Bike-Y Friday: Some fast guys, Canada's Rollin(g) along...and lots of fast bikes!

Hi All - sorry for the wait but it will be worth it!

(grab a coffee...this one is going to take a while...)

Although the Olympics and summer 08 is over, the fall season does include a ton of sporting events in the Bikey World. The title of World's Fastest Man is always given to the 100m World Record holder (currently Usain Bolt, who will run sub 9.5 if he ever tries to run the whole 100m). However, I would suggest that the World's Fastest Man might just be Haile Gebrselassie, who had broke the mythical Marathon World Record by running 2:03:59 in Berlin today. He broke his current world record by 27 seconds! This adds to his legacy as perhaps the greatest distance runner ever (for example, he set the 5000m world record SEVEN times, the 10,000m world record 3 times, and has set records in other distances from two miles to 25,000m). He decided not to run the Beijing Marathon in August, instead did the 10,000m where he finished 6th. He did admit afterwards that he made a mistake and should have run the marathon, but was over-concerned about the potential air pollution and how it might aggravate his asthma. However, he did make up for it today! The women's winner, Irina Mikitenko, who ran 2:19:19 (only 3 women have ever ran faster!), should get some attention too! Congrats to both of them!

Today was also the Toronto Waterfront marathon, which has been getting increasingly good fields over the past years. It is now rated as an IAAF Silver Label race (which only Ottawa can match in Canada), which means it consistently attracts an elite field and international acclaim. Today's race, although not nearly as fast as Berlin, did prduce a close finish as Kenya's Kenneth Mungara (surprise, a Kenyan won!) beat Peter Kiprotich (shockingly, another fast Kenyan) by 2 seconds. Their times were right around 2:11, but that 2 seconds were worth $4000 per second for Mungara! $20K for the winner, $12K for the second place. Kenyans also finished 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th, and 10th! Unreal. I was also interested in seeing how the Canadians did - most notably how Dylan Wykes would do in his second career marathon. He finished 11th, with a 2:16:21 (about one minute slower than his debut marathon in Rotterdam. But that is still fast enough to be the top Canadian. (Stephen Drew also broke 2:20, running 2:19:59!). The women's winner was Ethiopian Mulu Seboka who ran 2:29:06 while the top Canadian female was Suzanne Evans in 2:44:23. Other Canadians were not so fortunate, with Matt McInnes and Lisa Harvey not finishing).

Before we move on to cycling and triathlon news, let's take a minute to reflect. Twenty years have now passed since Canada's "JFK" moment (this is what the London Telegraph called it) but the events following the positive test still resonate through the Track & Field community. Ben Johnson will forever be known as the first big-name sprinter caught in the anti-doping movement (even if he acknowledges that he started doping in 1981 and didn't get caught until 1988). His positive test was followed by positive tests from such elite sprinters like Linford Christie, Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery and Justin Gatlin (all world or Olympic champions). It's sad for Canada that Ben Johnson will always be the scapegoat, since it has been revealed that 7 of the 8 sprinters in the 1988 100m final subsequently tested positive. This includes Carl Lewis, who allegedly tested positive for stimulants in the 1988 US Olympic Trials, but his never-announced 12-week suspension was then reduced by the US Olympic Committee. This was to allow "Mr US Track & Field" to compete in Seoul, where he won two gold medals (including the 100m when Ben Johnson was disqualified). Interesting story. And for posterity, here is another look at the 100m final.

In a normal week, I could've filled an entire column on Canadian Cycling. Yep, there has been a lot of news on this front. First, the bad news...Canada's best Pro Cycling Team (Symmetrics Pro Cycling) had to close up shop for 2009 due to no major sponsor stepping forward. This is the developmental team that Svein Tuft and Zach Bell both compete on (they both had 7th place finishes in Beijing). However, the team is leaving on a great run, despite their budget being about 1/5th what Team CSC would spend on ONE rider like Cancellera or Sastre! First, Svein Tuft followed up his 7th place in the Olympic time trial by finishing 3rd in the Tour of Missouri. Although the Tour of Missouri does occur at the same time as the Vuelta De Espana, there is a number of top cyclists in the race. For example, Michael Rogers finished second in Missouri and he is 3-time World Time Trial Champion. George Hincapie finished 4th! And Canada's Tuft was third. So that is a super result for the 31 year old Tuft. To further the Canada cause, Bikey fave Dominique Rollin finished 9th (and won the King of the Mountain jersey) and Olympian Michael Barry was 10th overall. So a successful Tour of Missouri for the Canucks.

The good news continued for Tuft and Rollin. Tuft found a new ride for 2009, signing with Garmin-Chipotle (where fellow Canadian Ryder Hesjedal will be a teammate). Dominique Rollin also made a huge leap, going from the Toyota-United team all the way to the Cervelo TestTeam, where his teammates will include Thor Hushovd and Carlos Sastre.

For Tuft, good things DID happen in three's! He finished 2nd at the World Cycling Time Trial Championships this week in Varesa, Italy. The last Canadian male to medal at a World Cycling Championship was a looonnnngggg time ago(it was Steve Bauer in 1984). He finished the 43.7km course in 52:44 (almost 50 km/h!) and was only 42 seconds behind Bert Grabsch of Germany. And he did it despite flatting with 5k to go in the time trial and was forced to switch bikes! Wow. Here's a quick interview with Svein if you're interested...

The marquee event of the World Cycling Championship was today's Men's Road Race, where the 260 km event came down to a group of 12 riders, which didn't really include any of the pre-race favorites (Bettini, Valverde, Sanchez, Boonen, Contador, and McEwen to name a few). With about 2 km to go, Alessandro Ballan took off in a counter-attack and had enough to hold on for gold! He now gets to wear the rainbow jersey in 2009. Italy took second, with Damiano Cunego finishing second and Matti Breschel getting bronze. Canada's Michael Barry was the only Canadian finisher in 33rd.

In the women's road race, Nicole Cooke from Great Britain defended her Olympic Gold by winning the race in a sprint over co-favorites Marianne Vos and Judith Arndt. Canada's Alex Wrubleski was 9th.

One last cycling item for the doping fans. On Friday it was announced that Frank Schleck was perhaps a customer of cycling's Dr Evil, Eufemiano Fuentes. Dr Fuentes was known as the centrepiece of Operation Puerto, the doping investigation that has ensnared cyclists like Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso, Oscar Sevilla, Francisco Mancebo, and Tyler Hamilton. Once this announcement was made, the Italian police raided the hotel that the Luxembourg team was staying at during the World Championships. The doping soap opera continues...

Triathlon news...and unlike the news about Svein Tuft, this is not good news for Canada. Sam McGlone, who is Canada's best Ironman triathlete, is injured and will not compete in Kona in October. She has had problems with her Achilles for about a year or so, and admits now that it's not healthy enough for her to run the Ironman marathon on. Too bad, since she is one of the true rivals for the so-far unbeatable Chrissie Wellington.

Ok, I know you've been reading this far because this week was the Holy Grail of the bikey world, Interbike. And while industry professionals go there to check out the competition, us Bikey fanatics just love looking at bike porn. And there was plenty to see. While I found about 5 or so bikes that grabbed my attention, for those of you who just can't get enough should check out Tom Demerly's post here. He has another 50 or so pictures that are definitely worth checking out. Without further ado...enjoy the bikes and my personal Top 10!

10. New bike from CEEPO with some crazy frame shapes