that Slipstream could be both competitive and clean. As you probably know, Garmin-Chipotle went on to achieve some pretty spectacular results in the rest of 2008. So look out for both Maaskant and the Garmin-Chipotle squad in 2009.Chris Hoy and British Track Cycling Dominate the Olympics
Ok, so this one made it onto some other Top 10 lists, but not very high on those lists. In Beijing, Chris Hoy and the British team as a whole had arguably the most dominant cycling performance of the year. Britain won 7 of the 10 track events and collected 13 of the 30 available medals. Three of those Gold medals belong to Chris Hoy. He won the Individual Sprint, Team Sprint, and Keirin and possibly could have been even more successful, if not for the removal of his favorite event, the Kilo TT.Frank Schleck Cheats Death at the Tour de Suisse:
On stage 5 of the Tour de Suisse, Frank Schleck and Markus Fothen are in a two man break, and Schleck is the virtual leader of the race. If he holds the time gap to the finish, he will seize the yellow leaders jersey. All that remains is a twisting decent into the town of Caslano. On that decent, this happens: Schleck takes the corner too fast and too wide, unclips his right foot, slams into the guardrail, flips over the edge, and disappears from sight down a 30 ft drop. Miraculously, Schleck lands in a tree and, unharmed, climbs the tree and makes it back to the road and his waiting team car. Meanwhile the race is proceeding without him, and while he makes it to the finish line unscathed, loses his chance at the leader's jersey. Although, I suppose the yellow jersey is of little importance when you have just looked death squarely in the eye and death blinked. Oh, and best bit of commentary in the video: "He has not been descending well today." That wins understatement of the year. Those cycling.tv commentator are hilarious, although often unintentionally so.If you are still reading, congratulations. Hopefully these moments were entertaining and informative and you learned a little bit about cycling. Hope break is treating you all well. Look out for the next three moments tomorrow. Have a good night!
Love,
Andy
The Enforcer of Euro
... More items are available in my News Archive
