Okay okay, I know I said that no "big" ITU races happen until the World Championship Series starts in May, but today (tonight? tomorrow?- i always get confused with Australia time zones), Canada's Kirsten Sweetland won the ITU race in Mooloolaba. She actually beat a decent field, with Australia's Olympic bronze medallist Emma Moffatt in 2nd, with several other Olympians farther down the final standings.
Sweetland first burst onto the ITU scene in 2007, before an injury-plagued year in 2008. But it appears she's back and hopefully ready to take on Snowsill and Fernandes at the front of the ITU pack.
Unless you've been living under a rock that doesn't have wireless access, you've probably heard that Lance crashed hard on Monday of this week. He broke his collarbone into 4 pieces, and put his immediate future into question. He is now back in Austin, had surgery on Wednesday ( you can see the 12 screws that are holding his collarbone together below), and is hoping to be back on the bike early next week. He probably won't be back into a bike race until late-April at the earliest, and with the Giro D'Italia starting on May 9th, there has been consideration discussion as to whether Lance would be ready to compete. All indications from Team Astana and Lance are pretty optimistic that Lance will be healthy enough to start the Giro. Whether or not he is in good enough shape to be "Lance" is another question. Personally, I think that Lance will be using this as yet another rallying point. He has always stated that the Tour is his first priority this year, so if he decides to use the Giro as a 3-week training camp to get himself into race shape. Lance loves adversity and people telling him he can't do something. Surprisingly, Lance has never broken his collarbone in 17 years of bike racing. That underlines how his strategy of riding in the front of the peloton surrounded by his teammates has been so successful over the years. Anyhow, Lance will be back...you can see his post-operation video statement here...
Tons of cycling going on around the world. First off, Mark Cavendish did what many didn't think possible when he pulled out a sprint victory in last weekend's Milan-San Remo race. After almost 300 km and a few tricky hills in the last hour, Cavendish pulled it out at the line from Cervelo's Heinrich Haussler. The video below shows the action and the awesome acceleration of Cavendish. He is the cyclist to beat in any sprint finish today!
The other big cycling event this week was the Castilla Y Leon, which was the race in which Lance broke his collarbone on Monday. The race did have lots of big names, and had been won in back-to-back years by Alberto Contador. This year was supposed to be a battle between Lance and Alberto, but Lance's absence precluded any team issues. However, Contador was beaten by his other American teammate, Levi Leipheimer during Tuesday's time trial. Contador then helped protect Levi's lead during the last 3 stages of the race, and today the 5-day race ended with a Levi overall victory. Contador finished 2nd, while Garmin's Dave Zabriskie ended up 3rd. The race was essentially decided during the time trial as those 3 guys finished 1-2-3 in the time trial. Alejandro Valverde won two stages this week that ended with uphill sprint finishes but finished only 9th overall.
One last cycling note...American 18-year old Taylor Phinney won the world title in Individual Pursuit at the World Indoor Track Championships yesterday. This kid is unbelievable and could become an indoor cycling superstar while getting better on the outdoor circuit as well. As I have discussed before, both of his parents won Olympics medals in cycling in the 1984 Olympics, so an Olympic gold is 2012 is still Taylor's main priority. But since his father won a stage at the Tour de France as well, hopefully Taylor can get outside and become the next great American road cyclist when Lance-Levi-Tyler-Floyd-Zabriskie all retire in the next couple of years...Canadians also are competing in these World Championships, with Tara Whitten finishing 7th in the Women's Individual Pursuit and Zach Bell finishing 9th in the Men's Point Race. I have no idea what all these events actually include but I promise to try and figure it out over the next year or so...there are still lots of events this weekend (Keirin, Omnium, Madison, Time Trials, etc) and if anything exciting happens, I'll let you know next week... Triathlon - not much to report on yet. The 70.3 series got started last week when Craig Alexander ran a ridiculous 1:12:46 to beat Chris McCormack by 3 minutes in Ironman 70.3 Malaysia. Wow. The women's race was won by Great Britain's Jodie Swallow in 4:19. She won the race by 11 minutes! Yet another crazy fast Brit. Hmmm....they seem to have this triathlon thing mastered....Wellington, Swallow, Dibens, Cave, Avil, Tucker - one of these week's I will have to look into Great Britain's Triathlon factory and figure out their secrets...
Next week the triathlon season really kicks off in the US with Ironman 70.3 California in Oceanside and Ironman 70.3 New Orleans. I will preview both of them next week...
What else? Oh yeah...I forgot to mention an uber-fast Canadian last week. At the big half-marathon in the Netherlands a couple of weeks ago (the one that Haile was trying to run a world record but got beaten at the line), Regina native Simon Bairu finished 10th overall with a 1:03:10 half marathon. Very fast...I have no idea when Bairu will attempt the marathon distance for the first time, but he now holds the fastest half-marathon time for a Canadian in at least the last 5 years, and he has a decent chance at breaking Jerome Drayton's 1975 Canadian marathon record of 2:10:09...
More running news as the World XC Championships are being held this weekend in Jordan. Canada has sent 21 athletes (including Chantell Widney and Chelse Graham of Edmonton!) to compete in the 4 events (senior men's/women's, junior men's/women's) to be held tomorrow. Remarkably, the Kenyans have not won the senior men's race since 1999 and are trying to "sweep the board" during Saturday's races. Good luck to all the Canadians...and to Bikey fave Steph Twell from Great Britain!
I also found a fun race for 2010...check out this ESPN story on the Krispy Kreme Challenge. Run 4 miles and eat 12 donuts and try to get it done in one hour. The video below is a promo video done by the race organizers but for comic relief, check out the ESPN video that I can't embed but you can find it here! Classic...
Lance Armstrong has crashed today in Spain in the first stage of the Castilla Y Leon. And he is in an ambulance, so his first race with teammate Alberto Contador appears to be for naught.
Edit: It is now confirmed that Lance has broken his collarbone and is out of action "indefinitely". His participation in the Giro that starts May 9th is up in the air.
I thought about a bunch of titles for this week's entry, since there was actually a ton of highlights from the past week, but decided to give some love to the ugly stepchild of triathlon, swimming, since it gets very few highlights in a given year. But there is lots more this week too...
First off, let's give some swimming love to Canada's (and Edmonton's) own Annamay Pierse, who did something that Canadians almost never do - set a FREAKING World Record in the pool last week! And she did it with perfect timing. Huh? What? Yep, in the first National swimming meet since Pontiac Canada announced that they would give a free Pontiac Wave to any Canadian swimmer who sets a new world record in any event. This announcement was made on February 24th and the first eligible competition began on March 11. And Annamay Pierse decides on March 14 to lower the world record in the 200m breaststroke (shortcourse) to become the first Canadian since 2002 to set a world record. The world record had been held since 2003 by Leisel Jones (2:17:75), the Australian superstar who has 5 Olympic medals, but Pierse knocked a whole quarter-second of her time. This is an unbelievable progression for Pierse, who set a Canadian record in the Olympics but still finished over 3 seconds behind the winners. Major kudos should go to her coach Josef Nagy, the Bulgarian inventer of the Wave breaststroke technique who came to Canada 4 years ago to help our country's swimmers. And now Pierse has something that even Michael Phelps has never had, a breaststroke world record! If you want to watch a grainy video of Pierse's record it is below...
Other swimmers were not so lucky. Sweden's Therese Alshammer set a new world record in the 50m butterfly but then had her record taken away when she was disqualified for wearing 2 swimsuits. Apparently, FINA (swimming's governing body) just added the rule a month ago, but Alshammer thought that she was allowed to wear a swimsuit underneath for "modesty" purposes. Apparently two swimsuits might increase buoyancy and/or compression, so FINA has decided that no world records will be set by wearing multiple swimsuits. A British swimmer was also disqualified for wearing briefs underneath swimming tights too.
Speaking of bad swimming experiences, a lifeguard swim competition in Australia made international news when safety boats were needed to fend off a inquisitive hammerhead shark. This video tells the whole story...unbelievable.
On to the Bike-Y world, where I succeeded in jinxing Alberto Contador after last week's blog. After deciding that he had wrapped up Paris-Nice during Friday's Stage 6 domination, I forgot that the race wasn't over. With about 15 km left in Saturday's Stage 7, a group including Contador, Frank Schleck, Sylvain Chavanel, and Luis Leon Sanchez broke away from the peloton and appeared to be the decisive break. But Contador bonked after repeated accelerations on the last 4 km climb, and lost almost 3 minutes (and the race lead) to eventual stage winner Sanchez. Sanchez and his team Caisse d'Epargne were able to hold on during Sunday's final stage to win the week-long race. Here is a 3-minute highlight package...
The bigger news is that Contador and Team Astana were unable to hold on to a lead, and has led to a rash of questions about his future and whether the team is solidly behind Contador. Hmmm. Is Team Astana looking for an excuse to make Lance their team leader for the Tour? Is Lance's history with Bruyneel going to split the team? So many questions to be answered...
Last week's other classic race was in Italy, where 3 Canadians competed in the week-long Tirreno Adriatico. This race also didn't go according to plan for Team Astana, where Andreas Kloden took the lead in the time trial but also could not handle the responsibility as Michele Scarponi, Stefano Garzelli, and Ivan Basso teamed up to drop Kloden on the last difficult stage. Not a great week for Astana...Canadian Ryder Hesjedal finished 8th overall for the second year in a row.
Speaking of Team Astana, they are back in the spotlight tomorrow in the HUGE Spring Classic known as Milan-San Remo. It is the 100th anniversary of this race, and is more newsworthy than normal since Lance is racing for the first time in Europe since 2005. He won't likely be a factor, since MSR most often comes down to a sprint finish, despite it's 295km (!) length. Yep, 295 km, 3 pretty tough hills, but normally the peloton is all together and the sprinters have to dig deep after 8+ hours in the saddle...last year was an exception, when Fabian Cancellara got ahead in the last 2 km and outkicked everyone. Cancellara is out with an injury this year, as are injured racers like Frank Schleck, Oscar Freire, and World Champion Alessandro Ballan. The race will feature all the big sprinters, and according to the betting site Unibet, the fave is Italian Daniele Bennati, just ahead of Tom Boonen and Alessandro Petacchi.
Cyclingnews.com previewed the race by looking back at some epic MSR finishes. While I won't bore you with the details, i did want to show the pictures of Mario Cippolini's amazing zebra striped outfit in 2002 and the 2004 finish when Erik Zabel prematurely celebrated and Oscar Freire nipped him at the line. Awesome!
I also found a cool Trek blog where they show off all their cool custom paint jobs for Lance, Levi, and Alberto. You can see the whole group here...i like Levi's custom TT bike. Couple more quick things this week...a new Ironman event was announced this week. Ironman is back in Utah and will be held in May 2010 in St George, Utah. This comes 8 years after the first try at Ironman Utah when a swim death occured and the event turned into a long-course duathlon.
Last week was all about cycling and the many events that are going on in Europe, but this week's headlines were mostly all about one person, Alberto Contador. He started off Paris-Nice by winning the prologue on Sunday, which was shocking only because it was assumed that prologue specialists like David Millar or Bradley Wiggins would dominate the 9.3 km distance. He then defended his lead until Tuesday, when Sylvain Chavanel won Stage 3 and took the leader's jersey. However, Team Astana didn't seem too concerned since today's Stage 6 and tomorrow's Stage 7 both have multiple climbs and uphill finishes. And Contador didn't disappoint, attacking on the last big climb, leaving the whole race and all the other contenders in his wake. Only Frank Schleck and Luis-Leon Sanchez could stay within a minute of Contador, with other GC contenders like Cadel Evans, Sammy Sanchez, and Christophe Moreau farther back down the mountain. Today's stage was so difficult that only 22 riders finished within 4 minutes of Contador. Barring a complete collapse tomorrow, Contador will win Paris-Nice for a second time and re-affirm his position as the best stage racer on the planet. I'm sure Lance is paying attention... Meanwhile, in Italy, an elite group of sprinters is preparing for the season at the Tirreno-Adriatico. With Tom Boonen, Mark Cavendish, Alessandro Petacchi, Robbie McEwen, Thor Hushovd and a few other big name sprinters in the field, this race seems designed to let the sprinters test their legs in bunch sprints. This race is also grabbing my attention since Canadians Hesjedal, Tuft, and Rollin are all participating. The sprinters were outwitted in Stage 1, when a breakaway of 2 managed to stay away and win by 11 seconds. The Italian Petacchi, who was probably the most feared sprinter in the world a couple of years ago, won Stage 2 by holding off the field. Today's Stage 3 also resulted in a sprint finish, and Mark Cavendish got passed at the line by Garmin's Tyler Farrar ( a great picture from Graham Watson is below). Anyhow, Boonen, McEwen, and the rest of the big names now have to climb some mountains and do a time trial over the next 3 days before getting another sprint chance on Tuesday's final stage. Currently, Hesjedal is the top Canadian in 18th place, but expect the GC to be messed up by the end of Monday's epic (and hilly) 235 km stage! Go Canada!
The week's biggest running news comes from the Netherlands where Haile Gebrselassie is racing for a new world record in the half marathon on Saturday morning. He needs to beat the 58:33 that his arch-rival Sammy Wanjiru set 2 years ago in this same race. The organizers of the Pier City Pier Half Marathon in the Hague have made this course world-record friendly, removing any tough corners from the course and even ensuring runners do not have to run into the wind. Wanjiru first set the world record in 2005 before Geb broke it in 2006. Then Wanjiru set it twice in 2007 to lower the record to its current 58:33. Geb also will have 3 pacesetters to try and get him as far into the race as possible before he will have to run by himself. Geb also has announced that he will be trying to better his world record in the One Hour event on June 1 this year. Triathlon news...and for us fans of ITU racing it's a good news - bad news situation. The 2009 season's first World Championship Series event, which was to be held on May 10th in Singapore, has been cancelled due to "economic reasons". Oops. Anyhow, the good news is that Tongyeong, Korea has stepped up and will host the event on May 2nd and May 3rd. So we actually get earlier racing...but the fact that the economy is affecting the marquee events is not a good sign for 2009 and beyond.
I must admit that I forgot to preview last week's Ironman New Zealand. One of 23 Ironman events in 2009, last week's race was notable since Cameron Brown and Joanna Lawn have owned this event for a long time. Brown (with 7 wins in a row) and Lawn (6 wins in a row) have dominated the event, but this year they were expected to be challenged by other Kiwis such as Kieren Doe, Terrenzo Bozzone, and Gina Ferguson. Doe actually had to drop out at the last minute due to illness, but Bozzone was an interesting challenger. He had never raced an Ironman, but dominated 70.3 racing in 2008, easily winning the World Champs in November. Saturday, Cam Brown did indeed to his part to continue the streak, breaking the course record with a time of 8:18. Brown really doesn't get the respect for his amazing consistency, as he has finished 2nd in Kona twice and in the Top 5 there 5 times in the past 8 years. Bozzone had a great debut, finishing second in 8:25 and will be a force in Ironman racing for years to come. The women's race did include a mild upset, as Gina Ferguson won her first title in New Zealand (and 5th overall) by finishing 5 minutes ahead of Jo Lawn in 9:18. More Ironman racing coming in the first week in April...
Lots of updates this week, plus a look ahead at a few things to come. There's some big news at the bottom so read the whole blog...lots of videos near the bottom too!
First off, the Spring Classics have begun over in Europe. Over in Belgium last weekend, the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and the Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne were last weekend, and with both races close to 200 km in length with numerous cobblestone sections, they are fairly taxing for early season racing. The big names did rise to the top though, with Thor Hushovd winning on Saturday and Tom Boonen winning on Sunday. Hushovd's teammate and Bikey fave Dominique Rollin never really got going in either race, finishing 137th on Saturday (12 minutes down) and 52nd on Sunday (8 minutes down). Oh well, the good thing about the early bike season is there is always another race to tackle next week! If you go thru a list of the one-day northern Spring Classics, you might have trouble recognizing most of them. Actually, the "big races" on the calendar are probably all in April, with Tour de Flanders on April 5th, Gent-Wevelgem on April 8th, and Paris-Roubaix on April 12th, then a tough week in late April with Amstel Gold, La Fleche Wallone, and Liege-Bastogne-Liege. The only "southern" Classic is Milan-San Remo later in March in Italy, and will incidently be the European kick-off for one Lance Armstrong. He has switched around his schedule and is now going to race with his teammate Alberto Contador from March 23-27 in the Castille and Leon Vuelta. You might remember that they were not supposed to team up until the Tour, but perhaps the Astana team wants to ensure that they can play nice together.
Speaking of Astana, tomorrow they enter the Paris-Nice stage race as the favorite with Contador expected to win the 8-day event for the second time (he won it in 2007). There are not a lot of huge names in the race (complete list here) but Contador will probably hold off Frank Schleck, Cadel Evans, and Christian Vande Velde for the title. Canada is being represented by Michael Barry for Team Columbia-HighRoad. Good luck this year since it is an extra hilly version this year.
Overlapping with Paris-Nice is Italy's Tirreno Adriatico. Running from March 11-17, this race includes the rest of the big names in cycling, with Ivan Basso, Mark Cavendish, Tom Boonen, Thor Hushovd, Andy Schleck, and a trio of Canadians (Ryder Hesjedal, Svein Tuft, and Dominique Rollin) taking place. Good results are important for all 4 Canadians in stage races next week as they try to solidify their places on team rosters for the Giro and the Tour. Good luck to all of them!
Actually it seems as if everyone is racing in Europe this week and next except for Lance. Hmm. But remember that Lance has rarely raced a lot in Europe to prepare for previous Tours. In 2003 and 2005 he won exactly one race (the time trial at the Dauphiné Libéré) before winning his 5th and 7th Tour de France titles. So I wouldn't worry until we see his fitness at the Giro in May. Other riders who are sitting out right now are Fabian Cancellara (out with a shoulder injury), Oscar Friere (broken ribs) and Levi Leipheimer (out with fractured sacrum). Unbelievably, Levi suffered this injury during Stage 3 of the Tour of California but managed to grit out 5 more stages and capture the title. Nice job Levi!
Levi also has the best accomplishment of the Grand Tour contenders so far this year with his dominance in California. cyclingnews.com recently published a list of Tour contenders and put Levi and Contador in the 1-2 positions. We still have 4 months until the riders kick off the Tour in Monaco but this will undoubtedly be one of the most anticipated Tours in recent memory. So many big names! Check out the list here...and the official race video here...
Cycling also gets this week's Product of the Week. Check out the Speed-Vest, a vest that shows the cyclists speed on their back. Designed to enhance cyclist safety by educating drivers about overtaking cyclists safely, this Vest is another example of mating technology with function. For now, it's just a prototype, but soon could be gear for the techie commuter. I love it.
Triathlon updates: As expected, Belinda Granger cruised to a win last week at Ironman Malaysia. She's obviously in great shape as she biked a 4:48 and held on for an easy 15 minute win. Aussie Luke McKenzie won the men's race. Her old teammate Chrissie Wellington is also in the news this week as she (gasp) switched bikes and will be riding a Cannondale Slice in 2009. No more Cervelos for her!
Canadian tri news: Kirsten Sweetland fooled me and didn't race last week. She's now back in Canada and probably won't race until May when ITU's World Championship Series begins in Singapore. She will be joined in Singapore by Simon Whitfield, who announced in an interview this week that his 2009 season will include a 70.3 race and 70.3 Worlds! That's great news, and I'm excited to see what Simon can do in the non-drafting format. You can read the whole article on Simon here....
Moving over to the running world...the lottery for the New York Marathon is up and running. And if you're lucky enough to be selected to compete, us Canadians have to fork over $231 US. Wow. Lottery runs until May 1 if you're interested.
The biggest track news of the year so far is that the IAAF announced this week that the Golden League, their group of marquee athletic meets, will be expanding globally in 2010. Now called the Diamond League, the 2010 schedule will expand to include the Reebok Grand Prix (New York), the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon, and will also include races in China and in Qatar. It is being called the Diamond League since each overall event champion for the season will win a 4-carat diamond. Right now, the Golden League prize is a share of $500,000 in gold. Makes sense. Of course, the big names will still be getting massive appearance fees on top of any prize money they might win...ahhh, the economics of sport. There is a good article on the Diamond League here and the benefits that it may allow.
I started thinking about doping when watching the Tour of California. There were so many high-level cyclists that have been associated with doping at that race. Floyd Landis, Tyler Hamilton, Ivan Basso, Francisco Mancebo, Oscar Sevilla, Jose Enrique Gutierrez, Lance Armstrong, Frank Schleck, and the list just continues. Some of those guys have admitted to doping, others have been suspended but have not admitted anything, while others are linked due to their involvement with others riders and/or team doctors. It's a pretty impressive list. I bet we could fill an impressive roster with those names, and have them compete against currently suspended dopers (Iban Mayo, Rasmussen, Vinokourov, Manuel Beltran, Riccardo Ricco, Stefan Schumacher, Bernhard Kohl, etc). Unbelievable. Cycling does have many many big names who have somehow managed to remain untarred, and I wish names like Hincapie, Cancellara, Voigt, Cavendish, Cadel Evans, Leipheimer got as much attention as someone like Floyd Landis.
(By the way, there are some more incredible doping cartoons that you can see at cartoonstock.com)
Cycling is trying to fix its problem for a long time. Way back in 1998, the Festina Affair occured when all the Festina team car was searched before the Tour started and enormous quantities of EPO, steroids, syringes, and other drugs were found. This lead to police raids of hotel rooms, other team's cars, etc. Eventually, 4 teams drop out of the 1998 Tour, and police and race organizers claim to have cleaned up cycling. 10 years later, the Tour is still busy kicking out cheating cyclists, and are we expecting 2009 to be any better?
I was impressed when I started hearing about how much Lance Armstrong has been tested. He claims that he has been tested over 20+ times since he announced his comeback to cycling. These 20+ tests would include USADA, in-race testing, and his own independent testing program (results posted on Livestrong.com). Ivan Basso also has done the same, as he posts all his training results and drug testing results on his own website. Interestingly, Lance and Ivan both seem to get their blood tested about once a month.
Cycling has used the biological passport to try and reduce rampant doping. And it seems to be working. The World Anti-Doping Agency claims that the biological passport has been acting as a deterrent to cheats. And perhaps it has. But skepticism will remain...
Included in that last article is a claim that athletics will start testing the biological passport this summer at the Berlin World Championships. And it's about time. The only sport that can rival the star power of dopers is athletics. The list of accused is full of world champions and Olympic medallists. From Flo-Jo, Carl Lewis, and Ben Johnson in the 1980's to Justin Gatlin, Tim Montgomery, and Marion Jones in the last few years (and those cheating Russians in 2008), track stars have been consistently implicated.
But wait, there is so much more. Dwain Chambers, the UK sprinter who was a rival of Maurice Greene and Tim Montgomery in the early 2000's, got caught using the steroid THG in 2003. He subsequently admitted that he used testosterone, EPO, HGH, stimulants, and thyroid hormones. He served a 2-year ban, and is now back running competitively but finding that he is having a tough time getting invited to big-name track meets. Next week he is publishing his tell-all book, and it is full of bombshells. He mentions that in 2002 he spent over $30,000 on 300+ drug cocktails, and passed 10 drug tests. He also mentions the "Duck & Dodge" technique, where an athlete who thinks he might fail a drug test will fill up his voicemail so testers can't notify him of an upcoming drug test. If an athlete isn't notified, he doesn't have to show up for the test. There are two book excerpts that were published this week that are just unbelievable. Read them here and here. Is track really getting cleaner? First off, it's pretty interesting that the current blood test for HGH has been around since the 2004 Olympics. And how many cheats have they caught? Zero. Yep, no one has been caught. Back in 2006, MLB tried to work with a UCLA lab to develop a blood test for HGH. 3 years later, we're finally getting closer. A US company has announced that they are close to finalizing a urine test that can detect HGH use up to 2 weeks after last use. This is a breakthrough since the current blood test can only detect use in the previous 24-48 hours, and even WADA documents claimed that blood is the best matrix to detect HGH use since amounts in the urine are less than 1% than those in blood. But this new test could change all that, and cheaters/sprinters around the world will have to find a new way to get faster.
But can you find the cheaters if you don't test them? The IAAF posted their 2008 testing results (for out -of-competition tests) on their website, and the findings are laughable. Only 4 Canadians athletes were tested in 2008 (Jon Brown, Tyler Christopher, Priscilla Lopes-Schliep, and Gary Reed) and none of them were tested more than 3 times. I can think of several Canadian track & field athletes who made the Olympics and never even got tested once. Is this possible? Of the 697 athletes tested world-wide by the IAAF, only 17 athletes were tested 8+ times. And the entire US Track & Field team was only tested 121 times. Hmmm. I can see a few holes in this system.
Anyhow, all this talk about doping, anti-doping, and the like can only help close the gap between the cheaters and the authorities. But only time will tell if we can get closer to "pure" competition...
