Where do we start this busy Friday? With news about dopers, plus triathlon, cycling, and marathon news, it's going to be a busy one, so grab your Starbucks and settle in...I will leave the doping stuff for a Dopey Monday so as not to poison the whole column...so come back Monday for that!
I'm going to lead off with triathlon, since this weekend is a huge one (finally). The long-course guys and gals are busy in St Croix and in Wildflower, but finally we should see a top flight ITU race. This week's race in Tongyeong, South Korea, is the first in the new-for-2009 World Championship Series, which is a series of 7 races from now until September that will ultimately decide the 2009 World Champion. This race has a great field, and although some top Europeans like Javier Gomez and Vanessa Fernandes (injured) are sitting out, it will feature a great field. The men's race will feature Simon Whitfield's first race since Beijing, with lots of great competitors like Brad Kahlefaldt, Bevan Docherty, Courtney Atkinson, Tim Don, and Frederic Belaubre all in the race. The women's race is also stacked with Emma Snowsill taking on World Champion Helen Jenkins (Tucker) from Great Britain, with Emma Moffatt, Sam Warriner, Kate Allen, and Canadian star Kirsten Sweetland. The Canadian team also includes Kyle Jones and Brent McMahon on the guys side, and Kathy Tremblay and Lauren Groves on the female team. The ITU also did a nice interview with Simon Whitfield where he states his 2009 goal of winning the ITU World Championship for the first time. Good luck Canada!
As I mentioned last week, the ITU did have a World Cup race last week in Ishigaki, Japan. And as expected, the extremely weak fields lead to predictable results, with Courtney Atkinson winning his 5th career race in Ishigaki, outrunning the Russian brothers Ivan and Denis Vasiliev. Canadian Kyle Jones could only manage 9th place. On the women's side, Kathy Tremblay had a great race, finishing second (by only 5 seconds) to pre-race fave and hometown fave Juri Ide. That is a great result for Tremblay, since Ide is a solid ITU race. Hopefully Tremblay can follow up this result this weekend in Korea. The other Canadian, Lauren Groves, had a decent race but finished over a minute back in 5th place.
Last weekend also included the big race in St Anthony's. Despite brutal swim conditions that turned the age group race into a duathlon, the pro race did produce some surprising results which almost included a huge upset. Sara Mclarty, who might be the best swimmer to ever compete in Olympic distance racing (i don't remember her ever being beaten out of the water) almost held on to her lead thru the whole race. She got passed in the final half-mile by Rebecca Wassner and by Sara Groff but still won $4000 for third place. Wassner won $10000! Ridiculous money. It was another great race for Sarah Groff, who also finished second at Oceanside...Joanna Zeiger, Joanna Lawn, Nina Kraft, and Becky Lavelle finished well back. The men's race had co-favorite Matt Reed flat with a 90 second lead on the bike, so then the other fave Andy Potts took advantage with a 31:38 10km to easily defeat Terrenzo Bozzone. Too bad the Canadians weren't there to shake up the American domination...
There are two big half Ironmans this weekend, with Wildflower on Saturday and St Croix 70.3 on Sunday. Wildflower has a great field, including the return of Sam McGlone to racing. McGlone has been out since August with Achilles tendonitis, but here's hoping she can return to her dominating form. She'll be challenged by Leanda Cave, Erika Csomor, and Becky Lavelle. McGlone has a great chance to win in her return to racing. The men's race is super-deep, with Bozzone looking for revenge on Potts while facing some top Ironman pros in Chris Lieto, Luke Bell, Torbjorn Sindballe, and Eneko Llanos.
Sunday is St Croix, which is known for its bike course and the hill known as The Beast. I love watching video of pros going up this hill (which averages 14 percent over a hellish kilometer), always makes me feel better about my cycling! The women's race will be between Joanna Lawn and the last two 70.3 World Champs, Joanna Zeiger and Mirinda Carfrae. The men's race will feature Cam Brown and a group of secondary pros. And everyone's favorite nun, Sister Madonna Buder, will even be racing! Good luck to her...
Have we been talking about triathlon for this whole time? Wow, triathletes who don't swim and run (ie. cyclists) have been busy as well. Last Sunday was the big race in Belgium, as Liege-Bastogne-Liege was held for the 95th time. Andy Schleck finally broke through and won a huge race, which came just days after losing out to Davide Rebellin at Fleche Wallone. Schleck made a huge move in the last 20 kilometers, and ended up winning by almost 90 seconds over the field. A huge win for Schleck, and he now moves back to the top of the list of non-Astana Tour contenders! Canadian Ryder Hesjedal had a great day, with an 11th place finish. Hesjedal is now getting ready for the Giro (and hopefully the Tour). Lots more on the Giro next week...
The other big news in cycling is Lance Armstrong's return to racing. And not with Astana! Well, not really. Lance and Astana teammates Levi Leipheimer and Chris Horner have formed Team Mellow Johnny's (named after Lance's bike shop in Austin) and are competing in the New Mexico stage race Tour of the Gila. Not surprisingly, Levi won the first stage and still holds the race leaders jersey. But Lance is using this race to ride hard and get ready for the Giro. He probably won't be among the faves at the Giro, but knowing Lance he won't be far from the Top 5. I would suspect Levi and Ivan Basso would be the faves, but again, lots more next week...
A pretty good week for predictions for me last week, as I nailed both the men's and women's winners of the London Marathon. Well, the men's race got much easier to predict by raceday, since Martin Lel pulled out with a hip injury that he had been downplaying all week. This left Sammy Wanjiru as the clear fave. He didn't disappoint, but the big story was that the men's lead pack of 6 hit the halfway pack at 61:30 or so, well below world record pace. Ultimately, the pace slowed (the two graphs below show it very clearly) but Wanjiru took the race into his own hands, breaking the pack and soloing the last 8 miles to win in a course record 2:05:10. Afterward, Wanjiru blamed the pacemakers for eliminating his chance for a world record due to the uneven pace. Ethiopian Tsegay Kebede tried to stay close but finished 10 seconds back, good enough for a place on the top 10 all time list. Ridiculous. The women's race was good too, as Irina Mikitenko dropped the hammer at mile 20 and won by a minute in 2:22:11. Amazingly, 12 women broke 2:30 (versus none in Boston) which tells you how strong the elite field in London really is.
Ok, check out these two groups, courtesy of the sports geniuses Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas at sportsscientists.com These graphs show that the men's race was anything but even paced, with huge discrepancies early on, leading to Wanjiru having a 51 second edge over Geb's world record pace at 15K. But the quick early cost them later, as they quickly lost speed later on...the world record will probably fall again this year, but this graph does show how important even pacing probably will be in breaking it. And it shows how perfect Geb's run in Berlin (with unbelievable even pacing).
Okay, lots to come on Monday, with the Giro preview on Friday. Enjoy the weekend...
No comments:
Post a Comment