This weekend it’s all about the sprinters in France at Paris-Tours and the climbers in Italy. We’ve finally got a big few days of racing following on from the Post Worlds lull. There’s more Bike Show news, a record attempt in the offing and way too much to talk about on the doping front. We’d best get started.
Italian Focus For Racing
With the end of season fast approaching, today’s Coppa Sabatini and Saturday’s Giro dell’Emilia will give Italian fans two opportunities to see the professionals in action before the Giro di Lombardia later this month.
The 57th Coppa Sabatini, starting and finishing in Pecciloi in Tuscany with a race distance of 199km, will have Liquigas star Ivan Basso on the start line, for his first race since the Menrisio worlds.
Saturday’s 92nd edition of the Giro dell’Emilia will be run further north in the area around Bologna. The race starts with a flat circuit, but concludes with five super hard laps including a steep 2km climb from the city of Bologna up to San Luca, which was the site of Simon Gerrans’ stage 14 win at this year’s Giro d’Italia.
Then, on Sunday, the 195km GP Beghelli (previously known as Milano-Vignola) will be run with a start and finish in Monteveglio, giving the region a double header of racing action after the Giro dell’Emilia. Newly crowned World Champ, Cadel Evans will be on the start for both weekend races and on Sunday his Silence Lotto squad will be one of 12 ProTour teams joining 11 other ProContinental and Continental squad (predominantly from Italy).
The Giro dell’Emilia and GP Beghelli conclude the season long series of events organised by the G S Beghelli, which also includes Settimana Internazionale di Coppi e Bartali and the Memorial Marco Pantani.
Daily Doping Drama
There’s more than just a little bit to talk about in the world of doping this week and some of it is slightly more newsworthy that dumping it down the bottom of the page like I usually do.
We’ve had re-testing done of the 2008 Tour de France samples, there have been claims and counterclaims of favouritism, media grandstanding and misrepresentation between the UCI and the French anti doping body, AFLD and then to cap it all off there are two more riders looking down the barrel of an extended break thanks to testing carried out as part of the biological passport program.
TdF ReTests Are In
After tapping into more funds to allow the retesting of samples from 17 targeted riders who competed in last year’s Tour de France, the body responsible for drug testing in France, the AFLD, has announced that there were no further positive tests from the 2008 race. Four of the six riders who were positive at the 2008 race were caught our for using CERA (a form of epo) and among many commentators it was assumed that the ability to now go back and re-test the samples from the race would turn up more positives. Not so, and it now appears that the 2008 race is done and dusted (finally) and we can move on to this year’s edition where no riders actually tested positive on tests taken in the event.
2009: No Positives, Lots of Issues
The man at the head of the AFLD, Pierre Bordry told the Associated Press that he was surprised that there were no positives at this year’s Tour de France, and re-stated his earlier criticism of the UCI and the procedures followed by their testers which Bordry claimed could have favoured some teams (of which Astana was named as one).
In 2008, the AFLD ran the testing in the race and it appears that one of the messages they are trying to send is that when they were in control, six riders were caught, when the UCI was running the collection process of the testing on behalf of the AFLD labs, no one was caught.
“What’s surprising is that the UCI doesn’t run its controls in line with the rules. That permits things, but we can’t show it because the controls were negative. We can have questions, but we can’t go beyond that,” Bordry said. A report from the AFLD on the testing carried out in 2009 was released to the media at the same time a copy was given to the UCI (who worked in conjunction with the French body at the 2009 Tour).
The report was highly critical of the way UCI inspectors had allegedly discussed which teams would be targeted for controls in areas where they could have been overheard, allowed a long period of time (during which there was no direct supervision) between the notification and carrying out of testing in morning controls, notified athletes that they would be subjected to random controls at the end of a stage(which was a time trial), before the rider had even started the event and a series of other procedural errors. The AFLD claimed that these errors undermined the notion that no positives tests meant no riders were using prohibited substances or methods during the race.
There was also the seizure of certain medications during the race that while not banned, appeared to have no real (or justified) use amongst competitive cyclists. There is still an investigation continuing on this matter and further details have not yet been released.
UCI Responds
As the world governing body of the sport, it should come as no surprise that the UCI didn’t waste time in dismissing Bordry’s claims as completely unacceptable.
In a press release issued to refute the claims made in the AFLD report, the UCI stated that:
the UCI considers the accusations made by the AFLD against officials sent to the Tour de France to be completely unfounded and indeed very serious. The UCI fully respects the obligations arising from the World Anti-Doping Code: the equality of treatment of teams and riders is meticulously guaranteed, testing conditions completely conform to the prevailing standards and the rules on storing samples are rigorously observed.
Furthermore, the UCI recalls that as a result of concerns previously expressed by the AFLD, it had already conducted an investigation on the treatment of the Astana team. This clearly showed that the Astana team had not been favoured in any way.
The UCI statement further criticised the attitude taken by AFLD in that they appear to have concentrated on what they perceive to be shortcomings in the procedures from the race to completely discredit all of the work that was done during the event. An anti-doping program, the UCI said, that, “is the most complete and sophisticated implemented for any sporting event outside the Olympic Games.”
The UCI has also accused Bordry of being more interested in media attention and of sabotaging the AFLD’s anti-doping partners than he is in actually cleaning up the sport, leading the UCI to ask what Bordry’s real intentions were for releasing his report in the manner that he did.
The UCI is now studying the options for seeking a neutral party to conduct anti-doping controls on French soil, as implemented by other federations.
Now The Positives
And by positive I mean both Good for Cycling and Positive for Drugs. While positive tests attract negative responses and multiple positives in the same team(s) undermine the financial investment that team sponsors have made, catching the cheats is good news for what I personally believe is the majority of cyclists who compete without resorting to cheating. Now, I can hear some of you laughing at me already and just bet that some are shaking your heads in a condescending manner because you think I don’t know what really goes on inside the sport.
This week’s first (potential) lucky winner of 24 months of vacation time is LPR Brakes’ Gabriele Bosisio. The team mate of Danilo DiLuca has been provisionally suspended following an “Adverse Analytical Finding of Recombinant EPO in a urine sample collected from him at an out-of-competition test on 2 September 2009.”
Bosisio was subjected to a targeted urine test on that date after analysis of his blood profiles (collected as part of the Biological Passport program) had been deemed as suspicious.
While he has the right to have his B sample analysed and the presumption of innocence until that date, the Italian rider will be out of work, effective immediately.
The other candidate for a holiday is Diquigiovanni’s Francisco De Bonis. Already placed on “inactive” status by his team since June 18, the rider has now been declared positive for CERA after a control taken on the first day of this year’s Giro d’Italia, according to La Gazzetta dello Sport.
As many of the riders who have been caught out (allegedly allegedly allegedly) using CERA are protesting their innocence, I have to assume that one of the two following situations is occurring.
1. That the CERA test is fundamentally flawed and continually throws up false positives which results in innocent athletes being wrongly persecuted by the testing bodies, the sport various governing bodies as well as the fans and the media, or…
2. Despite the knowledge that there is a test for CERA, there are enough athletes using it who continue to “pass” urine tests, who are still confident that the particular dosage they are on is low enough to avoid detection.
If the second of these possibly situations is true, I guess it gives a logical response to the new catch cry of the doping cheat (replacing “I have never tested positive”) of “Why would I be stupid enough to take a drug that there is a test for?.”
Stijn Skips Paris Tours
Stijn Devolder will pass on Paris Tours this weekend, with a criterium in Lille on October 18 his last outing for the 2009 season. Devolder, who rode the Vuelta in preparation for the Worlds, for which he was then not selected by Belgian national coach Carlo Bomans, said that he may concentrate on the Giro/Vuelta double in 2010 and pass on the Tour de France. After winning the Tour of Flanders for the second time in 2009, the former Belgian Champion had a less than stellar second half of the season.
Six Of The Best
Jered brought you his first Cross Compote of the season on Monday, so why not start talking about tat other great winter cycling staple of 6 Day racing in Thursday’s Trash.
In under two weeks, the boys will be partnering up and heading indoors to Amsterdam for the first of the winter season of Sixes and coincidently the 19th of October start date is the same day the last years “maybe/maybe not” Gent Winner, Iljo Keisse has his hearing before the Belgian federation to determine if he is in fact guilty of a doping offence from the November 2008 race.
The Belgian rider has been racing on the road for most of the season on the Elite without contract (amateur) circuit in Belgium, with his latest race win coming this week in Petegem, which made the news as much for the fact that Keisse won, as it did for the fact that heavy rain washed the finish line away leaving Keisse and second placed rider Kim Boory to guess where to sprint to.
Thanks to Sporza, here are the indoor circle sessions that we have to look forward to this season.
Amsterdam (Ned) 19-24 October, Grenoble (Fra) 29 October – 03 November. Milan (Ita) 10-15 November, Munich (Ger) 12-17 November, Gent (Bel) 24-29 November, Zürich (Swi) 15-20 December, Apeldoorn (Ned) 17-22 December, Rotterdam (Ned) 07-12 January 2010, Bremen (Ger) 14-19 January, Cremona (Ita) 21-26 January, Berlin (Ger) 28 January-02 February, Copenhagen (Den) 04-09 February, Hasselt (Bel) 16-21February.
British Cycling Partner With UCI
British Cycling continues to attract accolades for their World and Olympic triumphs of recent years, and this week they have signed a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ with the UCI at the recent UCI Congress in Switzerland, to create a worldwide Coach Education Programme designed to standardise and improve coach education in cycling.
The programme will be based on British Cycling’s highly successful UK Coach Education Programme and draw on the expertise of its coach education team. By creating a worldwide coaching network, the programme will help train and develop a core group of international coach educators and help identify coaching talent.
As part of the partnership, British Cycling will help the UCI develop resources for the new programme based on its current coach education materials. British Cycling will also recommend its delivery mechanisms to the UCI, share best practice and deliver a number of coach education courses, including the UCI diploma, at the World Cycling Centre in Aigle.
John Mills, Coaching, Education and Development Director at British Cycling, has been appointed Project Director and will spend 40 days a year at the UCI directing the development of the new coach education programme.
He said: “Our involvement in this project provides a great opportunity to work in partnership with the UCI and to support the development of coach education and coaching around the world.
“This development, combined with the recent appointment of our President, Brian Cookson to the UCI Management Committee puts us in a great position to build on our existing relationship with the UCI.”
“The invitation to join forces with the UCI is further recognition that Britain is not only a leading cycling nation but is also able to make a significant contribution to the development and globalisation of cycle sport.”
The project will be overseen by Frederic Magne, UCI Director of Development and Director of the World Cycling Centre. Keith Flory, British Cycling’s Coaching and Education Manager, will also be part of the new team having been seconded to the UCI for 17 months to manage the development and implementation of the project.
Contador Heading To London
With the cycle expo season coming to a close, The Cycle Show in London has attracted a big name guest to make sure their UK event draws in a big crowd. Giro, Vuelta and double Tour de France winner Alberto Contador will be meeting fans at the Show this Friday from 9.00am as a guest of sports nutrition company, Science in Sport (SiS).
Andrew Brabazon, Event Director for the Cycle Show said: “We are honoured to welcome Alberto to the Cycle Show. He has proved himself as one of the sports true greats, and we are delighted that UK cycling fans will have the chance to see him”
The Cycle Show takes place this week and builds on the spectacular success of last year’s show, which saw over 20,000 visitors experience the best that the cycling world has to offer. With hundreds of the world’s top cycling brands, mountain bike & commuter test tracks, seated arena, spectacular BMX street course, a host of Olympic and world champions and a cycling retail zone the show will capitalise on the sustained prominence of cycling in the public domain, and build on the headlines cycling has been getting this summer in the United Kingdom.
The Cycle Show runs from October 8-11 at Earls Court in London, with today being a trade only day, and public access from Friday to Sunday.
Chillees Heating Up LeJoG
Double British Olympic rowing champion, James Cracknell, will attempt to set a world record for cycling from one end of the United Kingdom to the other, with a ride commencing on September 17.
Cracknell will be accompanied by Phill Sykes, Steve Golla, and Jerone Walters on the 842 mile ride from Land’s End to John O’Groats (“LeJoG”) in the attempt to establish the first world record for a cycle relay team riding from one end of the UK to the other.
The assault on a relay record for Land’s End to John O’Groats will set the benchmark for next summer’s HotChillee E2E Relay Challenge. This new endurance relay ride will be open to amateur cyclists wanting to challenge the record set by Cracknell and his team.
The end to end classic route is covered by hundreds of cyclists every year in charity rides, typically taking nine to 14 days, however Team HotChillee’s target is to complete the distance in under 40 hours.
Cracknell, who this year rode in the London-Paris Cycle Tour and the L’Etape du Tour, said: “Cycling has become a huge part of my sporting life and setting a new world record from Land’s End to John O’Groats has been a goal of mine for a while.”
The 37-year-old double Olympic rowing gold medallist said “I’ve rowed across the Atlantic and skied to the South Pole but I know that cycling from one end of Britain to the other at world record pace will be my toughest challenge yet.”
Cracknell, who will lead next summer’s Deloitte Ride Across Britain, added: “The opportunity to cycle the length of our beautiful country is something I relish. The HotChillee cyclists are determined to do something special and our record attempt will help me prepare for the Ride Across Britain.”
Sven Thiele, of HotChillee, the global marketing and events company staging the world record attempt, said: “We’re proud to have a world class athlete on our team to attempt the world record. James and the HotChillee squad epitomise what we’re all about.”
The current record for the End To End ride by a single rider is held by ex-pro cyclist Gethin Butler, who covered the distance in 44 hours, four minutes and 20 seconds in 2001.
The End To End Challenge is sponsored by HotChillee, road cycling and triathlon specialist Sigma Sport, sports nutrition manufacturer Science In Sport, sports skincare company Sportique and media and sponsorship specialists Cyclevox, who will be filming the record attempt. Sports clothing company adidas will be supplying Team HotChillee’s kit.
Web specialists Map My Tracks will also be providing real time tracking of the End To End Challenge. People will be able to follow Cracknell and the team as they power their way across Britain at www.hotchillee.com
Melbourne 2010
It might be just under a year away, but applications for the first round of volunteer positions have just opened for the 2010 World Championships.
While there would be many people who think volunteering at a bike race might involve standing on a corner waving a flag, the list of positions available is quite detailed.
From drivers (both car and motor bike, in the race and as VIP transport) to people to look after the pit area on race day, there are many opportunities for people living in the area or heading to the championships from other locations to help out.
Melbourne 2010 will be a celebration for all those who are passionate about cycling and sport and will be an opportunity to showcase Australian values and volunteering spirit to the world, to demonstrate our unity, commitment, can-do attitude, friendliness and good humour.
For many of the positions, knowledge of a second or third language is listed as an advantage. The full list of positions that need to be filled can be found on the Melbourne 2010 webpage , and even for those who just want to go along and enjoy the action, the website has other areas worth a look including an interactive course map and information about partner events. At the top of the page is also a countdown in days, hours, minutes and seconds, for those who like to keep a close check on how much time they have between now and the next world road championships.
VDB Looking For A Team
With VDB popping up at the worlds last weekend and making it into a couple of PEZ Roadside reports, it seems barely a day can go by when the Belgian sports press don’t have an article or three on the rider.
As Jered reported on Monday, 34 year old Frank is posting his blood values on the Internet and working on a comeback with the help of Aldo Sassi from the Mapei Sport Centre in Italy.
Here’s what Sassi told La Gazzetta dello Sport : “Vandenbroucke is in good form and above all is he feeling strong mentally. Frank asked me if the Mapei Sports Centre would help him and so I spoke with (Mapei owner) Giorgio Squinzi, and he said yes. He won Liege Bastogne Liege in the jersey of Mapei and now he has the spark again. Everyone deserves a second chance.”
Sassi also feels that VDB has more big race wins in him, saying, “If he is serious about his comeback, I am sure that Frank can maybe win another Classic.”
The first big challenge for the returning former Belgian superstar is to find a team, a task that VDB himself says will not be easy.
It strikes me as slightly amusing that by attaching themselves to trainers with impeccable reputations, some cyclists think that that in itself should guarantee that what they are doing is above board. Meanwhile, other cyclists will happily work with trainers who have a disgraceful reputation, and claim that there is nothing wrong with that because they themselves have never tested positive.
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