Hi All,
It was shaping up to a be a pretty slow news week (no pro cycling, no triathlons or marathons of note) until Thursday morning when the following headlines blared across the Globe & Mail.
Balsillie buys into what Bauer's peddling
Cycling legend gets backing from billionaire to start Canadian team for Tour de France
What? It sounds like a cruel Bikey April Fools Joke? But no, its legit. Steve Bauer, easily Canada's greatest Tour rider in the last 30 years (held the Yellow Jersey for 14 days in his career, won a stage as well, finished 4th overall one year) has partnered with Blackberry gazillionaire Jim Basillie to create a new Canadian cycling team, with a goal of competing in the Tour de France in 2013. Okay, that's a long way off, and with tons of little cycling teams littering North America and Europe it might appear farfetched. But this partnership has both serious cycling roots (Bauer of course) and money (Balsillie has more than probably any cycling owner on the planet, except maybe for Rupert Murdoch owning the channel that supports Team Sky). And in a new cycling world where European teams are having trouble recruiting sponsors, could an upstart team make the quantum leap from not existing in January 2010 to being on the start line in 3-and-a-half-years?
Let's not get too excited - the 15 members of the team (called Team SpiderTech, driven by Planet Energy) include 13 Canadians, and will obviously have to be swelled with foreign riders to make the team competitive at bigger cycling events. Most ProTour teams have many veteran riders - this team is essentially a developmental team for 2010 and probably 2011. Then, and only then, can they look at getting promoted to the big leagues. Canada does have a pile of top riders on other top teams (Hesjedal, Barry, Tuft, Meier and Rollin to name 5) so building a strong Canadian contingent on one team is a possibility down the road.
Regardless, having a big budget (estimated to need up to $10 million dollars) cycling team with a high profile can't hurt. Balsillie has proven that he can make noise when he wants to, even if he always doesn't get what he wants (see Coyotes, Phoenix).
Three more quick things - Lance Armstrong is coming to Edmonton!! For the first time ever, Lance is hosting one of his Livestrong charity rides to raise money for the Canadian Breast Cancer Society. He will be in Edmonton August 25-26 of this year, and there are expected to be several fundraising events planned. He has done a few of these trips around Calgary in years past but will be coming to Edmonton just in time for the craziness that is NHL training camp. Ummm, what else do we do in late August?
I jinxed it on Sunday but claiming that doping in cycling is dead. Oops, Vania Rossi, a top pro female cyclocross athlete from Italy, was busted today for EPO. Why should you care? Her boyfriend is Riccardo Ricco, who got caught for the same thing 2 years ago and is eligible to return to pro cycling this year. I think it's fair to say he hasn't learned his lesson...
Last thing - good old marathon quester Martin Parnell has already done 21 marathons so far this year. I believe he has the global lead...only 229 to go! Good on ya Martin...
Cheers, See you Friday!
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