Olympic Updates

In the wake of this morning's epic run by Usain Bolt, in which he appeared to cheat the other runners by, get this, actually SPRINTING THE WHOLE WAY in the 200m final, some bad news has popped up. Lyudmila Blonska of Ukraine (the Silver Medal in Women's Heptathlon) has apparently tested positive for something and will be stripped of her medal. The IAAF is only saying that they "have started disciplinary action" against her. She becomes the most high profile athlete to test positive, since the previous four were an gymnast, a shooter, a hurdler, and of course, a cyclist.

Moving along for a few injury updates...

Paula Radcliffe was not injured, just a bit hurt and undertrained in her marathon last weekend. She was noticeably limping in the last few miles, but says she should be fine with a bit more training. And yes, she's committed to running the 2012 marathon in London. She will be 38 in London, which is the same age as this year's marathon winner Constantina Tomescu.

One of the other hand, Deena Kastor from the US was not so lucky. She sustained a broken right foot (during the race!). Said she "heard a pop". Wow.

Canadian Lauren Groves in the triathlon did indeed break a bone in her elbow in one of the best looking HD bike crashes I have ever seen. She broke the radial head of her left elbow and needs 6 weeks to recover. Too bad for her. However, she is already looking ahead to London 2012 and is at least pleased that her "DNF" is not "DFL". I should remind you that Colin Jenkins of Canada finished DFL in the men's race the next day. Whoops.

Last thing in advance of this weekend's men's marathon. Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya, who has won Boston four times in 6 years, is out of the Beijing Marathon. He is perhaps more famous for his Youtube video below from the 2006 Chicago Marathon.



He will be replaced by, ho-hum, last year's World Champion Luke Kibet. Kibet wasn't even on the Kenyan team due to his PB being only in the high 2h08m range. Plus, he was injured this past winter when he was hit by a rock during the violence in Kenya. If that incident wasnt enough, he then had to pull a gun to escape from some vicious sheep-herders. Wow.



See you Friday for Ironman Canada preview 2008!

Simon Brings It Home!

In one of the most exciting finishes ever, Canada's Simon Whitfield won a Silver Medal tonight, just getting outkicked by Germany's Jan Frodeno. Remarkably, Simon appeared to get dropped by the leading men several times during the last 5 km, only to catch them in the last km. He then blew apart the last 3 men when he started his finishing sprint. Bevan Docherty and Javier Gomez both could not go with Whitfield, but somehow the big German withstood Simon's sprint and was able to go past Whitfield with about 200m to go.

Regardless, Canada is sooo proud of Simon! Go Canada go!

Beijing - The Big Races!

Hi All,

This weekend brings 3 of the biggest races in the Bike-Y world (although one of them has no bikes), the two triathlon races (Sunday evening in North America for the women's race and Monday for the men's) while the women's marathon goes Saturday afternoon over here.



Let's start with the Men's Triathlon since that is the one in which Canada has the best shot at a medal. It appears it would take a monumental upset for Javier Gomez to not win the Gold, but the other two podium places could accomadate a Canadian. Simon Whitfield is on form (seeded 6th heading into the race) is our big hope, with Paul Tichelaar (who is now free to race his own race!) also a top-5 contender. Whitfield has had a great summer, including winning a non-drafting race in Minnesota (Life Time Fitness) which highlights where his cycling skills are. The only men to defeat Whitfield twice this year are Javier Gomez and Bevan Docherty (New Zealand). Other contenders include Australia's Brad Kahlefeldt, Germany's Daniel Unger, and Denmark's Rasmus Henning. Long shots have podiumed in the past two Olympics (who remembers Stephan Vuckovic and Jan Rehula in 2000 or Sven Reiderer in 2004?) so on any given day someone could have the race of their life. The swim positions have been included below, and it's interesting to see that most of the top contenders chose positions on the right side of the pontoon (Gomez, Docherty, Don, Whitfield and Tichelaar are the first 5) so it's likely they'll all keep their eyes on each other in the swim. I'll predict Gomez-Whitfield-Kahlefeldt as Top 3 as the pack will not let any bikers get enough gap to outrun the true gazelles of the sport. Greg Welch has his preview here but doesn't want to make any predictions. Let's go Canada!

The women's race is a battle of the titans. Since Vanessa Fernandes and Emma Snowsill rarely race against each other, it's a tough race to call. Snowsill did beat Fernandes at the season opening race, but I'm going to pick Fernandes here. She races well in the heat, and has something to prove after a terrible race at worlds in Vancouver. Snowsill will hold onto second, with Debbie Tanner outrunning Sam Warriner, Laura Bennett, Emma Moffatt, and Felicity Abram for third. But just like the men, anything can happen. The Canadian team has Carolyn Murray, Kathy Tremblay, and Lauren Groves, who can all place in the Top 10 if things fall their way. Murray needs the swim of her life to stay in the main field, but can run with the elite women if she can start the run with them. Tremblay and Groves will also be contenders, but their lack of breakthrough races this year make them podium longshots. Maybe they can channel some strength from our women's wrestlers?

Interestingly, the women chose a completely different swim strategy, with most of the favorites on the extreme left edge of the pontoon. Carolyn Murray is a long way from the favorites, but must try and bridge up with some quicker swimmers around her. If you want another opinion, read Welchy's preview here.


Women's marathon - is Paula Radcliffe healthy enough to compete? To win? Coming off injury, she has trained for 12 weeks, with up to 9 hours of training per day to get ready for Beijing. The only marathon she didn't win was the 2004 Athens Olympics. She really wants to cap her career resume with a gold here. But will Paula at 90% be enough to hold off the rest of the field. Strong veterans like Catherine Ndereba (Kenya), Geta Wami (Ethiopia) and Deena Kastor (USA) plus strong teams from Japan and China will make it difficult. Plus the expected heat, humidity, and smog in Beijing. It should be an epic showdown!


Oh my god..almost forgot, late Sunday morning is the men's 10,000m! Haile Gebrselassie versus Kenenisa Bekele. It's a battle of the ages with the 35 year Geb versus the 26-year old 5000 and 10,000m world record holder. It's doubtful Geb can still keep up, but let's give Ethiopia 1-2 on the podium. As with the women's marathon, no Canadians!

And congrats to Tirunesh Dibaba, who ran 29m54s to win gold in the women's 10000m. This despite having to weave around dozens of lapped runners over the last few kms. The field had 32 runners, which made it so confusing that American Shalane Flanagan was not even sure she finished 3rd!




See you Monday!

Epic TT plus Athletics gets going...

Hi All,

Most of you probably didn't watch Wednesday morning very early Men's Cycling Time Trial missed a classic. First off, out of nowhere, Canadian Svein Tuft led until the last 10 or so riders. So that was pretty cool. He was even on the podium until Levi Leipheimer came and bumped him off with 5 riders to go. But the real battle was at the front, where the biggest names in the sport all brought their "A" game. Cadel Evans, Sammy Sanchez, Alberto Contador, and Fabian Cancellera were close throughout. Contador took off with a bang, blowing off his exclusion-from-the-TDF with a huge lead at the first time check. But he slowed the rest of the way. Evans was always close (was 5th, 5th, 4th, and 5th at the 4 checkpoints) but couldn't get to the podium. Gustav Erik Larsson (who apparently rides for CSC but didnt make the TDF roster) was actually faster than Cancellara at the third checkpoint, but Fabian managed to be 40 seconds faster over the last 12 km! Ridiculous. And it wasn't the bike (Cervelo P3C) since Larsson also rode one. Rather than giving you a picture of Levi Leipheimer without his helmet on the podium, here are the Canucks! Good job guys. Tuft ended up 7th, and Hesjedal was 16th.




The womens race was the same evening. And in this one, the Canadian rider didn't do quite as well. Alexandra Wrubelski from Regina actually led the women's race for a while too, but only since she was the first rider in the time trial. Hmmm. She ended up 24th overall. The women's race came down to Kirsten Armstrong (who despite having the same name as Lance's ex-wife, is not related to him), Emma Pooley (Great Britain), and Karin Thurig going 1-2-3. Some of you might now Thurig's name since she is a pro cyclist who also races Ironman. She has even won 3 Ironman races in Europe! So a bronze medal at the time trial is a nice addition to her bronze medal from Athens. However, Thurig did edge Bike-Y fave Jeannie Longo, who at age 49 missed the podium by 1 second. She's 49 years old! Ridiculous. She is also already dropping hints that she'd like to go to London in 4 years.


Gear check - the TT was such a waste. No new bikes unveiled - so sad. The most noteworthy events were the time trial helmets worn by Team Spain and the cool cycling overshoes with a huge Nike logo for Team USA. I'm a bit disappointed...




So that is the recap of the TT. Tonight Athletics finally get going, with a bunch of preliminaries tonight and the first two finals tomorrow morning. The men's shot put will be the first final, and Canadian's Dylan Armstrong has an outside chance at a medal. Actually, the Americans might sweep the medals. But here's hoping Armstrong brings his 'A' game tonight! The women's 10,000m is also tonight, with Ethiopia's Dibaba (Ejegayehu and Tirunesh, the two time World Champion) sisters my personal picks. Shalane Flanagan and Kara Goucher will represent North American (since no Canadian's made the cut). Enjoy the race.



Tomorrow the Beijing Triathlon preview!

The Games Have Begun...

I've been without a wireless card on my laptop for a week, making Bike-Y updates tough to do since I've been watching the Olympics around the clock. Although a little frustrating to watch stuff like the road races in the middle of the night, it is nice to watch swimming in the evening and then catch up on soccer or diving or whatever in the morning.

Since this blog is called Bike-Y, i should recap the weekend's road races. The men's went on Friday night and ended deep into Saturday morning. Both CBC and NBC had great online coverage, where you could watch the entire 245 km race without commercials or commentary. Just the hiss of the bikes...it was pretty neat. It would've been great to have Paul Sherwan and Phil Liggett (who did the US and Australia tv commentary respectively) for the 6.5 hours of racing. For those of you who didnt see the coverage, here is a picture of the race course.



Yep, 7 circuits, each with a giant uphill and downhill! It was set up to be a survival of the fittest, with the heat (32 degrees), humidity (90 percent), and length (longest ever Olympic road race). About an hour into the race, the peloton spelt into 2 groups, with a group of 26 taking charge of the race. This group contained Carlos Sastre, Kim Kirchen, Fabian Cancellera, Oscar Friere, and Canadian Ryder Hesjedal and appeared to put a lot of pressure of the rest of the peloton.

No Americans made the break, so they worked hard for 2 hours to bring the group back together. However, within 15 minutes, and with only 55 km remaining, another power group containing Andy Schleck, Alberto Contador, Christian Vande Velde, and 3 others took off down the road. They too couldn't escape. Finally, Spain (with Contador, Valverde, Sastre, Friere, and Samuel Sanchez) took control of the front of the race, with Italy and Paolo Bettini in second place. It was funny to see Sastre and Contador working up front for Valverde. Cadel Evans and Levi Leipheimer were also lurking (both elite front-of-the-pack lurkers). It was an elite group at the front. Finally, with less than 20 km to go, Andy Schleck took off again, with David Rebellin (Italy), Sammy Sanchez (probably the least well-known Spanish rider in the race even though he finished 8th at TDF), Michael Rogers (Australia), and Alex Kolobnev (Russia) in tow. This group of 5 got a small gap, and looked to be the group to decide the medals. I started pulling for Schleck (he was awesome in the Tour) or Rebellin (it was his 37th birthday). With 2 km to go, Fabian Cancellera showed up out of nowhere, but he was too spent to unleash his sprint. Sanchez managed to outlean Rebellin for gold, with Cancellera grabbing the bronze. Awesome race. Too bad for Schleck, but his future is sooooo bright...



Canada actually had a great day. Ryder Hesjedal made the early break and really worked hard at the front to keep the break away. Michael Berry actually finished 9th place, only 16 seconds back of Sanchez. So the Canadian team considered Saturday a success! Although i didn't like the CBC commentators kept telling us that there was a Canadian in the final group..."Not a rider, but a Canadian-made bike...hahaha". Oh yeah, those funny commentators...

Sunday was the women's road race (about 125 km). But they didnt get a break from the elements as it rained the whole day! Not cool. Alex Wrubelski from Regina was nicely placed until she tried sliding down a hill rather than using her wheels. Not a good method for sticking with the main group.



The womens race broke open near the end, with a 5 women sprint finish. Pre-race favorites Marianne Vos, Judith Arndt, and Kristin Armstrong all missed the late break, and thus Great Britain's Nicole Cooke took victory. It is the first of potentially many gold medals for Great Britain in cycling. Canadian's finished in 17th, 37th, and 50th. Tough conditions for the women...

Okay, today (Tuesday night in North America) are the time trials! Women go 23.5 km, while the men go 47 km. The men's race favorite is probably Fabian Cancellera, although Contador, Leipheimer, Evans,Kirchen and Denis Menchov are also contenders. It will be interesting to see if Stefan Schumacher can match his TDF results when he won both individual time trials. Plus there is a big rumour that Cancellera could possibly be riding the Cervelo P4C in a world debut! So that will be worth staying up tonight...

Speaking of Cervelo, that Olympic-ringed Cervelo Soloist that Gomez and Whitfield will be riding next week at the triathlon is not really a Soloist. It is actually a 2009 Cervelo S3, and is new high-end aero road bike. I have also found pictures of the 2009 S2 (which is not quite as aero or light i assume as the S3) and the 2009 P2C. No word on a S1, which would make sense below the S2 and S3. I'll keep you posted.







Tomorrow, doping hits the Olympics, and we'll recap the time trials!

The Beauty of Sports...and Bikes..

Hey All,

Ahhh - only 3 days until the Olympics finally begin. Well, officially begin - since the soccer starts tomorrow. And among the many reasons that people watch the Olympics are the...well, the nice physiques of the athletes. I discovered a nice Top 25 list from a US blog (gawker.com) that is all about Olympic Hotties.


The list does contain 3 Canadians, including the gentleman in the bottom left corner, who is Achraf Tadili (a Moroccan-born 800 m runner). I'm sad to say that I didn't even know we had a second 800m runner (besides Gary Reed, who has a good shot at a medal). Anyhow, ladies (or Canadian 800 m fans) you can see more of Mr Tadili on his website here...

In fairness to male readers, I should add that the same list shows another Canadian athlete, synchro swimmer Dominika Kopcik. Turns out she has been on the National Team for 5 years and has managed to evade national acclaim. Go Canada indeed...



Yummy bike time...the 2009's are coming! And despite rumored price increases from fuel increases, carbon fibre shortages, labor costs, and increased technologies, the new bikes don't look too bad indeed...

2009 Look 596 Time Trial Bike (in red below). Other than the crooked top tube, the cool thing about this bike is the integrated crankset and BB, which is supposed to be the lightest crankset with highest torque to weight ratio, blah blah blah. How 'bout it just looks cool? And is rumored to cost $1500! And you better like Look pedals since they will be the only ones that fit...whoops. Anyhow, the 596 frameset (includes the crankset) is $4999 US next year. Start saving...Look also has a cheaper option 576 (white/blue) bike, which will be $2999 US (ultegra) in 2009. But it just doesn't look quite as nice...






Of course, a new bike deserves new wheels, and nothing compares to a fancy shiny disc wheel. HED has brought out a $999 Jet Disc that is light, sturdy, and at least appears wicked fast. Hmmm...something else for the triathlete who has (almost) everything...


Cervelo is also bringing out new bikes just in time for the Olympics. Men's gold medal fave Javier Gomez is riding a new Soloist. AND Canada's own Simon Whitfield will have the same bike. As will some pro women riders. So although Cervelo has not announced if this bike will be available to the public (maybe a small run?), it will be very visible in Beijing. I like the pseudo-Olympic rings!





One more post before Friday to clean up any last second stories...see you then...

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly...

Okay, today will be rather Olympic-free, as we try to brush up on some other highlights that have caught my eye...

Good: Lance Armstrong is back! Maybe...rumours are flying that Lance is leaving the road and will be returning to competition next week at the Leadville 100 mile mountain bike race in Colorado. Floyd Landis competed last year and placed second, so i'm sure Armstrong is going to win this year. It's nice to see Lance back into cycling competitively, but as a Ironman competitor, I'm still holding out hope that Lance suits up for an Ironman someday...

The Bad: The ProTour has lost another sponsor. Credit Agricole, who have sponsored a pro cycling team since 1998, is not renewing their sponsorship for 2009. Unlike teams like Saunier-Duval (now Scott-American Beef) finding a new sponsor right away, the riders on Credit Agricole have been told to find new teams for next year. The team's top riders include 2008 stage-winners Thor Hushovd and Simon Gerrans. I guess having a Pro-Tour team fold does open up a spot for Team Astana in next year's peloton...

The Ugly: Check out the video below. Last weekend, at a critical mass bicycling "demonstration", a NYC cop had a incident with a cyclist. Watch the video below until the 26 second mark...

Now the best part is the story behind the video. The NYPD first alleged that the officer was trying to make an arrest, then claimed that the biker "ran into" the officer. Ummm, not so much...after seeing the video (shot by a tourist) the NYPD has suspended the officer.

That's it for today...tomorrow come back for beautiful people and beautiful bikes!

The Olympics are Coming...

It is almost time for amateur athletes to get their 2 weeks of fame. The Beijing Olympics start next weekend (8-8-08) and for all those under-the-radar athletes who spend 4 years getting ready for one competition and one chance for glory. Now not all athletes go to the Olympics with a chance or a hope of glory, but it is the biggest sporting event on the planet with over 11 thousand athletes getting their dreams of going to an Olympics rewarded. It has been said that an athlete needs to 10,000 hours of sport training to get to the Olympics, so even those athletes who "only" finish 63rd in an obscure canoeing race should still be feted as elite athletes.

Although the Olympics are supposed to be about the athletes and not the global companies, the big two athletic companies are going head to head in Beijing. Adidas has spent $100 million to be the "official clothing sponsor" of the Games, while Nike has spent its money on individual athlete sponsorships. Nike also uses its role with the US Olympic team to bring out new products. Check out their Nike Swift track uniforms (below). Directly from the press release..."The rationale behind the Swift System of Dress is to cut the drag on the hands and feet of the sprinter when running. According to Nike, the dimpled fabric on the gloves and arm coverings helps to minimize wind resistance, thereby allowing the arms to slice through the air faster. Its design team believes the gloves and arm coverings can reduce drag by 19 percent and the socks by 12.5 percent."


However, even the big guys sometimes lose. Nike has decided (or been forced) to allow it's sponsored athletes to wear Speedo's LZR racing suit. Of course, the new LZR suit has been involved with 48 world records this year, with many more to come in Beijing. So Nike must've decided it's better to have it's swimmers win medals with the competitors suit than to not win medals...

Although for some athletes the Olympics are a time to shine, for others they might not even get that chance. This week, the doping news continued. 7 Russian women were suspended yesterday from the Olympics due to breaking IAAF rule 32.2. What rule is that? That rule deals with "fraudulent substitution of urine". Yep, the Russians seemed to have a systematic program to avoid testing positive for something. It appears the doping cops noticed that their urine tests from last year's Worlds in Osaka did not match previous samples. Oops. Anyhow, these Russians are big names, including Yelena Tomoshova (1500 m indoor world champion) and Tatyana Tomoshova (2 time outdoor 1500m world champion). Also yesterday, the Romanian Olympic team left two more women off its Olympic Team for having abnormally high hemoglobin levels. The Romanians had previously left 2008's fastest 1500m runner Liliana Popescu off their Olympic team for the same reason. Are there going to be any 1500m runners left for Beijing?


Two quick Paula Radcliffe notes. One, she is at least healthy enough to join the British Team at their Beijing prep camp in Macau. So it appears that she is still hopeful to be ready for the women's marathon on the 17th, despite having a stress fracture in her femur. Here's hoping. The second Paula note again is a positive story. Among those cheating Russians in the previous paragraph, one of the suspended runners is Olga Yegerova, who is famous for testing positive for EPO in 2001, getting off on a technicality, and was permitted to run 2001 Worlds in Edmonton. This lead to the famous sign that Radcliffe held in the stands when Yegerova competed (and won) the 5000m. So it took 7 years, but eventually the cheaters got kicked out!



2 quick Canadian notes - Gary Reed is indeed peaking for the Olympics. This week he broke the Canadian record in the 800m, even though he only finished 4th in one of the fastest 800m fields ever. Reed is still optimistic that he can win a gold medal in Beijing, and he probably is one of the best medal hopes for Canada on the track.


Simon Whitfield and the men's triathlon team are skipping the Opening Ceremonies. Instead, they are staying in Canada until the 13th, preferring to train in the clear skies of Victoria before flying over about 5 days before they compete. I like the fact that they will watch the Opening Ceremonies by eating chinese food. Sounds like a plan!

Okay, the Tour is over. But the stories keep coming. It seems as though Mr Cadel Evans has an anger management problem (thanks to velonews.com for the links)! These videos have been posted on YouTube and show Evans flipping out a various media sources. Now, i must admit, the post-stage media circus would get to the most patient of us, with so many cameras and shouting journalists. Especially for the pre-race favorite. So enjoy the videos, and we'll see you on Monday!