Ok, although the expectations for Lance were a little high in his first race in three-and-a-half years, it has been a great week in Australia. Although no one really expected Lance to win the Tour Down Under, he has at least competed during a few of the stages. He briefly was in a breakaway in Stage 2, and in Stage 3 was part of a 14-man breakaway that stayed away for 90 km. However, every stage has come down to a peloton sprint, and sprinters have won ever stage so far. With two stages to go, Lance is in 38th place overall after finishing with the main peloton in every stage. Lance is riding his special-edition Trek Madone 6.9 Livestrong bike, with a very cool paint job and lots of cancer reminders (including the number 27.5 on the seatstay which represents the number in millions of people who have died globally since Lance retired after winning the 2005 Tour).
Surprisingly, two Canadians (!) are ahead of Lance, with Garmin-Slipstream teammates Ryder Hesjedal (11th place) and Christian Meier (30th place) both performing well in Australia. I don't know much about Christian Meier, but his bio at the Garmin-Slipstream team site says he's only 23 years old, and is the defending Canadian Road Race Champion. Sounds like someone to keep an eye on as we move forward. There could be four Canadians in next month's Amgen Tour of California if Svein Tuft (also on Garmin) and Dominique Rollin (Cervelo Test Team) also compete.
The Tour of California will also feature another comeback, this time featuring Lance's former teammate Floyd Landis. Landis, who rode shotgun with Lance in the 2002, 2003, and 2004 Tours, will be riding his first race after his two-year suspension for doping ends this week. Landis is riding for the OUCH Pro Cycling Team (which is not a ProTour team, just a Continental team) but will be riding in 2009 to try and get a contact for 2010. Landis is only 33 years old, so he still has a few years to compete at the highest level. He was last seen in the 2006 Tour, which he won but was stripped of his title after testing positive for a high testosterone/epitestosterone ratio. I agree with Armstrong's comments that "it's no use to criticize Landis or Basso since they've paid their penalty" . Basso will also be in California, along with Carlos Sastre, Levi Leipheimer, Lance, and Fabian Cancellara. Now that should be a great race...
A quick update on the world of elite marathoners - it appears that Haile Gebrselassie will be attempting to break the world half-marathon record (currently held by Sammy Wanjiru in 58:33) at a race in the Netherlands in March. Wanjiru, who won the Olympic Gold last August, is talking about running the Berlin Marathon in September in an attempt to beat Geb's marathon world record. It's nice to see them trying to out-do each other, even though Wanjiru is only 22 and Geb is 35!
More good news for Canadians - this time in the running world. 29-year-old Andrew Smith from Toronto ran 2:16:14 at last weekend's Houston Marathon! That's wicked fast, and fast enough that Canada will actually send Smith to Berlin in August to run in the World Marathon Championships. He needed to run sub-2:18 (the women's standard is sub-2:43) and despite thinking he might run 2:15, he was thrilled with his time since it was a 3 minute improvement over his first marathon. Smith is a member of the Brooks Canada Marathon Project, which is a 6-year 1.5 million commitment from Brooks Canada to develop Canadian marathoning! I love the idea, and hopefully we will see more Canadians in big marathons in the next while...
So Brooks is doing well enough to support Canadian marathoners, but Reebok is obviously not. Reebok this week laid off 300 workers and basically eliminated all their specialty running positions. This bring to mind an obvious question: does Reebok even make real specialty running shoes anymore? I can't remember the last time I've seen a regular runner wearing Reebok's...to be completely honest, Adidas did buy Reebok last year and it really doesn't make too sense to have Reebok running shoes competing being sold next to Adidas running shoes. I assume Reebok will become a bargain brand, and make a comeback in 5 years, once the US economy recovers. The running shoe industry is growing by one next week, when UnderArmour launches their shoe line on the 31st. Nothing like timing a shoe launch with the economy in a recession, but UnderArmour is spending millions on the launch. It's slogan is "Athletes Run" and is aiming primarily at those non-traditional runners. The shoes do look pretty good, and have a pretty competitive price point.
Here is the commercial they are using for launch. Not a bad first attempt...
However, UnderArmour can't compete with Nike just yet. Check out these two cool commercials from Nike, the first from 2000 and the second one a new viral commercial that is bouncing around the web.
Lots more next week! Enjoy your weekend...
No comments:
Post a Comment