A very Canadian Bike-Y!

Wow, looks just like riding in Stony Plain! What a vista as a backdrop for the Tour of California. The above picture is courtesy of Casey Gibson and Velonews.com . Anyhow, the T of C is indeed moving along, and big names like Fabian Cancellera and Levi Leipheimer have already worn the Yellow Jersey this year. At press time, Leipheimer (and Team Astana) still lead the race. That, and the absolutely crappy weather in California (riders are wearing jackets, booties, leg warmers, rain jackets, etc) were the main stories. Except for us Canucks that is! Yesterday, in stage 4, Dominic Rollin, the only Canadian in the field, joined a 11- man breakaway at mile 15. The group then spent over 100 miles ahead of the Astana-led peloton (did i mention it rained all day yesterday, and there was a huge headwind too). Anyhow, with about 20 km to go, the "Horse from the North" looked back at the rest of the breakaway (including George Hincapie) and just took off. He then held on for by far the biggest stage win by a Canadian male cyclist is a few years (Canadian women do far better on the world stage). This also won Dominic Rollin a probable trip to the Olympics! And the sprinters jersey at the Tour of California (still a few days to go). And all this for surviving a 216 km stage where they averaged only 31 km/h! I told you it was crappy weather. It was a survival day yesterday - only 105 out of the 132 riders who started the stage finished! Anyhow congrats to Dominic, our new Bike-Y favourite!

http://www.pedalmag.com/index.php?module=Section&action=viewdetail&item_id=12690

From our Canadian biking Bike-Y fave to our Canadian running Bike-Y fave...Jon Brown has now officially run for Canada for the first time. Jon Brown was part of an elite field last weekend in Tokyo, where unfortunately, he just missed the Canadian Olympic standard of 2:12:38 by, umm, not finishing the marathon. Oh well, it's expected that he will give the marathon another try before May 25th, which ironically is the date for Canada's fastest marathon (Ottawa). Anyhow, here is the recap of Tokyo (won by a Swiss guy in 2:07!) and a link if you want to see Canadian Track & Field Standards for Beijing (you women reading this have to run 2:29:08 to make Team Canada) . More on this next week...
http://www.iaaf.org/news/kind=100/newsid=43424.html
http://www.athleticscanada.com/files//NationalTeamPrograms/NationalTeams/SelectionCriteria/OGSTANDARDSREPEATABILITYCHARTFINALNOV28.PDF

Since Canada seems to front and centre this week, I'll add a story about Canada's best chance at a track medal this summer in Beijing. Gary Reed, a 800m runner, finished 2nd at last years Worlds, and is obviously a medal hope this year. I didn't like his comment that the 800 m field is so competitive, "Probably anyone in the semi-finals could have won"...so we need to keep our fingers crossed on him having a great year leading up to August.
http://www.iaaf.org/OLY08/news/kind=103/newsid=42854.html

Last week I also talked about the XC battle between Ryan Hall and Dathan Ritzenheim at the US Cross-Country Championships in San Diego. Turns out that Ryan Hall is human after all. He finished 5th while Ritzenheim triumphed (35:03 for 12 km...not bad). I was very happy to see that the last runner finished in 56 minutes and change, so for slow-ish guys like me, it's nice to see that I could potentially run the same time as some people in National Championships!

Speaking of Ryan Hall, Asics America announced this month that Ryan Hall will run in April's London Marathon. We'll see how fast he goes this year (remember he has Beijing in August) but it should be an epic race since London typically gets the best field of any early season marathon.

Ok, promised you guys some triathlete stuff, and this is another big-time story to watch. Rebecca Keat won IM Western Australia in 2004 with an out-of-nowhere unexpected win, and promptly tested positive for a steroid precursor. She was rewarded with a 2-year suspension. Fast forward to 2008, and now she says she has evidence that her Endurolytes supplements (made by Hammer) Nutrition) were contaminated. So she's suing Hammer Nutrition to try and get her name cleared (and probably get some money to make up for 2 years off). Interestingly, a couple of other athletes, including Canadian Mike Vine, also have joined the lawsuit, claiming this has happened to them too. No word if Ben Johnson or Roger Clemens took Endurolytes...
http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2008/02/13/7716_gold-coast-sport.html
This week Hammer issued a statement that stated of course they will be "vindicated of any wrongdoing". Did we expect them to just roll over? Lawyer up!
http://www.e-caps.com/za/ECP?PAGE=ARTICLE&ARTICLE.ID=9107

Triathlon Guru Dan Empfield just updated his guidelines on how to descend a hill on a bike correctly (ie. when to brake and when not to) and I thought it was interesting. I learned a lot, and can't wait to try this when descending Yellow Lake in May. Except if it's raining, or windy, or both, in which case I'll brake all the way down like a wuss...
http://www.slowtwitch.com/Training/Descending_203.html

Bike-Y On Everyone!! See you next week...