The Worlds are over and the new world champion has just started his reign. There's plenty of press attention and post race reports to delve into today as well as bad news in France as the ProTour Commission hands out their licences. Let’s jump right into the wrap up that is The Trash.
Australia’s new world road champion, Cadel Evans has been the centre of attention in the cycling world this week and rightly so. The man who has made headlines thought-out his career, is finally in a position where the stories written about are mostly centred around his attacking ride and his brilliant victory. This hasn’t always been the case with Evans. There have been plenty of times when the stories about the quietly spoken ex-mountain-biker were all about what he hadn’t done, rather than what he had.
The public perception of Evans is as a direct result of how he interacts with the media. He is judged as a person, on how he comes across when he constantly has to answer questions about what appears to be a failure to live up to other people’s expectations. Some riders can do this well. Some riders will happily answer the same question ten times in several different languages, day in and day out. It appears as if this gets to Evans a bit and at times he can be short and blunt with the media.
Whether this is the real Cadel or not, is hard to say. If he wants to change this impression people have of him, there is a fair bit of work to do, although he never really struck me as a person who worries a lot about what others think of him.
A Question Of Leadership?
Before Sunday’s race, PEZ spoke with Australian team director Shayne Bannan and asked who the leaders in the race were. “Simon Gerrans and Cadel Evans, with a number of guys on the second row able to play a leadership role if necessary,” Was the response. It was what most people had predicted from the Australian team as a strategy and during the race, with Michael Rogers covering the dangerous break in front, the Australian team rode hard behind to put both Gerrans and Evans in a position to be in contention for medals in the final two laps.
After the win, Evans gave his account of the team meeting, to Belgian TV station Sporza. The new world champ gave the impression that he was not being regarded by the Australian team as a co-leader, but that he had proved his worth in the end.
“We came into a meeting with the sports director and I think his words were, Simon Gerrans is the most complete all round rider that we have here in the team so we are committed to him. If it comes down to one on one and a race of elimination and I make it, then I can have the race lead. Evidently it did, and here we are.”
“Above all,” he continued, “it’s [the win] for me and my family, the two or three people who really support me in my life.”
The Future
A few days on, Evans met the media today in Belgium as part of a presentation by Silence brand owners Omega Pharma, and spoke about his win.
“[A world title], is something that I have been working towards for 16years, and then it was all over so quickly. It wasn’t until you cross the finish line that you can be sure that you have it. While doing the last few kilometres there was pretty uncomfortable, I was nearly doing one of my training rides home.”
When asked if the win (on the attack) would change the way he raced in the future, Evans said that he would continue to ride the way he had always ridden. “It’s not like I’ve never attacked in the final of a one day race before, whether it be in Liege-Bastogne –Liege, or Lombardia, this was one attack that really came off. It’s not that often that you get into a race that so hard that there is only one team there who have team mates [Spain in this case]. That helped my plan to get away in the final and it hasn’t come off in the past when I had a similar plan. This year, the Worlds was my fourth one day race of the year and that’s a lot for me.”
So, will we be seeing the World Champion racing more than three or four one day events in 2010?
“Whether I won on Saturday or not, it doesn’t change my mentality or my work ethic towards my job. It’s actually my first one day race victory, that wasn’t a time trial, since I turned professional, so I probably should stick to my stage races. That is my day job!”
ProTour Licences
The Licence Commission of the UCI has made another round of decisions on who will (and also who will not) be riding in the ProTour next season. With competition for places tight for 2010 and beyond thanks to new arrivals Radio Shack and Sky, it was either going to be an expanded competition or some teams were going to miss out.
This week, Team Milram and Team Lampre were given the good news that they would be in the ProTour for one year and four years respectively, while France were the big losers, with Cofidis and Bbox Bouygues Télécom, missing out.
Sporting considerations were given as the reasons for the two French teams missing out (read “a lack of results”) but it has been reported this week that both teams will still be invited to the 2010 Tour de France and not take up the Wild Card spots that are so highly sought after each year.
Rainbow Silenced
For the next three months, the Silence name will have the opportunity to appear alongside the Belgian national lottery on Cadel Evan’s rainbow jersey. From January 1, however, there will be a replacement name on his and all of his team mates’ cycling clothes.
There is no parting of the ways with long-time sponsor Marc Coucke’s Omega Pharma company, but rather the biennial rotation of another of the company’s leading brands, into the public eye. Prior to Silence (an anti snoring spray) Omega Pharma had their pregnancy test, Predictor and their vitamin brands, Davitamon on the team’s jerseys. Having searched the Omega Pharma website for products that would allow me to make silly (yet hopefully amusing jokes) about possible names and product endorsements (Zigzag-Lotto, Conatalax-Lotto, or even Buttercup-Lotto) Marc Coucke has trumped me today by announcing that from next year the team would be simply Omega Pharma Lotto.
Dekker Test Confirmed
In a bit of news that Silence Lotto would probably want, well, Silenced, is the announcement that Thomas Dekker’s B-sample, from his 2007 blood test, is also positive for EPO.
Since the test was taken, there have been significant improvements in the authorities ability to find traces or markers that indicate the use of illegal performance enhancing drugs and it was on a re-test of older samples that Dekker was caught out.
The UCI decided to test Dekker’s older samples based upon suspicious blood values from his biological passport profile and now that the B-test has confirmed the result of the earlier A-test, it would appear their efforts have been justifies.
The rider could face up to a four year ban and will now have to face a disciplinary hearing to determine his fate. Dekker won Tirreno-Adriatico in 2006 and and was regarded as being a future mega star in cycling. I guess he will have at least two years now to consider if he still can be, on training and hard work, alone.
Barloworld And Calcagni Call Quits
As well as the Barloworld name disappearing from the peloton at the end of the season, one of their riders from 2009, Switzerland’s Patrick Calcagni, has decided that he won’t be looking to change teams if no replacement sponsor can be found for 2010. After two years at Team Barloworld, Calcagni, who turned professional in 2000, has decided to retire. The Lugano native joined Claudio Corti’s team in 2008 and won the GP Pino Cermai in Belgium that year.
Unfortunately Calcagni’s 2009 season was affected by a crash at the Tre Valli Varesine where he fractured his collarbone and suffered other injuries to his back and ribs. “I was riding well and was focused on the world championships in Mendrisio, near my home. I wanted to end my career in Switzerland after ten years as professional. I’ve had a successful career but missing the world championships my only regret.”
Calcagni will begin working in the steel construction business owned by his father, but will also stay in touch with the world of cycling by working with a sports management agency and will organize cycling holidays all around the world.
Milram To Münsterland
The fourth edition of the Sparkassen Münsterland Giro is on this weekend, with the race starting in Warendorf and running over 197km to the middle of Münster. Despite a rolling course with a few selective climbs in the first half, a sprint finish is expected again this year. While the race has only been on the calendar for a short period of time, there have been some big names (and future stars) standing on the finish podium in the past three editions. Paul Martens of Skil Shimano won the first editon in 2006 and then in 2007, Dutch rider Jos ven Emden (Rabobank Continental team) beat Gerald Ciolek (T-Mobile). In 2008 German Andre Greipel (Columbia) beat German legend Erik Zabel and Robert Förster (then with Gerolsteiner).
This year, the ‘recently renewed’ German ProTour team will be relying on sprinter Gerald Ciolek and local riders Linus Gerdemann and Fabian Wegmann , to bring in a big result. The fourth edition of the one-day race is also Team MILRAM's last appearance in Germany in 2009.
“For me as a native of Münster, it is one of the best races there is,” said MILRAM's Linus Gerdemann. “The Münsterland Giro always draws a lot of fans, so you can see that this race has quickly been accepted by the public. And the great mood on the course makes it an important cycling event in Germany. [So] of course we have big plans for our final German race of the season.”
More Giro Rumours
After last week bringing you officially confirmed start locations and courses for the opening stages in the Netherlands, this week we have rumours of the mountain kind, about next year’s Corsa Rosa. Just like last year and indeed every year, there is a combination of carefully prepared “leaks” by local host towns in their newspapers and on their Internet sites, giving details about visits from Giro organisers RCS and about stages that will be passing through the local area. While the official presentation of the Giro Cento was not until December last year, by the time it arrived, most careful observers already had most of the route mapped out.
So, it appears that the Zoncolan is back. An article from the Messagero Veneto said this week that the feared climb of the Zoncolan would take place at either the end of the second week of the Giro, or in the middle of the third week, with the stage possibly starting in Mestre (the mainland city serving the islands of Venice). With the Tour de France presentation happening on the 14th of Cotober, RCS also look like they might bring their route announcement forward to late October, instead of waiting until December, like last year.
Amstel Gold Experience
The Amstel Gold race is following in the footsteps (wheel tracks?) of their southern neighbour, the Ronde van Vlaanderen and opening a tourist/visitor centre dedicated to their race.
The Amstel Gold Xperience is a permanent exhibition in Valkenburg where visitors can see pictures and video from the first to the most recent edition of the race, a wall of fame for previous winners and an interactive system for examining the details of all of the hills of the Netherlands’ only classic.
The Amstel Gold Xperience will have its grand opening this weekend.
Leda Cox Recovering From Surgery
Leda Cox, one of Britain's most experienced professional road riders is recovering in hospital from major spinal surgery. Over the last weekend she had a double disc-ectomy on her lumbar spine and a piece of her spine was removed in an attempt to release her sciatic nerve which had been severely trapped since a crash in June during the Tour of Montreal in Canada. The crash in question also saw Cox separate her shoulder and crack the joint at the same time. Although her surgery has been declared a success by the specialist spinal team working on her at the Royal Orthopaedic hospital in West London there have been post operative complications which have seen Cox having to begin the slow process of learning to walk again.
With eight professional victories across America and Europe to her name in 2008 Cox was set, at the age of 34 to enter her prime in 2009 with the number one French UCI team, GSD Gestion, but no sooner had the year began than she was banned from racing by the French federation for having what was best described as an abnormal heart rate. In a quite unbelievable sequence of events she was eventually cleared to race having been suspended for the first 2 months of the season once the FFC discovered that the initial diagnosis was incorrect.
Cox set about making amends with her team and was soon selected to race with the Great Britain women's team in Europe where her form began to build before she headed to Canada for the Montreal World Cup and Tour of Montreal. She is currently in a specialist spinal care unit at the West London hospital, working with a team of physios and spinal surgeons in an attempt to regain control of her legs.
Leda has asked that her thanks be passed on to those within the cycling community who have shown their support. Anyone wanting to wish her well can email cox-sports-management@live.co.uk and the messages will be read out to her.
Tour of Tasmania
Partly because he’s a mate, but mostly because he’s gathering an impressive selection of results, we have featured the trials and tribulations of Bernard Sulzberger here on PEZ more than a few times over the past few years.
After cleaning up at Superweek in the US a month or so ago, Sulzberger has taken his Fly V Australia team back to his home state of Tasmania for islands annual Tour. Run by different promoters at different times since Hubert Opperman claimed the first event in 1930, the race was at one time a UCI event (won in 1998 and 1999 by a young mountain bike rider named Cadel Evans) , and is now held as part of the Australian national road series.
The Fly V boys are dominating the racing so far and have all of the different leaders’ jerseys “in house” as well as the team’s classification. The top three overall on GC after stage 5 are Fly V’s Sulzberger, Phil Zajicek, and Ben Day. If you always though Australia = sun, swimming and barbecues, this video wrap of the first few stages might change your perception of “The Sunburned Country”.
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