Kona Winners and Losers...and a few other Ironman Nuggets

Hi All,

Kona is now 10 days gone, and the shock is just wearing off from Chrissie Wellington's stunning DNS at the Ironman World Championships this year, where she just got a huge batch of bad luck in getting sick with flu-like symptoms the night before the race. Her early-morning decision to not start absolutely opened up the women's race to a much larger number of women to steal the title, but ultimately it was a great duel between Julie Dibens (who predictably opened up a huge gap on the bike) and Mirinda Carfrae, who ran her down with a record-breaking 2:53 run split to win easily over by 7:30 over Ironman newcomer Caroline Steffen. Julie Dibens finished  third, despite running 23 minutes slower than Carfrae.

Other Highlights

• Despite her painful decision to not start, congrats to Chrissie for staying out of the spotlight on race day and allowing the race to make the headlines.
• This sure didn't make a lot of press releases, but Paula Newby Fraser's female bike record that had stood since 1993 was broken by Switzerland's Karen Thurig, who rode a remarkable 4:48:22 to break the record by a whole 8 seconds
• Virginia Beratasegui - after her under-the-radar third place in 2009, she finished an even farther under-the-radar 4th in 2010. 
• Remarkably, the only other woman to repeat in the Top 10 from last year was Rachel Joyce, who improved from 6th last year to finish 5th this year. 
• The Team TBB Breakthrough Performer of the Year - Brett Sutton's team continues to pump out great Kona performances.  Caroline Steffen is the latest in the long list of Team TBB athletes to have huge breakthrough race in Kona. Chrissie in 2007, Erika Csomor in 2008, Tereza Mazel last year, and now Steffen in 2010. 

A Couple of Lowlights

• What happened to the rest of the so-called race favorites? Slowtwitch had female odds to win, and the ladies ranked 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th - Macel, Keat, Morrison, and McGlone - all had terrible days and finished outside of the Top 15. Terrible days for all of them...Morrison and Keat didn't even make it to the finish line this year.
• Sandra Wallenhorst - picked by a many to be a dark horse, got DQ'ed for inexplicably cutting the bike course early on. I have no idea how that could happen, but have been unable to find any official explanation online. Regardless, a thumbs down to her.
• The overall Ironman.com experience - yes, the streaming was much better this year. But the commentary was so-so, they were very inconsistent with time splits between the leaders, and it just seems that they need to spend some money on upgrading the graphical presentation. It just feels like the coverage isn't much better than it was in 2004....

Unfortunately for the women, the 2010 event was completely overshadowed by a very exciting and extremely memorable men's race. With a list of contenders a mile long going on, it was shaping up to a  be a great race. And it didn't disappoint, with the bikers going off the front trying to get enough breathing room on the runners. And unfortunately for the bikers, it was a day for the runners. The top 3 men off the bike ended up outside of the top 10 as the relatively easy conditions made for fast times.

Ultimately, it was Chris McCormack's day, as he started the run almost 8 minutes behind bike leader Chris Lieto. It took him about 11 miles to eliminate those 8 minutes, and McCormack looked to cruise to the finish line. Unfortunately for him, there were two men running faster than him coming up behind him. Craig Alexander, whose Kona formula is to give the bikers their lead and camera time, and then hammer through the field to win going away, ultimately gave Macca too much room and despite running faster than him and having the 2nd best run split, finished 6 minutes back in 4th place. However, Andreas Raelert made a huge push, caught Macca just before 24 mile, and the two men ran together for almost 2 miles before Macca dropped him on the downhill right at the last aid station. A gutsy move by a worthy champ - and McCormack joins a very short list of multiple Kona winners. And we'll look on back on the 2010 duel between McCormack and Raelert for years to come.

Other Highlights

• Craig Alexander - despite having an overwhelming deficit on the run, he ran the 2nd fastest time of the day to defend his back-to-titles honorably. Congrats to him on being a great champion
• A wicked fast run split by the "other" Aussie Pete Jacobs, who had a race-best blistering 2:41:06 run split to finish in 8th place.
• The European Dominance - 6 Europeans in the Top 10, including 3 Germans (Raelert, Bracht, Al-Sultan) and one each from Spain (Llanos), Belgium (Vanhoenacker), and Luxembourg (Bockel).

And now for the Lowlights

• 0 North Americans in the Top 10! How long has it been since the days of Peter Reid and Tim DeBoom being the race favorites?
• Chris Lieto - just like last year, the race was there. He had the lead. He promised this year would be different. A 2:51 run would have been enough. However, the run didn't go well and he finished in 11th place. At 38, is his window closed?
• Terenzo Bozzone/Andy Potts/Rasmus Henning - three guys expected to at least contend for the top 5. They finished 20th, 21st, and 24th. Their problem - none of them ran under 3 hours when 22 pro men and 2 pro women did it.
• Where are the next generation of male Ironman pros? Most of the current top 10 are in their 30's, including many on the wrong side of 35. Who will be the guy in 2 years? It shall be interesting...

Anyhow, with 2010 out of the way, we can now already look forward to 2011, with the new Ironman qualification system for pros already in place. Essentially, the old system of qualifying for Kona at any one Ironman race is gone. Instead, a points system rewarding finishing positions in Ironman and Ironman 70.3 races will determine the top 50 men and top 30 women who will compete at Kona in 2011. You can read the full details here and the current ranking can be found here.  The other main difference is that all pro triathletes will be required to race one Ironman event to qualify for Kona. Even Carfrae and McCormack don't automatically get a free entry into next years race without finishing another Ironman.

All in all - I like the new system. It should encourage more racing among the pro racers. And could mean that races that often get shortchanged with regard to top pros (Ironman Coeur D'Alene, Lake Placid, Canada) could see more top competitors. We'll see how the system works...but already we've heard that Rasmus Henning and Chrissie Wellington are going to jump back into the Ironman pool at Ironman Arizona in late November as they look to move up the rankings.

More soon....

Kona Preview...and Predictions!

Hi All,

We are now less than 48 hours from the start of the 2010 Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii, and it’s about time that I preview the race and make some predictions.

The Womens Race

As most of you know,  Chrissie Wellington is making her case for the Greatest of all time.  Right now it’s Paula Newby-Fraser (8 wins) and Natascha Badmann (6 wins) who get the most votes, but Chrissie is moving in the right direction. She’s now won consecutive Ironman races in Korea, Kona (2007), Australia, Germany, Kona (2008), Australia, Roth, Kona (2009), and Roth so far in 2010. That makes her 9 for 9 over 140.6 miles, and if she wants to continue her path towards GOAT status, she needs to make it to the finish line first on Saturday.

So far in 2010, Chrissie has won all 3 races she’s started, breaking records left and right. She’s improved her swim (first female out of the water at Ironman Kansas), bike (a 4:36 bike split at Roth) and hopes to see her best run time ever in Kona. She's a machine who threatens to beat male pros every time she starts.

However, in 2010 she faces what might be the strongest field she has ever competed against. There’s Mirinda Carfrae, 2^nd last year and holder of the Kona run record. There’s Julie Dibens, current 70.3 World Champion and the last person to beat Chrissie in a race (last year at the Boulder half Ironman race). There’s Sam McGlone, who in 2007 finished 5 minutes behind Chrissie in what has been Chrissie’s closest finish yet. On the flip side, there are questions about all 3 of her main contenders. Can Mirinda stay close enough to Chrissie to make her run speed matter? Can Julie get far enough ahead of Chrissie to put Chrissie under pressure? And can Sam put it all together like she did in 2008, and still have some running legs to compete late in the race?

On top of Mirinda, Julie, and Sam, there are lots of other women who can complicate things. There’s Tereza Macel,  had a breakthrough year in 2009, winning two Ironman races and then finishing 4^th in Kona. There’s Rebekah Keat, who has challenged Chrissie at Roth the last two years until Chrissie found another gear on the run. There’s also last year’s 3^rd place finisher, Virginia Beratasegui, who  came from nowhere to finish 3^rd last year. And Linsey Corbin, who had an amazing day in 2008 before falling apart in 2009. With a new coach and a new focus, she might be ready to put it all together again. Plus Kona veterans like Joanna Lawn, Belinda Granger, Kate Major, etc…

So what’s going to happen?  I see a group of women trying  to pull away on the bike, trying desperately to either pressure Chrissie or put some time on her. Remember, Chrissie was on pace to break the Ironman bike record last year until the winds picked up on the way home. This year, Dibens and Macel could potentially beat Chrissie to T2, but I don’t see Chrissie letting them get more than a couple of minutes. That will string out the rest of the ladies, and turn the run into a battle for second.  Chrissie might even be trying to win back her run record (set in 2008, broken in 2009 by Carfrae) and reset the course record. Chrissie has shown that records are made to be broken.

My top ten,,,

1. Chrissie - A mortal lock. A lava flow wont slow her down.
2. Carfrae – will run herself into 2nd. Again. 
3. Corbin – has been peaking for this race
4.  McGlone – will be a factor, not sure if she can run fast enough to make podium.
5. Dibens – amazing swim/bike, will need another year before she can run fast in Kona.
6. Rebekah Keat - has to make up for last year's DQ
7. Caroline Steffen – short course girl doing Kona debut
8. Catriona Morison – mainly known for her dominance in duathlon
9. Yvonne Van Vlerken – 2^nd at Kona just two years ago
10. Amy Marsh – American girl who has multiple wins this year behind Brett Sutton’s coaching

Men’s Race

I love this year’s men’s field. Most men only race sparingly nowadays, preferring to save themselves for one peak race in Kona. Craig Alexander and Chris Lieto, last year’s top two finishers, haven’t done an Iron-distance race since last year in Kona. Other top contenders like Rasmus Henning (Roth), Chris McCormack (Frankfurt), Andy Potts (Coeur D’Alene), Andreas Raelert (Frankfurt), and Terenzo Bozzone (New Zealand) did one full Ironman this year as part of their build-up to Kona. We’ll see whose strategy pays off on Saturday.

Until he gets defeated, the odds-on favorite has to be Craig Alexander. The two-time defending champion (who was second in his Kona debut in 2007), is healthy and has been dominant this year in his 70.3 races. His strategy is to bike at his pace, knowing his superior running will catch the cyclists before the end of the race. However, one of these years he might give someone too much rope.

There’s a huge group of European contenders, including Luxembourg’s Dirk Bockel, Belgians Marino Vanhoenacker and Rutger Beke, the Dane Rasmus Henning,  and the German peloton of Normann Stadler, Faris Al-Sultan, Timo Bracht, and Andreas Raelert.  Then we have Australia’s Macca, Luke Bell, and Pete Jacobs and their Kiwi neighbours Cam Brown and the up-and-coming Terenzo Bozzone. It will be a battle out there.

I see the men’s race being a lot like last year’s – a few cyclists get away late on the bike, with the pure runners content to let them go. But there just might a guy who sneaks between those two groups who can do some damage. I’m thinking it will Raelert or Bozzone or Henning, but I think Raelert’s new bike speed might be enough to give him those extra couple of minutes to hold off Alexander.

My top ten...

1. Andreas Raelert – might hand off title to his little brother, who after defending 70.3 World title, will compete at Kona in 2011.
2. Rasmus Henning – has the pure speed. Can he improve under the Kona conditions?
3. Craig Alexander – maybe just an off-year
4.  Terenzo Bozzone – still learning the Irongame
5. Andy Potts – 7^th in 2008, 9^th in 2009, better this year
6. Dirk Bockel – trains with Raelerts, bikes like the Schlecks
7.  Marino Vanhoenacker – consistent, solid 2010 so far
8. Chris Lieto – I’m daring him to prove me wrong and lay down a killer run
9. Pete Jacobs – the latest star who learned to win in Australia
10.  Chris McCormack – would love to see him win again, but years of racing catching up with him

Of course, you could build a pretty solid argument for Timo Bracht, Cam Brown,  Rutger Beke and any number of other pros. Not to mention previous winners Stadler and Al-Sultan. 

I’ll have a post-race post sometime after the race.

More soon…

More bad news for Contador...

Hi All,

For those of you who don't like reading about doping in cycling, please move on. The NY Times is reporting tonight that Alberto Contador failed a second test during this year's Tour de France. This one has nothing to do with clenbuterol and any tainted meat, but instead a newly designed test can now check for the presence of plasticizers, a chemical found inside IV bags. Essentially, it is a way to see if athletes are having anything transfused into their system.

According to the NY Times, one of Contador's tests on July 20 contained the high levels of plasticizers, at an amount apparently 8 times higher than the level thought to be associated with doping. The very next day was the one where Contador's sample contained the very minute concentrations of clenbuterol (well below the expected therapeutic concentrations). Contador's camp blames the presence of this minute amount of clenbuterol on some sort of accidental ingestion, while other media and doping experts have suggested that the amounts of clenbuterol might have due to with blood transfusions. Anyhow, the story keeps going, and now the NY Times is leading the charge...we'll have to wait to see what the UCI and Alberto Contador say next.

More soon...

Cycling Worlds In Review

Hi All,

These last 5 nights have featured the UCI World Cycling Championships in Geelong, Australia. Unfortunately for us North Americans, that meant late night starts and even later night finishes for the 6 events that were held. However, for us few fans that stayed up late and watched foreign-language webstreams (thank you Flemish television for not restricting your viewership), it did provide some great entertainment. All 6 events had some great drama, cumulating with last night's unbelievable Men's Road Race.

It all kicked off Tuesday evening, with the U23 Men and Elite Women time trial events. Two names of interest during these events were Taylor Phinney in the U23 event and Edmontonian Tara Whitten in the Womens race. Phinney, at only 20 years of age, has already won multiple world championships in various track events (currently defending world champion in the individual pursuit) and is just starting to take his talents to the road. He even finished the 2010 season racing with Team RadioShack. He went into the event as probably the favorite, and did not disappoint, winning by over 2 seconds. Phinney is a future cycling superstar, maybe not the next lance or Contador, but he could win big races like Cancellara and Boonen. Canada's top finisher was David Boily (who rides for Spidertech) in 25th place.

For most riders, the World Championships is a year-ending event. For Tara Whitten, it's a warm up. After competing in both the time trial and road race in Australia, she's off to India to compete for Canada in the Commonwealth Games. Whitten, the current World Champion in 2 events on the track, will be competing in both road and track events in India, for a total of 6 separate competitions! She's the Michael Phelps of the bicycle world. Can she win multiple medals? In the Worlds Time Trial, Whitten was a medal contender, clocking the 2nd best time at the first checkpoint before fading to 7th. She was actually beaten by the remarkable Jeannie Longo, who at age 52 continues to dominate against women who weren't born when she won her first World Championship in 1985.

Then it was time for the Elite Men Time Trial. Current world champion Fabian Cancellara had the honour of going last, and didn't disappoint, blowing apart the field as he chewed up the 45.6 km course to win his 4th world title. He led after every checkpoint but the first one, and won by over a minute even after celebrating down the finishing stretch. Compare that to the U23 and Womens winners who won by 2 and 15 seconds. He is almost unbeatable right now in events that he aims for. 2010 has been a great year for Fabian and will once again get to the rainbow stripes in every time trial in 2010. David Millar and Tony Martin rounded out the podium, while Canadian Svein Tuft, who was seeded 7th and won a silver medal in this event only 2 years ago, could only manage a 26th place finish in what he called "the worst day of his life". He too is on his way to the Commonwealth Games and will hopefully bring home a medal for Canada there...

The next night featured the U23 Road Race, and it was being watched by the Elite Men for several reasons. Obviously, it would showcase the next generation of cycling stars, but there was a lot of interest to see if the difficult course would break up the peloton and enable a breakaway to succeed. The difficult course (one large and one shorter hill per lap) did wear down the peloton, but it did end with 46 riders together (out of the 97 finishers). Australian rider Michael Matthews won the sprint, but the real battle was for bronze between Taylor Phinney and Canadian rider Guillaume Boivin. Check this out picture...

At 2/1000th of a second, they couldn't determine who won bronze (the other rider is the silver medalist from Germany), so both Boivin and Phinney shared the Bronze medal. It is only the third medal from a Canadian male at a World Championship (with Tuft's 2008 silver in the TT and Steve Bauer's bronze in the 1984 Road Race.

Boivin is quite a talent for only being 21, having won races in Canada, Cuba, and Europe this season. He also had a Top 10 finish during a stage of the Tour of California this year. He is a great talent, and as SpiderTech aims to upgrade to a Pro Continental team in 2011, Boivin will be a huge part of their future. There is a great interview with him here...

The women's road race also came down to a sprint finish, with Italian Giorgia Bronzini winnning. Tara Whitten managed to make the final group, but had nothing left for the sprint, finishing in 15th place. Erinne Willock of Canada finished 23rd.

The big event was the Elite Mens Road Race. Hometown favorite Cadel Evans was trying to defend his 2009 title, but the pre-race favorites also included the leaders of the powerful Italian team (Fillipo Pozzato) and Spanish team (3-time winner Oscar Freire) plus one-day riders like Philippe Gilbert from Belgium, who might have been the favorite heading into this race. The race started off very slowly, as 4 riders actually got a 23 minute lead on the slow-moving peloton early on, but as they closed in on the finish line 262 km away, the peloton closed in. As they completed their 11 laps on the finishing circuit, the peloton kept losing riders as the speed and the hills kept claiming victims. It was in the last 30 or so km that the field really split up, with the Italians working hard to keep the group small. Eventually, riders like Evans and Gilbert both has short-lived solo breakaways but they were always swallowed back up by the remaining riders. Gilbert was the last to be caught, with less the 2 km to go. But like the U23 and Womens race, it did become a sprint finish, and it was the God of Thunder, Thor Hushovd, who hopped around the group to power away and win the World title! Congrats to Thor, who was joined on the podium by Matti Breschel (Denmark) and Allan Davis (Asutralia), for finally winning Norways's first ever World Cycling title! Pozzato finished 4th and Freire 6th, while Evans and Gilbert finished at the back of the lead group. Canada's Svein Tuft was our only finisher in 85th place, while Christian Meier and Dominique both did not finish.

More to come, as always...

Say it ain't so Alberto...

Hi All,

Earlier this afternoon the word came down that Alberto Contador has apparently tested positive for a banned substance during this summer's Tour de France. The substance in question, clenbuterol, is a bronchodilator specifically banned by the UCI's anti-doping rules. Contador has claimed this positive test is due to "food poisoning" and will supposedly give more details at a Thursday press conference. Later tonight, the UCI sent out a release that claimed the following...

“The UCI confirmed today that Spanish rider Alberto Contador returned an adverse analytical finding for clenbuterol following the analysis of urine sample taken during an in competition test on 21st July 2010 on the second rest day of the Tour de France. This result was reported by the WADA accredited laboratory in Cologne to UCI and WADA simultaneously.

“The concentration found by the laboratory was estimated at 50 picograms (or 0,000 000 000 05 grams per ml) which is 400 time less than what the antidoping laboratories accredited by WADA must be able to detect.”

“In view of this very small concentration and in consultation with WADA, the UCI immediately had the proper results management proceedings conducted including the analysis of B sample that confirmed the first result. The rider, who had already put an end to his cycling season before the result was known, was nevertheless formally and provisionally suspended as is prescribed by the World Anti-Doping Code.

“This case required further scientific investigation before any conclusion could be drawn. The UCI continues working with the scientific support of WADA to analyse all the elements that are relevant to the case. This further investigation may take some more time.

“In order to protect the integrity of the proceedings and in accordance with the World Anti-Doping Code, the UCI will refrain from making any further comments until the management of this adverse analytical finding has been completed.

There have been several other athletes implicated on clenbuterol doping including Team RadioShack sprinter Li Fuyu earlier this season, a Polish canoeist at the 2008 Olympics, and a world champion badminton player earlier this year. Jessica Hardy, an American swimmer who tested positive for clenbuterol at the 2008 Olympic trials, has also claimed that she had ingested it thru a sabotaged supplement. However, she ended up wasting a lot of time with lawsuits and ended up serving a doping suspension.

According to various sources, clenbuterol is often used illegally by athletes and body builders to help build slender muscle and reduce body fat. According to today's reports, Contador so far has only had his 'A' sample analyzed and we'll likely have to wait until the 'B' sample is tested.

Now before I pile on as another blogger automatically convicting Contador  - right now all we have a positive test for a drug that others athletes have used to cheat with, we have a dubious excuse, and it appears we are walking down that same Floyd Landis path. Here's hoping we don't get too far down that path...or can this minute amount of drug be enough to get him off the hook? I'll reserve judgement until we know more...this one could last a while. I could see this case going all the way to the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport) or I could see it being dismissed within a couple of weeks by the UCI.

From 2006, here's a  humourous look back on some of the best doping infraction excuses around...

So far, Lance Armstrong has been quiet on the subject on Twitter...but that can't last, can it?

Canadian ITU 2010 Year in Review...Womens Edition...

Hi All,

I have ignored most of the 2010 ITU Season this year on Bikey, highlighting a couple breakthrough performances (Barb Riveros early, Paula Findlay late) that appeared to inject some new blood into the same old faces who seem to be on the podium race after race. For the women, it was Emma Snowsill, Emma Moffatt, Lisa Norden, and Nicola Spirig who battled it out all year for the overall title.

A quick recap of the year  - Emma Moffatt repeated as World Champion in 2010. Unfortunately, she didn't have a banner year, winning a grand total of ZERO events in 2010. In 2009, she won 4 events and was the dominant female, but this year she had two 2nd place finishes and 2 3rd place finishes to outpoint the rest of the women. Canada's Paula Findlay was the only multiple winner in the World Championship Series, but the fact that she only competed in 3 out of the 7 events in 2010 left her far behind in the overall Series, finishing in 5th place on the season.

A couple questions: Am I the only one who thinks that the World title should go to someone to actually wins a race? And does the average fan really miss the "All or Nothing" one day, one race World Champion? I get that it's important to convince the best athletes to race all around the globe, but isn't there a better way?

The Canadian content from 2010 - our women had a very mixed season. Our pre-season troika of Kirsten Sweetland, Kathy Tremblay, and Lauren Groves had an abysmal year, with Tremblay finishing the highest overall in 48th place on the ITU World Rankings. Of course, the performance of Paula Findlay in July and August leaves our female team with a lot of question marks leading into 2011.

Tremblay (13th overall in 2009) never real got on track in 2010, had a nasty crash in Madrid, and never really had a solid race all season long. The 28 year-old has always been a consistent racer, but will need to have a bounceback season in 2011 or her Olympic goals might be a longshot.

Sweetland suffered thru more injuries and sickness early on this season, and never really got on a roll like she has in the past. She got a flat tire in the WCS event in Hamburg, competed while sick in London, and then regrouped in August to finish 2nd overall at the Canadian Championships (less than a minute behind Findlay) before going to Budapest and finishing 2nd overall at the Under-23 World Championship race. With two career World Cup wins and still only being 21 years of age, Sweetland still has unlimited potential. Can she stay healthy for an entire season? And can she team up with Findlay to give Canada a one-two punch to take on the world?

Lauren Groves broke her collarbone in the offseason, but unfortunately it never healed, so she needed success in June and lost her entire season. She was 12th in the 2009 rankings, and has proven she can have big results in big races. Can she bounce back after losing an entire season? Let's hope so...

Canada's shining star for 2010 was Paula Findlay, who started off this season racing against second tier competition before shocking the world by winnning her first two World Championship Series races in London and Kitzbuhel  before finishing a gutsy 5th overall in Budapest after having to play catch up the whole day...she'll enter 2011 as one of the favorites in every event she enters. And with her taking the winter semester off of university to prepare for her 2011 season, the 21 year-old will be looking to take her replicate her 2010 successes.

Findlay also took home some hardware in Budapest as the winner of the "Fastest Runner" award from the ITU. This season, the ITU gave an extra award (plus $5000 in cash) to the male and female who consistently had the best swim, bike, or run splits for the season. Findlay's blistering run splits won her the 2010 award, while Jan Frodeno won for the men.

A quick note on the other winners...the bike award went to Calgary's Lisa Mensink (who competes for the Netherlands). However, despite being rated as the top biker, her best overall finish was a 17th place finish. Lance was right - it's not about the bike. The top swimmer award went to Laura Bennett, who had another great season to finish the year as the 10th place overall female as a 35 year old! Nice work Laura...

So let's call this year a solid B+ overall, after an A+ by Findlay and a bunch of C's and D's from the rest of the girls...

Men's recap coming soon...

One more remarkable run by a Canadian male...

Hi All,

Lost in the hoopla over Coolsaet, Gillis, and the other Canadian males at the Toronto marathon today was an incredible run by another Canadian legend. Ed Whitlock, the 79-year old runner who has an incredible resume of age-group records, added another one today. One year after running 1:37:34 at the Toronto Half Marathon, he found some more speed this year in running an incredible 1:34:27!! Another world record for Whitlock, who turns 80 in March!!

A great article on Whitlock, who trains every day by running around a graveyard near his house, can be found here...

Canadian Marathoners...in the Olympics?????

Hi All,

It was way back on Wednesday of this week when Athletics Canada released their Olympics standards for the 2012 Olympics. For men, the standard was set at 2:11:29, while for women, the standard is 2:29:55. At first glance, since no Canadian man or women had achieved those standards in many years, it might appear to be Athletics Canada essentially shutting out their endurance athletes. However, what this doesn't take into account is the great progression and development of several Canadian males.

People might know of Simon Bairu, the Regina native who beat Ryan Hall with a stellar 62:47 half marathon this January. He is currently training for his marathon debut (New York City in November) where the expectations are high for  him to perhaps challenge the 35-year old Canadian marathon record of 2:10:09 set by the legendary Jerome Drayton. But three other Canadian males, Eric Gillis, Reid Coolsaet and Dylan Wykes, have also been improving. They are all middle-distance runners who have been slowly increasing up to marathon distances, and have been improving over the last couple of years. 

Wykes made his marathon debut in 2008, running 2:15:16 in Rotterdam. Coolsaet made the jump in 2009, running 2:17:09 at the Ottawa marathon. Willis waited until January of 2010, when he ran a remarkable debut of 2:13:56 at the Houston marathon. 

This week included a great article on Guelph teammates Gillis and Coolsaet, where it says they have been running upwards of 240 km per week getting ready for this marathon. Another article in the Toronto Star talks about the Brooks Marathon House project, a 5 year $1.5 million commitment by Brooks to create the next great Canadian marathoner, which so far has produced some decent results but no breakthrough performances that would justify the expense. The project has just one healthy athlete making an attempt this weekend in Toronto, with 26-year old Matt Loiselle making his marathon debut.

Anyhow, Coolsaet and Gillis were running the Toronto Marathon earlier today, and Wykes was running the half-marathon at the same event. And all of them had great days, lead by an incredible run by Reid Coolsaet who set a PB by over 5 minutes (!!!) in running 2:11:23, beating the very difficult Canadian Olympic standard by just 6 seconds! An absolutely stellar run. His training mate Eric Gillis also had a huge PB, finishing in 2:12:08, leaving himself just 40 seconds short of the Olympic standard. Both men with huge breakthrough races.

Wykes had a great half, finishing 3rd overall in 1:05:11. His next marathon will undoubtedly be an attempt at a huge marathon PB and perhaps another Olympic qualifier. 

Congrats too to Matt Loiselle, running an impressive 2:19:03 as well to finish as the 3rd Canadian. 

The future looks great for the men. Now we need some ladies!! Good job by all...

Where were you 10 years ago?

Despite the best efforts of previous Ironman World Champions like Sylviane Puntous, Lori Bowden, Heather Fuhr, and Peter Reid, September 17, 2000, was the day when triathlon really put its stamp on Canada. Congrats again Simon!

Pretty Funny....

A Star is Born!!

Hi All,

This deserves wayyyyy more credit than I've been giving it, but Edmonton's own Paula Findlay has gone from way off the radar a few short months ago to being the "it" athlete for Canadian triathlon in 2010.

She started 2010 as the #4 girl on the Canadian team behind 2008 Olympians Lauren Groves and Kathy Tremblay, and the once-wunderkid Kirsten Sweetland. Being only 21 and with a history of histories (knee and foot issues), Triathlon Canada has only let Findlay race let once in a full-field event (Des Moines ITU) and instead letting her tune up in secondary races (Mexico and Quebec races)  before her breakthrough race in London.

Her win in London was the first race in 2010 where all the contenders toed the start line. Emma Snowsill, Emma Moffatt, Nicola Spirig, Lisa Norden, Barbara Riveros Diaz,  Laura Bennett, and Helen Jenkins were just some of the ladies in the field who have multiple career wins or Olympic or World titles. But the young Canadian was not fazed, and used a race-best 33:51 run split (!) to win by 3 seconds over Spirig after breaking away from a group of 4 in the final mile. I love her quote "Running with a group of four is always hard, because there’s only three spots on the podium. At that point in the race I was just hoping for a podium spot. Then I looked back and saw I had a little gap and just ran my heart out."




Eight short days later, the ITU World Championship Series moved to Kitzbuhel, Austria. Although the back-back races means that some athletes won't be at 100%, Findlay again her used her superior run speed to speed away from Lisa Norden and Andrea Hewitt to win again by 3 seconds. Hewitt must be really be getting tired of Findlay, as she finished 7 seconds behind her in both London (finishing 4th) and Kitzbuhel (finishing 3rd).

So where does that leave us with one race to go in the series (September 12 in Budapest) to determine the 2010 world champion. Findlay's two wins in two races will not get her enough season points to finish #1 overall, but she is definitely going to be gunning for another win. Currently, the top 3 ladies are Emma Moffatt, Lisa Norden, and Andrea Hewitt (interestingly, those 3 finished in those spots at the end of the 2009 series) but there are a few other women who can claim the world title if they win and get some help.

Findlay is undoubtedly the biggest surprise of the ITU season, and she must be counting down the days til the London Olympics. The battle for the Canadian team could be a great battle in the next two seasons. Kathy Tremblay (not having a great year - only 75th in the rankings) and Lauren Groves (broken collarbone, been out for the season) both could still get back into top form in time to repeat their Olympic team experiences, along with Kirstin Sweetland, who despite having 2 career wins and only being 21 years old, has had trouble replicating the success she enjoyed in 2007 and 2008. But she has the run speed needed to compete for podium spots if she can get through the swim/bike in the front of the race. Add in 20 year-old Kyla Coates, who started in London before crashing out and breaking her collarbone, and Team Canada is looking great for 2012 and beyond!

One note of caution for Canadian fans - last year's version of Findlay was Alistair Brownlee, who absolutely dominated every race he started en route to winning the world title. This year, one win in three WCS events (he's only 17th overall, one spot ahead of Simon Whitfield) while the top two guys  in the world are Jan Frodeno and Javier Gomez, who have both consistently finished in top 3 in most of their races.

Lots more to talk about - come back soon....

Musical Chairs...and a bit of track news...

Hi All,

Today was the day where it was expected we would learn the fate of some of the biggest names in pro cycling. Take a deep breath and follow along...

Despite a great head-to-head duel in the Tour, rumours have swirled around Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck. Despite the "Chaingate" controversy, the two riders are fairly close friends, as seen by the Specialized commercial (which i wont post since it's been played by OLN about 250 times in July), and the picture below.

The cycling transfer period is a funny thing. It happens right after the Tour, when the season is really only 2/3 complete. Many of these "transfer deals" happen before or during the Tour, which i dont understand. It would like if free agents in the NHL negotiated deals with other teams during the Stanley Cup playoffs. Regardless, it has been rumoured for months that the Schleck brothers would be leaving Saxo Bank and starting their own Luxembourg-based team. It has also been announced that Saxo Bank would not be sponsoring a team moving forward, leaving Bjarne Riis and whatever is left of his team without two of their biggest names (he still has Cancellara potentially) and without their main sponsor.

That is, until today. Riis held a press conference this morning where he announced that not only was Saxo Bank going to stay on-board as a co-sponsor with Sungard for 2011, he had signed Alberto Contador to a two-year contract! Yep, Riis decided that since he can't beat Contador, he might as well sign him to his new team. It is expected that most of Contador's Spanish teammates (Noval, de la Fuente, Hernandez, and Navarro) will join him in jumping ship from Astana to Saxo Bank-Sungard.

Ok, where does that leave the Schlecks? They appear to be fine, as their new team has apparently a 20 million dollar budget, which would make it the richest in the pro peloton. So the Schlecks can apparently shop for some top dollar talent to help them compete against their old team. We still dont know what their team will be called but we should soon.

What about Astana? They lose not only their Grand Tour winner and arguably the greatest cyclist on the planet, will lose a lot of their domestiques, and their other marquee name, Alex Vinokourov, is expected to retire at the end of the season. However, they are already circling around the Tour's bronze medallist, Denis Menchov, to make him their GC contender in 2011. So not to worry, the ugly teal jerseys will not be far from the front of the peloton...

More transfer news coming soon, but I did want to highlight what a couple of Canadians did this weekend at the Canadian Track & Field Championships, held in Toronto. Arguably the two biggest stars in Canadian Athletics went head to head in the womens 100m hurdles. Here's the video of Perdita vs Priscilla...

As you can see, a great start by Priscilla Lopes-Schliep got rivaled by a great finish by Perdita Felicien, who won by 0.03 seconds. Great run ladies, as their rivalry continues to flourish. They should hopefully keep it up right until London 2012, which is now less than 2 years away! For Perdita, it was Canadian title #9!!!

More news - the same night that Simon Bairu posted a decisive win in the men's 10000m to defend his 2009 title in 28 minutes and 49 seconds, he decided to announce where he will make his marathon debut. His choice: New York City. Can Bairu break the Canadian record that is older than he is?  We shall see on November 7th...

More later...

My 3 favorite riders

Hi All,

After about a dozen years of watching the Tour and really following pro cycling over these last few years, I've developed a list of favorite riders. It's easy to like Lance Armstrong, or Ivan Basso, or Mark Cavendish or Fabian Cancellara. And sure, they are all great champions. But three guys in the peloton really strike me as real characters...

3. Thomas Voeckler

We all got to know Thomas Voeckler way back in 2004 when he was part of a breakaway that got away from the peloton and catapulted the unlikely 25-year-old into the Yellow Jersey. But his legacy was cemented when he held on to his race lead for 10 stages, even as the mountains (and Lance Armstrong) seemed likely to take it away from him. Although he has never again worn the Yellow Jersey at the Tour, he always is willing to jump into a breakaway. And the last two years he has succeeded, winning Stage 5 in 2009 (and giving him the polka dot jersey for a few days) and winning stage 15 (the infamous Chaingate stage) in 2010. Voeckler always gives 110%, and his contorted face is seen on a regular basis at the front of the field.

2. Alexander Vinokourov

Probably my favorite racer, but I felt guilty giving him #1 billing when he did cheat. (Ok, everyone cheated - Vino got caught). Regardless, Vino has had an amazing career. His career started back in 99 with a win in the Dauphine Libere and then a silver medal at the Sydney Olympics in the Road Race previewed a remarkable run. His list of victories  include the Vuelta overall, Paris-Nice, Amstel Gold, Liege-Bastogne-Liege among others. Add in a 3rd overall and a 5th overall at the Tour, plus two World Championship bronze medals in the time trial and you have a remarkable career. . His win on stage 21 of the 2005 Tour, when he broke away from the lined-up-for-the-final-sprint peloton was an amazing highlight.



Vino's positive test at the 2007 Tour was thought to be career-ending. He actually announced his retirement from cycling in late 2007, but quickly recanted. His return from his suspension has been a remarkable success, as he has won several big races, including this year's  Liege-Bastogne-Liege and a dominant performace at the Tour. He easily could have won Stage 12 if Alberto Contador hadn't challenged a late break by Joaquin Rodriguez, but regrouped overnight to perfect a late breakaway to solo to win his 4th career Tour de France stage (2 others were taken away due to his doping violation). He has also been an ideal domestique to Alberto Contador in the Alps and the Pyrenees this year. Congrats on a great comeback Vino!

1. Jens Voigt

Four videos say it all:







And of course...



Enjoy!

The UNBELIEVABLE Chrissie Wellington...

Hi All,

Although it might get lost with all the IAAF Diamond League, ITU, 70.3, and Tour de France races that seem to be dominating the endurance headlines, Chrissie Wellington put together a day today at the Quelle Challenge Roth that might never be matched.

 Going into the Iron-distance race today, Wellington was looking at her first race at this distance since Kona 2009, after having to sit out her normal spring visit to Ironman Australia due to recovery from her bike injuries in January. There was also some question about whether she still had the drive to keep setting the bar higher and higher, even with other women like Mirinda Carfrae and Julie Dibens starting to match her dominance in 70.3 races.

All those question marks were thrown out today, after Chrissie went a remarkable 8:19:13 today (a race in which only 6 guys beat her time). This was almost 13 MINUTES faster than the previous women's world record (which was set a year ago by Chrissie at this same race). She also broke the course records at Roth with best bike time (4:36:33) and best run time (2:48:54) to win by 33 minutes over Rebekah Keat. Chrissie now appears to be making Kona a race for second place.

12 weeks til Kona!!

10 Best Things About Le Tour (So far)...

Hi All,

Although my blogging has been abysmally quiet for the past two months, I reckon to be better...

Ok, with today's rest day after a very good first 8 stages to start this year's Tour, I thought it would be a good time to post a couple of thoughts. This year's Tour was expected to be decided in the huge mountains of the Pyrenees during stages 14-17, but a few early fireworks, a couple crashes,  and the extremely bad luck of one Mr Armstrong have done a great job to produce a ton of noteworthy events.

10. The Crashes



So far this year's Tour has included crashes that have knocked out GC contenders like Frank Schleck and Christian VandeVelde, eliminated Lance from contention, and caused many other top riders to ride with bandages and ride through pain. It has been the most chaotic first week in memory, and hopefully the worst is over and we don't need to lament any further DNFs.

9. I went to the Tour and a Fight Broke Out...



Apparently, Carlos Barredo and Rui Costa don't really like each other. According to one story, Costa elbowed Barredo in the gut with 20 km left in Stage 6. At the finish line, Barredo grabbed his front wheel and tried to hit Costa with it. A fist fight ensued, followed by an apology and the inevitable fine from the Tour.

8. No doping controversies...yet...

We have made it through the first 9 days of the Tour without a positive drug test, and can only hope for many more days of silence on this front. The never-shy Floyd Landis used the start of the Tour to publish more details of his doping allegations in the Wall Street Journal but thankfully more people are starting to ignore Landis and his cries for attention.

Is the Tour finally starting to clean up? We all hope so, even as previously suspended Riccardo Ricco won last week's Tour of Austria

7. A Load of Canadian News...


Even without talking too much about Ryder Hesjadal (keep reading), this year's Tour has had the most Canadian content since way back in 1986. That was the year that Alex Stieda and Steve Bauer competed together in the Tour, and it had been 24 long years since 2 Canadians competed in the Tour. (As an aside, Stieda became the first North American to wear the Yellow Jersey in the Tour that year). But this year, Hesjedal (3rd Tour in a row) is joined by Team Sky's Michael Barry, who at age 36, just might the oldest Tour rookie in this year's peloton. Barry has been a pro cyclist for 13 years, and had seemingly just missed making a Tour team while riding for US Postal from 2002-2006 and on T-Mobile/High Road/Columbia from 2007-2009. However, this year, his vast experience is being leaned on to help protect Bradley Wiggins in the peloton and to help out Edvard Boasson Hagen in the sprints. Barry even acknowledged the "hundreds of Canadian flags" lining the roads of France during this interview with Pedal Magazine.

On a not-TDF but perhaps soon topic, a recent interview with Team Spidertech's team director Steve Bauer (yep, the same Bauer as the previous paragraph) revealed that Spidertech is "close to achieving ProTour status" and "could be completed by September 1". This would be a huge step on getting closer to having a Canadian team with Canadian riders onto the European (and hopefully Grand Tour) stage. Stay tuned.



6. The Most Behind-the-scenes Content Ever...

In this age of instant information, it's great to see that ProTour teams have embraced the web as a way to give their fans more detailed information. I have been following the news that comes out of RadioShack, Team Sky, Garmin, and Cervelo TestTeam camps. It is especially to follow the news about the guys who don't often get mainstream (Velonews, Cyclingnews) coverage.

5. The Manx Missile

After a crash-filled Stage 1 that eliminated Mark Cavendish from a chance to start this year's Tour the same he ended last year's Tour, we all thought it would only be a day or two before he re-affirmed his dominance in the sprint finishes. But after another crash filled day on Stage 2, the cobblestones on Stage 3, and a mistimed attack during the sprint to the line in Stage 4, a lot of people thought Cavendish didn't have it anymore.

He must have heard the criticism as he returned with a vengeance on Stage 5, winning in his typical swashbuckling fashion. Then he did it again on Stage 6, winning again and proving that he is closer to his 2009 form than perhaps anyone expected.

However, he is only in 5th place in the Green Jersey competition, behind leader Thor Hushovd, Robbie McEwen, and fellow two-stage winner Alessandro Petacchi. He is currently 31 points behind, and needs to ensure he doesn't miss out on any more sprint points along the way to have any chance of wearing Green into Paris.

4. A huge list of  GC contenders...

This year's Tour had an amazing list of potential podium finishers. Last year's Top 3 (Contador, Schleck, Armstrong) were joined by Cadel Evans, Frank Schleck, Christian VandeVelde, Brad Wiggins, Alex Vinokourov, Robert Gesink, Levi Leipheimer, Michael Rogers, and Samuel Sanchez. And you know what, after 9 days, 9 of those 12 guys are in the Top 16 of the race, with  Frank Schleck and VandeVelde missing because of injuries that caused them to drop out and Armstrong missing because of his crash-filled Stage 8. It's still anyone's Tour!

3. Is Contador beatable?

It might be premature, but the overwhelming favorite to win the Tour has had a couple blips in the first week. His prologue was pretty good, but he did lose time to Lance Armstrong and didn't get as much time on some of his other rivals as expected. Then came the end of Stage 8, when he seemed to respond with ease with late accelerations by Robert Gesink and Ivan Basso before being unable to counter the decisive move by Andy Schleck. Is this a sign of things to come? Or will we see a repeat of last year's Tour, where he seemed to be able to distance his rivals whenever he needed a minute or two.

2. Ryder!!

Put your hand up if you had Ryder Hesjedal as a bonafide podium contender. The 29 year-old Hesjedal is perhaps the biggest surprise of week 1.  After a week which included a prologue, a couple tough stages, and a rash of riders getting beat up, our proud Canuck is only 10 seconds behind Alberto Contador and is ahead of such Tour favorites as Carlos Sastre, Bradley Wiggins, and Ivan Basso. Can he keep it up?

Three more Ryder tidbits - here is an chat that he did today with Pedal Magazine. And an article from cyclingnews.com that talks about his desire to finish Top 10 in the Tour.  And finally, here is a video from June where Ryder attempts to break the climb record of the Rocacorba in Girona, Spain. Watch the video to see how he does, as well as to check out what goes into the physiology testing of pro cyclists.



1. The demise of Lance Armstrong....

Although Lance's fans were buoyed by his remarkable performance in the Tour's prologue and his ability to stay with the big names for most of the first 7 days of the Tour, his chances of winning the Yellow Jersey or even matching last year's podium finish came to a skidding end during yesterday's Stage 8. Stage 8 was supposed to where the GC classification and separation began. Unfortunately for Lance, it was where his Tour came to a violent and painful end.

Watch the first two seconds of this video for a remarkable video of his crash in yesterday's Stage 8 which ultimately eliminated any chance of a high finish in the Tour.



 Although he was not injured too badly, Lance's Tour ambitions ended with the miserable combination of  bad timing of this crash (right at the bottom of a big climb),the pacemaking by Team Astana to hurt all the main rivals of Alberto Contador, and a later crash which further made Armstrong stop and get off his bike kept Armstrong from re-attaching to the group of the leaders. The three events (and what his teammate Chris Hormer called a "bonk") caused Lance to lose a further 8 minutes on the climb to Morzine to end yesterday's stage.

Say what you want about Lance, he has done more for North American cycling than anyone, has used his fame to do more for cancer awareness than any athlete ever, and has provided fans with many epic moments.



Bonus: here is his new commercial for Nike...



See you soon - I would say Friday but my history has been spotty of late...