Bike-Y Friday

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

2010-10-21T21:16:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-10-07T21:18:00.000-07:00

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,,,

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

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

2010-10-04T20:46:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-03T23:27:00.000-07:00

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...

2010-09-29T23:34:00.000-07:00

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...

2010-09-28T21:35:00.000-07:00

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...

2010-09-26T12:05:00.000-07:00

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?????

2010-09-26T11:44:00.000-07:00

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?

2010-09-17T09:55:00.000-07:00

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....

2010-08-18T22:13:00.001-07:00

A Star is Born!!

2010-08-17T12:51:00.000-07:00

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...

2010-08-03T08:13:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-23T22:03:00.000-07:00

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...

2010-07-18T09:13:00.000-07:00

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)...

2010-07-12T23:14:00.000-07:00

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...

A Nasty Crash at the Tour De Suisse...

2010-06-15T16:41:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

Big pro cycling post coming tomorrow, but today's Stage 4 finish at the Tour De Suisse just must be included....check out the video.

Welcome back Bikey!

2010-06-11T07:56:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

After wayyyyyy too many weeks off, we're back to update about 1000 missed items. I'll try to post about 4 or 5 times over the next little while to get caught up...

Triathlon News...

Remember a year ago, when this happened?

Anyhow, the gang's all back in Des Moines, Iowa for the 2010 edition of what is still known as the World's Richest Triathlon- the Hy-Vee Triathlon Elite Cup. A cool million dollars is on the line, including $200,000 to the winner (Kona pays about half that). Last year's winners Simon Whitfield and Emma Moffatt are both back to defend their titles. Whitfield will have his hands full with Brad Kahlefeldt, Bevan Docherty, Jan Frodeno, and a handful of top other males from Russia and the US. The women's field is even deeper, with ITU World Championship winners Barb Rivero Diaz, Emma Snowsill, Sarah Haskins, and Swiss star Daniela Ryf also in the field.

Unlike most of the ITU races this season, Canada will be strongly represented this weekend. Simon Whitfield, who is only 19th in the world rankings, will be joined by Kyle Jones, Andrew Russell, Andrew McCartney, and Jeffrey Phillips, while our top woman (Kathy Tremblay in 60th place) will be joined by Paula Findlay and Kyla Coates. Go Canada.

Before I go into rapid-fire mode, I did want to highlight last weekend's ITU World Championship Series race in Madrid. It was the third race in the series for 2010 after Sydney (won by Barb Riveros Diaz and Bevan Docherty) and Seoul (won by Jan Frodeno and Daniela Ryf). Madrid was also the 2010 debut for 2009 champ Alistair Brownlee and the woman who has more World Cup wins than anyone in history in Vanessa Fernandes, who has been battling injuries for almost 2 years. Fernandes had also won the event in Madrid every year from 2003 until 2008 before missing out last year.

So Brownlee proved he still has it, with a 31:12 run split to win his first race of the year. He is still the king of the ITU world, and the rest of the men can only be happy he's not in Iowa this weekend. Nicola Spirig also showed that the Swiss team is as strong as any, with Spirig joining her teammate Ryf as ITU WCS winners in 2010. Great race...but now we have to wait until mid-July for the next WCS event in Hamburg.

The race in Madrid was far from the only big race last weekend...almost every triathlete on the planet was racing last weekend...

Chris McCormack - won the inaugural TriStar 111 race in Germany - a 1k swim, 100k bike, and 10k run. Where do i sign up?
Chrissie Wellington - ho hum, first race since Kona and her January arm injury, won 70.3 Kansas race by almost 17 minutes - managed to run 1:15!
Chris Lieto - also won 70.3 Kansas, held off Andy Potts by under 30 seconds
Michael Raelert - dominated 70.3 Switzerland by over 7 minutes. He might be the fastest 70.3 guy in the world right now
Craig Alexander - won Rev3 Quassy - an independant half in Connecticut that also featured Terrenzo Bozzone (2nd) and Matt Reed (3rd)
Mirinda Carfrae - won Rev3 Quassy - started the run 7 minutes behind Julie Dibens, won by 6 minutes!
Magali Tisseyre - won 70.3 Mooseman in New Hampshire over Kate Major and Sam McGlone
Norman Stadler - won Challenge Kraichgau in Austria
Rebekah Keat - won Challenge Kraichgau women's race
Tim Deboom -won 70.3 Hawaii
Belinda Granger - won 70.3 Hawaii women's race

What a weekend!! Could be the best grouping of professional triathletes this year!

Ok, that's enough for now. I think we're up-to-date in triathlon...enjoy Hy-Vee on Sunday!

Floyd being Floyd, or biggest story of the year?!?

2010-05-20T00:03:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

Floyd Landis has finally come clean. And in ironic twist, he threatens to throw dirt on others. Floyd Landis, in an interview with ESPN on Wednesday night, finally fessed up to his doping past, admitting to having taken performancing-enhancing drugs since 2002 (when he was with Lance's US Postal Team). We already suspected as much, since Floyd did test positive during the 2006 Tour de France.

Landis admitted to spending upwards of $90,000 per year on performing-enhancing drugs, including EPO, testosterone, HGH, and blood doping. He allegedly kept detailed records of his drug regimens while he rode for USPS and Phonak.

But now he wants to "clear his conscience", and has sent letters to a whole bunch of cycling organizations and anti-doping associations, letting them know how he got away for so many years, who else doped with him, who knew about it, and threatens to blow apart American cycling. Apparently, according to Velonews.com, Landis makes allegations against Lance Armstrong, Johan Bruyneel, Levi Leipheimer, Dave Zabriskie, and George Hincapie, among many others who he raced with or against.

Is Floyd just flapping his gums, hoping to hurt others who turned their back on him when he got caughts, or is this the tip of the biggest doping iceberg ever?

As always, we will see - beginning with Lance's press conference before Thursday's Stage 5 of the Tour of California.

The Week of Catching Up...

2010-05-13T18:32:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

Sorry for the one-week holiday. But that means that there are more things to get to than I get to in a single post, so let's break it up this week, leading off with 3 running stories.

One, for those of you who haven't heard, Regina's Simon Bairu absolutely obliterated the Canadian 10,000m record last week at a meet at Stanford University. He ran 27:23 while knocking 13 seconds off Jeff Schiebler's 2001 record. Bairu got overshowed in the race because, A) he finished 5th in the race and B) the winner of the race broke the American record as well. Chris Solinsky, a 5k specialist who has never run a 10k race before, ran 26:59 to break the American record (previously set in 2001 by Meb Keflezighi) by 14 seconds. In doing so, he became the first non-African (and only 31st ever) to break the magical 27 minute mark.

Track and Field Videos on Flotrack

Even more remarkably for Solinsky - if you group all the men who have broken that magical 27 minute barrier, he is both the tallest and the heaviest. At 6"1 and 160 pounds, he is the first man over 6 feet to run that fast and the heaviest by a whopping 19 pounds! That's incredible. For the record, Bairu is 5'8" and about 130 pounds, so he fits in well with the average uber-fast Kenyan and Ethiopian.

You can see the race video and other Solinsky highlights on this page. Congrats to him. And before you feel too sorry for Bairu for getting overshadowed, consider Galen Rupp. He finished third in the same race, also broke the American record, but got none of the headlines of Solinsky and Bairu. That was one fast race...

Bairu has already had a great 2010 season, with a definitive win over Ryan Hall in Phoenix and now becoming the fastest Canadian ever over 10,000m. The next step is the marathon, but when and where he makes his marathon debut is still up in the air. Canada badly needs someone to break the 35-year old marathon record of Jerome Drayton (2:10:08). Can Bairu do it?

On the very same weekend that Athletics Canada was celebrating Bairu's new national record comes some news on Canadian athlete funding. Athletics Canada will pay world-class athletes (Top 16 in the world) like Bairu, Perdita Felicien, and their top teammates approximately $1500 per month in funding support. The trade-off is that a few national team athletes who aren't close to that Top-16 level could lose their funding. Instead, Athletic Canada will offer developmental funding to high school athletes who may be able to develop into those Top-16 athletes years down the road.

I'm a little torn, but Athletics Canada is trying to imitate some of the "Own The Podium" techniques that Winter Olympic sports have used over the past 6 years. They are trying to groom potential medal winners, and if that means putting more money into some events and less into other events and athletes.

Last up, a very good story around Mother's Day. We knew that Paula Radcliffe is pregnant, but I was surprised to find out that her spring training partner Kara Goucher was also pregnant. And in a nice coincidence, they are both due to the same day in late September. It also leaves them almost two full years to get back into shape for a run at an Olympic medal in August of 2012.

Lots more ahead...

100% Giro...

2010-05-06T21:35:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

I'm a bit behind this week on a variety of topics, so i'll eventually get around to catching up, but right now I need to concentrate on the biggest event so far on the cycling calendar, the 93rd edition of the Giro d'Italia. Although the biggest two lightning rods (Contador and Armstrong) won't be on the start line in Amsterdam on Friday, it does have a loaded field - Cadel Evans, Carlos Sastre, Ivan Basso, and Alex Vinokourov, among others. Some years the Giro becomes a target for top Italian cyclists, but this year it seems as though one of the big names will capture the prestigious maglia rosa.

We are guaranteed a new victor in 2010, as last year's winner Denis Menchov is skipping the Giro and last year's runner-up (and 2007 winner) Danilo Diluca is serving two years in the penalty box for taking some drugs last season. The Italian hometown favorites are limited, as only Basso and 2004 Giro winner Damiano Cunego would seem to have any chance whatsoever. Alessandro Ballan and Franco Pellizotti are both being skipped due to "investigations" (more on this on Monday) so won't get a chance for hometown glory.

The 3 week voyage around Italy begins as I said in Holland, with the first 3 stages in and around Amsterdam. The race then moves to Italy and really kicks off with Stage 4's team time trial. It then spends 8 of the next 9 stages on flattish stages before ending with an impressive 2 time trials and 4 high mountain stages in the last 8 stages. It should be an unreal selection process. The two time trials near the end could hurt Sastre's chances of winning the Giro, and should help racers like Christian Vande Velde, Vinokourov, Basso, and Bradley Wiggins move up near the top of the race. The race ends with two epic mountain top finishes before a 15 km time trial on the last day.

The sprinters will get a chance to break out their legs early and often with expected bunch sprints in several early stages. The Giro doesn't have a sprinter's jersey like the Tour, instead having a points jersey, the maglia rosso passione. The big names among the sprinters include Tyler Farrar, Alessandro Petacchi, and Robbie McEwen. Will one of them dominate like Mark Cavendish did last year?

Canadian content in Italy - two Canadians on the start line Friday morning. Garmin's Svein Tuft will race his second Grand Tour in a row (last year's Vuelta was his first) while Michael Barry will race the Giro for the second year in a row, this year on Team Sky as he protects the team captain Bradley Wiggins. Good luck boys!

Predictions: since i'm never right - let's go with Vinokourov with a late flourish. Ok, I'm just hoping.

So who's not racing the Giro? Lance, Mark Cavendish, Levi Leipheimer, and Fabian Cancellara are all choosing to race Tour of California - which starts in ten days. Lots of news to come...

Almost done April...and Go Canada Go...

2010-04-24T16:32:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

Another huge week as we deal with 3 big classic cycling events in the Ardennes, a review and a preview of 2 of the biggest marathons on the planet, but we lead off with a bit of triathlon news this week...

First off, I do want to make a big Bikey deal about what happened last weekend in Monterrey, Mexico where the ITU World Cup made a quick stop on this side of the world. The World Cup circuit is now the second-tier of ITU races, one step below the World Championship Series. On the women's side, Edmonton's own Paula Findlay won her first ever World Cup title in remarkably, her first ever World Cup start. (She did race in two World Championship events in 2009). Findlay, who twice finished in the Top 10 at World Junior Championships and last year finished third at the Under-23 Championships, is poised to become the latest Canadian woman to take on the world. Although Findlay faced very few women who raced the week before in Sydney, she beat the entire field with a great run for an easy 80 second victory. It will be interesting to see if Findlay can become 2010's breakthrough year! Good luck Paula!

This weekend the ITU athletes have moved on to Ishigaki, Japan for the next stop on the World Cup circuit. Unfortunately, with the bigger WCS event in Seoul in two weeks, most of the big names are skipping this week's event. There are actually zero Canadians in the field, and only 2 of the world's Top 20 athletes are participating.

The 70.3 world is in the midst of a very good stretch of events. Last week was Ironman New Orleans 70.3, this week is Ironman 70.3 Texas, and next weekend is Wildflower. Last weekend, Andy Potts showed his strength in his first start of 2010, using the fastest swim to get ahead early and the fastest run to pass Terrenzo Bozzone to win by a whopping 4 minutes. Look out for Potts, who might this year will race Kona for the third time. If he can improve his cycling, he could be a podium contender...Sam Warriner won the women's event by outrunning Linsey Corbin. Warriner didn't go into the race as an overall favorite, but she can never be counted out in big races and showed why with a 1:21 run split.

The weekend ahead in triathlon features the Ironman 70.3 Texas event, which also doubles as the US Pro Championships. This results in a great field as Americans Andy Potts, Chris Lieto, and Tim O'Donnell will all compete against foreigners such as Terrenzo Bozzone and Richie Cunningham. The woman's race features Michellie Jones, Joanna Zeiger, Leanda Cave, and Pip Taylor. The men's race should be a great event, and it will be interesting to see if Lieto can get enough of a gap on the bike to hold off Potts.

This weekend also features Ironman South Africa and an Olympic non-drafting event in Florida (St Anthony's Triathlon). South Africa features a fairly weak pro field (although ironman.com called it star-studded), but the event in Florida includes Craig Alexander, Greg Bennett, and Matt Reed on the men's side and a super women's race that features Mirinda Carfrae against Julie Dibens stepping down in distance to take on Olympic stars Sarah Haskins and Laura Bennett. I'm sorry, but this race is much more worthy of a star-studded label than any other race this weekend...

Cycling - we are almost at the end of the spring season, with Sunday's Liege-Bastogne-Liege being both the third of the Ardennes week of classics (after Amstel Gold and Fleche Wallone) and the fourth Monument of the year (behind Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix). The best part of the three Ardennes races are the great fields they attract. Last Sunday, the Amstel Gold race kicked it off with a hilly 260 km challenge, and Belgian Phillippe Gilbert took charge on the final climb to win the first race for his team (Omega Pharma -Lotto) this year. Gilbert managed to hold off a group of riders including the Schlecks, Cadel Evans, Roman Kreuziger, and Canadian Ryder Hesjedal, who had a terrific final climb and sprint for an amazing second place finish! I believe the last Canadian to finish this high in a major one-day European race was Steve Bauer's second place at Paris-Roubaix in 1990. Ryder is becoming quite a weapon for Team Garmin in these difficult one-day races that finish with a tough climb. Here's an interview with Hesjedal from Pedal Magazine...

Hesjedal then rolled into Belgium for Wednesday's Fleche Wallone, which is known for its ferocious finishing climb that touches 20% elevation over its 1.3 km length. It featured most of the big names from the Amstel Gold, plus added a few Spanish stars including Alberto Contador and Alejandro Valverde. Take a look at the final kilometer...

So a late attack by the world's best cyclist Contador got countered at the last moment by World Champion Cadel Evans, who is going to try and win the Giro in May. Evans looked strong with his late move, and proved he is not scared of the world's best cyclists. And how great was this list of finishers...Contador in 3rd, Cunego in 5th, Gilbert in 6th, Chris Horner in 7th, Valverde in 8th, Andy Schleck in 9th, and yes, Canadian Ryder Hesjedal in 10th! Another incredible race, and another article on Hesjedal, this time from cyclingnews.com.

So far only 4 riders have managed Top 10 finishes in both of the first two races, including Hesjedal, Gilbert, American Chris Horner, and Damiano Cunego. Pretty elite company for Hesjedal. Can he add to his great week on Sunday at Liege-Bastogne-Liege? The favorites are expected to include Evans, Gilbert, and the Schleck brothers (Andy won in 2009), while Spanish stars such as Contador, Valverde, and Samuel Sanchez will attempt to be first to reach the finish line. It should be a great race...

By the way, here is that great finish from the 1990 Paris-Roubaix featuring Steve Bauer...

Running...Monday's Boston Marathon proved how hard it is to defend a major marathon title. Both 2009 winners, Deriba Merga and Salina Kosgei, were factors but were not able to counter the race's decisive moves. Merga managed to push the pace throughout and thin the lead pack, including getting rid of American hopes Ryan Hall and Meb Keflezighi, but could not shake 21-year old Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot, who ran away for a decisive win. The Boston Marathon has previously been won 4 times by Robert Kiproech Cheruiyot, who apparently is not related to this year's winner. Even more impressively, the newest Cheruiyot broke the course record by an impressive 82 seconds. Ryan Hall finished strongly to finish 4th, one spot behind Merga and one spot ahead of fellow American Keflezighi. Will Cheruiyot be the next dominant Kenyan at Boston?

The women's race was almost a blowout. Ethiopia's Teyba Erkesso took charge around the 17-mile mark, as she simply found the pace too slow and slowly pulled away. She had a huge one minute lead and was pulling away from the entire field, except a late surge by Russia's Tatyana Pushkareva made for great drama over the last mile. Unfortunately for Pushkareva, she ran out of race course and finished 3 seconds behind Erkesso. The rest of the field was lead by Kosgei, but she finished over 2 minutes back...

Boston Marathon is known for it's history and slower times due to the Newton hills...this week's London Marathon is known for it's world record and elite fields. This year is no exception, as one preview calls it "arguably the best field ever for a marathon" and another calls it "a heavyweight battle for the ages". The men's race has 5 men with PB's under 2:05:30 plus the world record holder in the half-marathon (Zersenay Tadese) who is making his marathon debut! Unbelievable...check out these brief bios courtesy of Letsrun.com

Half marathon world record holder (58:22), 5-time world champion Zersenay Tadese.
'08 Olympic, '09 London and Chicago champ Sammy Wanjiru. (2:05:10)
Reigning world champion Abel Kirui. (2:05:04)
Fukuoka record-setter and '08 OG and '09 WC bronze medalist Tsegaye Kebede. (2:05:18)
2nd-fastest marathoner of all-time in Duncan Kibet. (2:04:27)
2009 Worlds silver medalist Emmanuel Mutai. (2:06:15)
2009 London 3rd-placer and former world champ Jaouad Gharib. (2:05:27)

The women's race is shaping up as a rematch between German Irina Mikitenko (2009 London winner) and Russian Liliya Shobukhova (who beat Mikitenko in Chicago last fall). Of course, there are plenty of fast Chinese, Ethiopian, and American runners, including Deena Kastor, but I think it will come down to the two first women who normally end up at or near the top of every marathon podium.

Unfortunately for me, both of my picks to win Boston (Abderrahim Goumri and Dire Tune) finished tied for last with matching DNF's. Hopefully my London picks (Wanjiru and Mikitenko) fair better...

See you next week...

20 Things You Need To Know...

2010-04-16T16:22:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

My list of things-to-blog-about-but-haven't-gotten-to is out of control, so here goes a very special Spring Cleaning edition of Bikey Friday. Lots to review, lots to preview...read on! We're starting with Paris-Roubaix and ending with Boston Marathon so here goes...

20. This should be #1 with a bullet, but how can you can not lead off with the robo-biker Fabian Cancellara. For the second week in a row, Cancellara was easily the biggest star at Paris-Roubaix. One week after breaking away on a steep section about 16k from the finish, Cancellara once again solo'd to victory after a surprise break with about 50 kilometers to go. From then, it was a time trial to the finish as he managed to hold off a group of key rivals for a decisive victory. This makes Cancellara the first since Tom Boonen (in 2005) to win both Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, but the sheer dominance (even with a celebratory lap around the velodrome he won by 2 minutes!!) he showed will make it more remarkable. He's so strong right now he could win any race he chooses, but rather than trying to increase his April winning streak at this week's Amstel Gold or next week's Liege-Bastogne-Liege, he is going to take the rest of the month off before returning to competition at the Tour of California as he gets set for the Tour de France.

Here's the video of the decisive move. Cancellara notices Boonen sitting at the back of their little group, attacks, and 50 km later, it's all over. Remarkable riding by Cancellara.

Interestingly enough, one of Cadel Evans and Ivan Basso's coaches suggested this week that Cancellara is so strong that he could be close to competing for the overall Yellow Jersey at the Tour. Cancellara has worn the leaders jersey a few times after winning early prologues or time trials, but Italian Coach Aldo Sassi suggests that if Cancellara could lose 10 or so pounds, he could be a revelation in the mountains using his superior strength. Hmmm....

19. More Paris-Roubaix news. To give you an idea of how hard this race really is, only 74 out of 200 pros who started were given official finishing times. Over 30 pros finished outside the finish time and the remaining 100 simply decided to fight again another day and take the DNF. Crazy. The Canadian duo in the race both had solid finishes, finishing 26th (Michael Barry on Team Sky) and 33rd (Dominique Rollin on Cervelo). Both are finishing up solid spring seasons in Europe and should get chances in Grand Tours ahead. There is a short interview from Pedal Magazine with Michael Barry here. The before (Barry) and after (Rollin) pictures of the two Canadians are classic...lots more great race pictures on cyclingnews.com here...

Here is also a short video showing some of the fun that the riders dealt with during their day from Paris to Roubaix. Enjoy.

18. So after Paris-Roubaix, the race calendar continues into Holland for this Sunday's Amstel Gold Race. It's not as important for the pro riders to win as the big races the last two weeks, but it starts the shift from cobbled races into hillier ones as the riders start getting ready for the Giro and the Tour. However, this race is short a lot of main riders. Why? Illness? Training? Other races? Nope - it's due to Volcano Eyjafjallajokull, which has shuttered European airports and this week is preventing big names like Valverde, Sanchez, Sastre, and Wiggins from reaching the start line. It's so bad that Caisse d'Epargne is expected to start only 3 riders on Sunday!! Although the lack of big names could mean an unknown winner, I expect Team Saxo Bank to protect the Schleck brothers and let them get their season off to a fine start. We'll see on Sunday!

17. Two more quick cycling notes. This week saw two week-long events going on in Spain and in Turkey. In Spain, it was the Vuelta a Castilla y Leon, where Alberto Contador is again dominating after today's stage 4. He has figured out the strategy to win these muti-stage events -stay close on the flat stages, thin the field during moutain stages, and blow away your competitors in the time trial. Today, he did just that in the 15 km time trial as he won it by a huge margin (30 seconds!). I don't care what anyone says, Contador will go into the Tour as the dominant favorite.

Two sentences on the Tour of Turkey: Andre Greipel is the man. He won 4 of the first 6 stages including the time trial on day 1. Greipel is the "other" sprinter for Team Columbia behind Mark Cavendish but he continues to win races at a great pace.

16. One last pro cycling note that is interesting since we've talked about both Fabian Cancellara and the Schleck brothers already. It is the last year that Saxo Bank is going to be the main sponsor of their cycling team, but last month a report surfaced that the Schleck brothers were thinking of leaving Bjarne Riis's team and would start their own team, possibly recruiting their teammate Cancellara as well. Wouldn't that pretty much destroy what's left of Team Saxo Bank anyhow?

However, could the amazing results of Cancellara the past two weeks possibly encourage a new big-money sponsor? Stay tuned...

15. Some Canadian content - the Canadian Cycling Association announced a new anti-doping awareness program called Race Clean - Own Your Victory. It launched at the end of March in conjunction with a media blitz featuring Canadian pros Tara Whitten, Zach Bell, Svein Tuft, Catherine Pendrel, Geoff Kabush and others. The riders support includes a pledge to drug-free sport. Great job by our Canadian racers!

14. A Bikey Mea Culpa - When I discussed the great results of Canada's Tara Whitten at Track Worlds - I made a comment that she doesn't participate in road racing. Turns out I was dead wrong - she participated in the Worlds Road Race for Canada last fall and is the current Canadian Time Trial Champion. Oops. It turns out she races in the summer on the road for Quebec-based Specialized Mazda Samson team. I promise to keep better track of Canada's best Olympic cycling medal threat going forward!

The good news for Tara Whitten is her news gave her and her sport of track cycling some much-needed media exposure. Here are two stories on her...one from the Toronto Sun and one from Toronto Star.

13. From cycling to triathlon - last weekend finally saw the ITU World Championship Series kick off in beautiful Sydney harbour. The men kicked off first, and despite missing a few big names, many superstars in the sport were still there. A couple of Americans (Simon Kemper and Matt Chrabot) were among those that tried to escape near the end of the bike ride. However, like 99% of recent ITU races, it came down to the fastest runners to determine the podium. On this day, it was New Zealand's Bevan Docherty who took off and was able to hold off the main group which included two fast-running Russians and Canadian Simon Whitfield. Russian Alex Brukhankov was 2nd and France's David Hauss was third. Docherty has two Olympic medals and managed to outshine the two Gold Medalists in the field (Whitfield finished a strong 5th, Jan Frodeno had bike problems and finished 32nd). Canada's other male competitor Kyle Jones unfortunately did not finish.

12. The women also started their season last Sunday in Sydney, and might have upstaged the men's race by having a sprint finish in race #1 of the World Championship Series! Unlike the men, it wasn't a pre-race favorite who emerged victorious. A final group of 3 featuring hometown favorite and 2009 Champion Emma Moffatt, New Zealand's Andrea Hewitt, and Chilean Barbara Riveros-Diaz would normally favor Moffatt, but it was newcomer Riveros-Diaz who outsprinted the two (much) bigger names to win her first UTU WCS race. Unfortunately, Canada's Kathy Tremblay did not have a great day and finished 30th.

The ITU series now shifts to Seoul, South Korea for the next race on May 8th.

11. Speaking of the ITU series, the good folks at the CBC are strongly behind it again this year. All year long, they will be live streaming the ITU races on cbcsports.ca and will be showing several races on CBC television and on their BOLD network. It's great to see ITU racing getting some television coverage. I'll try to keep you posted...for those who want to see, here's the schedule...

10. Ironman news - one big race coming up on Sunday in New Orleans for the second edition of Ironman 70.3 New Orleans. This made big news up here last year when Canadian triathlete Brent McMahon outran Chris McCormack for the victory. McMahon isn't back this year to defend his title, but McCormack does have some big names challenging him. Andy Potts (2007 70.3 World Champ) is making his 2010 debut in New Orleans and will be a factor, as will McCormack's occasional training partner Terrenzo Bozzone (2008 70.3 World Champ). It should be a great early season race. On the women's side it appears to be a battle between Linsey Corbin and Yvonne Von Vlerken. Unfortunately no Canadians of note in the pro field this year.

9. Beginners beware - although consistently known as one of the fastest age-group Ironman races on the planet, Ironman Germany (aka Ironman Frankfurt and the Ironman European Championships) has modified it's bike course in 2010 to be a full 185k due to road construction issues. And if that's not enough, it has backed up their official finishing time to 10 pm (it used to be 11 pm) . They say that it's because of noise bylaws in downtown Frankfurt that they plan to finish earlier, but for some age group athletes it means only 15 hours to complete the 143.6 miles! Last year there were 120 finishers that this would have affected!! Wow...those Germans have funny ways to motivate their athletes to run (and bike and swim) faster....

8. What do Julie Dibens, Chris Lieto, Terrenzo Bozzone and Belinda Granger have in common? They are all sponsored by K-Swiss (among others), who have used athlete sponsorship to become a huge force in Ironman racing. In 2010, some lucky athletes have become members of the Trek/K-Swiss Triathlon Team. Now Ironman racing is anything but a team race, but rather these two companies are able to fully sponsor their athletes and provide them with cutting-edge racing and training products. In return, the athletes are involved in testing, developing, and promoting the products. In 2010, 9 athletes are on this team, including Lieto, Dibens, and Michael Raelert. I found it interesting that Chris Lieto's brother Matt made the team but Raelert's very fast brother Andreas did not. Hmmm....

Regardless, this type of sponsorship is GREAT for Ironman racing! Hopefully it is successful for all parties and will continue long into the future. Good luck.

7. Time for running stories...last weekend featured probably fastest marathon on the planet and maybe the most important outside of the Big 5 (London, Boston, Chicago, Berlin, New York). It was the Rotterdam marathon, which for years has been known for its breakthrough performances by lesser known runners and the incredible times they invariably turn in. This year was no different, as 4 men ran below the magical 2:05:30 mark (4 runners had never broken 2:06 in a race before) led by Kenyan Patrick Makau who became the 4th-fastest marathoner ever with his 2:04:48 time. Only Haile Gebrselassie (with a magical WR of 2:03:59) and the top 2 runners from 2009's Rotterdam marathon (Duncan Kibet 2:04:27 and James Kwambai 2:04:27 but just behind Kibet) are faster. But that wasn't it - the 2nd (Geoffrey Mutai 2:04:55) and 3rd (Abel Kirui 2:05:04) finishers at Rotterdam this year have added their names to the Top 10 Fastest Marathoners in History list...an amazing day in Rotterdam.

The biggest question I have is when will the World Record go down? With 5 of the 8 fastest marathon times in history having been run in Rotterdam the last two years, it makes sense to pick next year's Rotterdam as a good candidate. And I have a feeling it could happen before then...

6. Women's Marathon News - Fresh off a 3 month training camp in the Portland area with American rival Kara Goucher, Paula Radcliffe recently let it be known that she's pregnant with baby #2 (due in September). This is the second baby for her and she planned it well as she will have almost 2 full years to get herself into shape for what will be the biggest race of her life, the 2012 Olympic Marathon in her homeland. Anyhow, congrats to Paula, we hope she comes back stronger next spring!

5. Usain Bolt has now decided that breaking Michael Johnson's 200m world record is not enough and will soon be gunning for the 300m world record. Then maybe the 400m world record. Personally, I think if Bolt wants to run really fast he just needs a little motivation and a little competition. Perhaps he might challenge his own 100m record in August when he is expected to race against both Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay in Brussels...

4. Some Castor Semenya news - even though most of the world has stopped following this epic soap opera I will spend 3 sentences trying to recap it. No official results have been released on her gender identity tests. Semenya is already planning to run a race in June. The IAAF is telling her to be patient. Stay tuned...

3. Canada's greatest recent marathoner is Jon Brown, even though he didn't become a Canadian until the tail end of his great career (back-to-back 4th-place finishes at Olympic Games). Unfortunately for Canada, he has stopped competing at the elite level in marathons. But he remains active in both running and coaching circles in the Victoria area, and Canada is very lucky to have him. Hopefully he can help foster some more career arcs similar to his, where he was one of the best runners on the planet for a decade or more. He has a great article in the new issue of Impact Magazine - available here...

2. Ryan Hall - the Faith Interview. Enough said.

1. We made it!! Boston Marathon 2010 is on Monday and will be the 114th running of the world's most famous 26.2 miles. The men's race is actual pretty wide open, with last year's winner Deriba Merga back to defend against a field highlighted by 2 very fast Americans (Ryan Hall and last year's NYC winner Meb Keflezighi) and Abderrahim Goumri (who is still known as the fastest man never to win a major marathon). Or it could some unknown Kenyan to breakthrough. I like Ryan Hall or Goumri to finally grab their first major title...

The women's race features a rematch of last year's sprint finish between Dire Tune and Salina Kosgei. Tune won Boston in 2008 before getting beat by 1 second in 2009. Will one of them do it again? Or will one of the other 4 women who have PB's below 2:25 win the $150,000 top prize? I like Tune -she's only 24, has raced Boston twice before, and should have the desire to get back onto the top step.

Bikey Rockin The Cobbles...

2010-04-09T20:08:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

Two posts today (for the tri fans out there just read below. But the Bikey world has been rolling thru Belgium, France, and Spain, and it has been a great week. And just 7 short days after basking in the glow in Flanders, we get ready for this Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix.

Also one minor housekeeping note, as I have changed the way that the underlined links will appear. If you click on any link, it will appear in a new page rather than leave this page. Enjoy.

First off, last Sunday’s Tour of Flanders. I think it’s great that some of these great one-day Classics (or Cycling Monuments if you read last week’s post) are so tough and demanding that only the very best cyclists are around near the end. This year, an early break was contained and the group of all the favorites (Cancellara, Boonen, Flecha among others) was upfront. With 40 km to go, Cancellara and Boonen decided to go on one of the cobbled climbs, and the two of them stayed away for the rest of the day. Cancellara then decided with 16k to go that he better not risk a sprint finish with Boonen (the three-time winner of Flanders) so he attacked again on one of the steepest pitches, and simply rode away from Boonen. From there, it was just another day in the time trial saddle and an easy one minute victory in what Cancellara called “the biggest of the race of the year for me”. It was a great race even though it lacked any late drama.

Lance Armstrong also had a great day in Flanders, as he finished in the main group that finished after the first 4 riders. However, he got sick post-race and had to drop out of a minor stage race this week. He is now back into an extended training mode and probably will not be racing until the Tour of California

Canadians also played key roles in Flanders as both Michael Barry (Team Sky) and Dominique Rollin (Cervelo) spent a lot of time near the front of the race as they protected their team leaders Juan Antonio Flecha and Thor Hushovd. Rollin is exactly the type of rider who might someday be a podium contender in these big one-day races. He's still young and learning how to race in Europe, but someday it will be great to see him being the team leader for these types of cobbled races.

Speaking of Canadians, this week also saw Canadians near the top of the leader board in Vuelta Ciclista Al Pais Vasco . Going into Thursday’s stage 4 at this weeklong stage race in Spain, Ryder Hesjedal was in third overall in GC (behind Oscar Friere and Alejandro Valverde). But a bad stage 4 pushed him out of podium position. Still, it adds to his list of good results this season. Big things ahead for Ryder as we get closer to the Grand Tours. Hesjedal was also joined by his teammate and fellow Canadian Christian Meier on the awards podium, as Meier held both the king of the mountains jersey AND the Sprint Leaders Jersey for a few days and still holds the blue Sprint Leaders Jersey heading into the weekend. Not a bad week for the Canadians!

So after last week’s Tour of Flanders, which is known for lots of short, uphill, cobbled sections among its 260 km, this week the cycling eye turns to the Roubaix Velodrome, where Paris-Roubaix ends after 259 grueling kilometers. And oh yeah, 53 km of those are on some of the worst cobbled roads in Northern France. It is not called “A Sunday in Hell” and “The Hell of the North” for nothing. The logo above is from Endurance Conspiracy, and I love it! The race itself expected to be a rematch of last week’s Tour of Flanders – with Fabian Cancellara and Tom Boonen the heavy favorites. Add in some seriously strong riders like Thor Hushovd, George Hincapie, Fillipo Pozzato, and David Millar (great in Flanders before fading late) and it should again be time for the biggest names in the sport to shine. This is not a race for the Schlecks or Contadors of the world, instead it’s the big guys who love the cobbles who’ll be the near the front. Can Cancellara do it again? Can Boonen win Roubaix for the fourth time?Canadians on the start line will once again include Michael Barry and Dominique Rollin. Go boys!!

Looking ahead to May for a second, cycling fans should get their fill of the favorite cyclists as the top cyclists in the world start to plan for either the Tour of California or the Giro d’Italia. The Giro is expected to have stars like Carlos Sastre, Ivan Basso, Brad Wiggins, and Cadel Evans along with sprinters like Robbie McEwen, Tyler Farrar, Andre Greipel, and Oscar Friere. On the other side of the world, the Tour of California will feature Mark Cavendish, the Schleck brothers, Fabian Cancellara, and most of the top Americans (Hincapie, Armstrong, Leipheimer) and Canadians (Hesjedal, Rollin) talent. The Tour of California also officially announced the teams that will compete in May, and in addition to the big ProTour teams (Cervelo, RadioShack, Team Sky, Columbia, Garmin, Saxo Bank, Quick Step), they invited a grouping of top North American teams including…drumroll please…the Canadian-based SpiderTech-Planet Energy team! This is the upstart Continental team run by Canadian cycling legend Steve Bauer and now sponsored by Canadian gazillionaire Jim Balsillie.

Speaking of Team SpiderTech, they have had a great start to the 2010 season, with several wins and are currently sitting among the top American Continental Teams. Although Team SpiderTech may not become a European team for at least 2 years, they are starting to build some pillars that might (hopefully) get them into the Grand Tours. I’ll keep you posted…

Triathlon Taking Off!

2010-04-08T21:03:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

Many many things triathlon to update this week as we get ready for the first ITU World Championship Series race of the year (Sunday in Sydney). But first, lots of Ironman news…

Two weeks ago Ironman Australia saw the first big Ironman race of the year, and once again, the Aussies defended their turf with a vengeance. Pete Jacobs won going away for his 4th victory in a row at Ironman Australia, defeating Scotland's Scott Neyedli by over 4 minutes …. Jacobs might be ready to make a big splash one of these years at Kona,but unfortunately for a developing star like Jacobs, there might not be too much room at the top as the cagey veterans like Craig Alexander, Chris McCormack, and a bevy of Germans stick around and defend against the young upstarts like Andy Potts, Terrenzo Bozzone and the Raelert brothers. The women’s race was supposed to be another repeat coronation for Rebekah Keat, but she got destroyed by an Ironman rookie in 29-year old Carrie Lester. Not bad - never done an Ironman. Win the whole thing. Keat finished a whopping 10 minutes back.

That same weekend, the big North American race was Oceanside 70.3. The men’s race was supposed to be ready-made for Matt Reed (defending champion) but the younger Raelert brother Michael simply biked away from him. Everyone knew Raelert was fast on a flat course like Clearwater, but could he handle the hills in Oceanside? He also said that he won’t do an Ironman until his bike skills get faster. Check and check. Raelert had a 2 minute lead off the bike and gained more time on the run course for an easy three minute victory. He’s now the best 70.3 racer in the world, and it will be interesting if he decides to follow his brother to Kona in October. Look out for the Raelerts….

The women’s race was not expected to be a battle between Mirinda Carfrae, Leanda Cave, and Sam McGlone. Carfrae definitely did her part, as she entered the run near the front and absolutely ran away from the field with a 1:17 race record run split. How fast is Carfrae? Only 6 guys ran faster than her! Wow. Cave and McGlone tried to follow but finished 6 and 9 minutes back. They were actually pushed to 3^rd and 4^th overall by Scottish newcomer Lesley Patterson, who ran 1:18 to finish 2^nd. Yet another really fast Great Britain triathlete? That list is getting pretty long (Julie Dibens, Cave, Helen Jenkins, Cat Morrison, Chrissie Wellington, the Brownlee brothers, Hollie Avil). That’s a lot of talent…

Speaking of Chrissie Wellington, she is healing from her winter injury of a broken hand, wrist, and arm - and will be racing for the first time in June at Ironman 70.3 Kansas. It will be great to have her back racing before she attempts to break another record or two at Quelle Roth in July. She better get into pretty good shape since she will face Julie Dibens this year in Kona, and Dibens is 2-0 against Wellington in her career. Both were in shorter races (half-Iron distance) but she will face her biggest challenge this year at Kona.

The ITU folks are finally back at it in the first ITU World Championship Series race of 2010 in Sydney, Australia. You might remember the last ITU race in Sydney…

What a day for triathlon that was. Now the ITU racers are back to kick off their 7 race World Championship Series, which ends in Budapest in September with the Grand Finale. And guess who’s back in Sydney for his first race of 2010. Yep, Canada’s golden boy, Simon Whitfield. And with a few racers sidelined with injury (Javier Gomez, Alistair Brownlee), Whitfield has a better-than-ever chance to begin his season in style. Now Simon has often taken a little while to get into race shape, so it might be a lot to ask him to end his winter with a win Down Under, but a podium finish might be possible. He’s facing Jan Frodeno (aka the guy who stole Simon’s second gold in 2008), a couple of fast Kiwis in Bevan Docherty and Kris Gemmell, the always competitive Brad Kahlefeldt from Australia, and a number of other quality guys. But there’s definitely no overwhelming favorite. Simon will not have any other Canadian teammates to help him on(late edit: Kyle Jones is racing), but hopefully his run legs will get him to the front of the race. Go Simon Go!

The women’s race will feature a lot of the 2009 season stars but unfortunately no Emma Snowsill or Vanessa Fernandes. Emma Moffatt (#1 in 09) will be challenged by Lisa Norden (#2), Andrea Hewitt (#3), Daniela Ryf (#4), Helen Jenkins (#5), and Sarah Haskins among a strong field. Canada is only represented by one woman as well (Kathy Tremblay) as Kirsten Sweetland has yet another nagging injury and will not start in Sydney. Here’s hoping she can get healthy after losing a lot of the past year-and-a-half with injuries. Good luck Kathy!

Ok, that's it for triathlon...more coming soon!

A quickish update...figuring out the Classics...

2010-04-02T09:26:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

After the ten thousand or so words it seems as though I've typed over the past couple weeks, this week's Bikey will be a little shorter. But there are still a few big stories to cover and I'll try and get through without getting carried away...

I know that some people probably get confused when you mention one-day classics or Spring Classics in pro cycling parlance. For example, last weekend had the E3 Prijs-Vlaanderen (Saturday), Gent-Wevelgem (Sunday) and the Criterium Internationale (3 stages over Saturday and Sunday). So many spring "classics" races! But I think I've figured out that the "true" classics (which are also known as the Monuments of Cycling) are as follows:

Milan-San Remo (held March 20) - won by Oscar Freire
Tour of Flanders (this Sunday, April 4) -
Paris- Roubaix (Sunday, April 11)
Liege-Bastogne-Liege (Sunday, April 25)
Giro di Lombordia (held in October)

So we are really getting into big race season, starting with Sunday's Tour of Flanders race, in which most of the biggest names in cycling will be participating. Lance Armstrong will be racing in Flanders, coming off his participation in the Criterium Internationale where the showdown between him and Alberto Contador fizzled out (cyclingnews.com called it "firing blanks) in the last five miles of Saturday's stage as neither of them could hold on to the wheel of the leaders. The lead group on the final climb included Contador, Samuel Sanchez, and Cadel Evans, but rather than attacking, Contador just dropped, leaving Pierrick Fedrigo (Bbox) as the man who made the decisive move and the victory. The 11 seconds he won the stage by were enough to leave him in the GC lead through the two races on Sunday, giving him the overall victory. Contador finished second in the final time trial to end up 15th overall, while Lance could only manage a 15th place in the TT and 47th overall. Should we start being worrying about Lance? He's not worried, so let's hope he can get fitter in the next few month...

The other pre-Flanders weekend races were in Belgium, where Fabian Cancellara made his mark on Saturday as he outkicked Tom Boonen and Juan Antonio Flecha as this elite 3-man group got away from the peloton with 40 km to go, and the three of them dueled for the title of E3 Prijs-Vlaanderen. Sunday's race (Gent-Wevelgem) featured a sprint finish among a small group that included George Hincapie but his ex-teammate Bernhard Eisel (Team Columbia) outraced him. Cancellara and Boonen are among the favorites for Flanders, along with Boonen's teammate Stijn Devolder, who has taken advantage of everyone of watching Boonen to escape the last two years to win the race. As usual, Flanders is long (263 km), hilly (15 hills, mostly near the end), and bumpy (25 cobblestone sections). Throw in a 70 percent chance of rain and cool temperatures, and it should be at it epic toughest.

Check out the video below of one of the cobbled climbs....it includes pros walking their bikes!!!

Johan Bruyneel took some pictures of Lance and the team training on the cobblestones this week. Here are a few...

More cycling news - the Tour de France announced the teams it has invited to this year's Tour - the 16 ProTour teams were guaranteed entry, but the 6 wildcard teams contain many of the biggest names - Garmin, RadioShack, BMC, Cervelo,Katusha and Team Sky - have all been awarded spots. This allows George Hincapie, Cadel Evans, Lance, Robbie McEwen, Thor Hushovd, Bradley Wiggins, among others, the guarantee to participate in this year's event. Teams left out for 2010 include Skil-Shimano and Vacansoleil who are perhaps competitive but did not have the big star power and are thus on the sidelines this year.

I know I have promised more triathlon news, but this will have to wait til next week!

Go Canada Go...Simon Edition!

2010-03-31T23:23:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

Now anyone outside of Canada could probably make a case that this post should be called "Go Kenya Go", but lost in the dominance that was Kenya at the World Cross Country Run Championships was the unreal result by Canada's running superstar Simon Bairu.

Simon Bairu first made headlines in January when he soundly beat America's golden boy Ryan Hall at the Phoenix Half-Marathon. But arguably he had a better result at Sunday's World Senior Mens Cross Country race, where he finished 13th overall. 13th may not sound great, but it is the best result by a Canadian in the Senior Mens race ever. Plus he was only 17 seconds from 5th place. And he was the first non-African runner in the race (and the top American was only 36th) in a field of over 130 runners. Bairu was born in Saudi Arabia but moved to Canada when he was 4 and grew up in Regina. So I don't think we should discount that he didn't finish Top 10. An absolutely amazing result for Bairu as he continues to prepare for his marathon debut this fall. He is easily my favorite Canadian runner right now and will continue to keep you posted on his progress!

By the way, Canada did send full teams of 6 runners in both Junior races (Bairu was our only Senior runner). Congrats to Mohammed Ahmed (27th in the junior mens race) and Chelsea Graham (who went to McNally High in Edmonton and finished 34th in the junior womens race). Congrats to all our runners who represented the maple leaf so proudly.

Ok, a quick note on the Kenyan dominance. For the first time ever, Kenya won every race at the weekend championships(both individual and team classifications at all 4 races). And they won the senior men's race for the first time since 1999. But even those two stats couldn't sum up how good they were. In the junior men race, Kenya finished 1-2-3-4 (and all 6 runners finished in Top 11). In the junior women's race, it also went 1-2-3-4 and all 6 runners in the Top 9. Senior women - 1-2-5-6 and all 6 finished in Top 14. Only in the senior mens race was it not a total dominance and they still finished 1-4-7-8-9 and their last runner finished 19th and will probably be forced to run for another country in the future. Just kidding.

Check out these pictures to witness the dominance...

Lots more on Friday!!

Go Canada Go...Tara Edition!

2010-03-28T21:28:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

A very nice surprise this weekend as Edmonton's own Tara Whitten has turned into the biggest female star at the UCI World Track Cycling Championships. She has won not one but two gold medals (in the omnium and the points race) to become a dual World Champion!

Whitten's huge weekend started on Saturday in the Omnium, the event that I reported on last year when she won a silver medal at the 2009 Worlds. The omnium is a fairly new event in track cycling, and I expected that her success from last year would be tough to replicate this year. The omnium is comprised of 5 events: a 200m flying start, a scratch race, a 2k individual pursuit, a points race, and a 500m time trial. I had to look up what a scratch race is - it's a 5k race where you just do as many laps as you can against the rest of the field. At least I think that's what it is. Maybe track cycling could make their events simpler to understand...anyhow, Whitten finished 2nd, 9th, 3rd, 6th, and 3rd in the five events to win the overall gold medal in a very busy day.

She recovered well overnight as on Sunday, she won the points race (a race where riders go around a bunch of times and get points every few laps for their position in the field - again, these events are fairly difficult to understand without watching them) to become the only individual double gold medalist during the World Championships. Her two gold medals also pushed Canada into 5th overall in the final medal table - and we won as many gold medals as the USA did. A very impressive weekend for sure!

A little background on Tara Whitten - she took up cycling in 2008 (hmmm, she's had a pretty good first two years in the sport) after giving up cross country skiing. Unlike many of the men's track stars who are road racers as well as track racers, it appears Whitten doesn't participate in road racing. She shares a lot of background with Lori-Ann Muenzer - she's from Edmonton, she's only a track racer, but unlike Muenzer (an Olympic champion who won 4 medals but no golds at Worlds), Whitten gets to wear the rainbow jersey for the next year! She's obviously Canada's greatest cycling champion right now, and hopefully she can get a track cycling a little more publicity in the upcoming months and years. Congrats Tara.

Friday's Part 0: 100% Bikey!

2010-03-26T09:20:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

Since I've already exhausted all things running, swimming, and triathlon (read below for those posts), this one is all Pro Cycling...with Lance, Canadian cyclists, and Cavendish finally starting to look like Cav of 2009...

I always like to lead off with World Records or World Championships, and the big news yesterday came out of the World Track Championships, where 20-year old Taylor Phinney defended his world championship in the individual pursuit. Yep, 20 years old, 2-time world champion! How cool is that? A little background on individual pursuit...2 cyclists start on opposite sides of track, and go all out for 4000m trying to catch the other guy (at least try to do the 16 laps before the other guy finishes his 16 laps). It's a marquee event in track cycling, and Phinney is the superstar. Previous winners of the individual pursuit include Chris Boardman (who was a epic time trialist/prologue rider on the road) and Bradley Wiggins (who has now transitioned to being a Grand Tour contender). What will the future hold for Taylor Phinney? Will he become a time trial specialist like Fabian Cancellara? A one-day classics rider? Only time will tell...here's the highlight video of this week's individual pursuit final.

Continuing with updates...last weekend's first spring classic was Milan-San Remo. Although expected to potential be another shot at glory for Mark Cavendish, the Columbia star continued his slow start to 2010 when he fell back after a wheel change, then a crash on a late descent, before getting dropped for good on the last crucial uphill. Regardless, the race did result in a classic finish, as Oscar Freire continued his magnificent habit of winning big races with his third victory in Milan-San Remo, edging out Tom Boonen at the finish line. Freire has now won 3 world titles, 3 Milan-San Remo's, 4 Tour stages, and a Green Jersey at the Tour. It's a very impressive career...

Cyclingnews.com had a great gallery of pictures from this 298 km race, and with the bad weather and tough course - the pictures are superb. Here's a couple and click here for the entire selection...

The decisive hill (the Cipressa) during Milan-San Remo occurs just before the finish, and is described as one of the most dangerous downhills in pro cycling. Juan Antonio Flecha wore a helmet cam during a training ride of the descent, and you can see how steep, twisty and narrow this road really is. Great video!

I talked about how disappointing the season so far has been for Mark Cavendish. He finally won a race in 2010 when he won stage 2 of the Tour of Catalunya after winning 24 races in 2009. He has his share of bad luck in 2010, with dental problems and crashes aplenty, but cycling needs the brash and over-confident Cav to get back to his sprinting best. Can he still dominate like he did last year?

The other noteworthy part of the Tour of Catalunya is the great riding of Ryder Hesjedal from Canada. He's currently tied for 5th overall after 4 stages, and a large reason is his ever-improving time trialing. His Garmin team provided video footage of his stage 1 effort, so i've added it below. Go Canada!

The week ahead - the big news this weekend is the Criterium Internationale, a 2-day, 3-stage race which will be held in Corsica this year. It has a long mountainous stage on Saturday followed by a mid-length stage
on Sunday morning and then a short time trial on Sunday afternoon. It is especially noteworthy this year since it marks the first time that one Lance Armstrong and one Alberto Contador go head-to-head. Except when they were teammates. Other big names who could challenge Armstrong and Contador include Cadel Evans, Mauricio Soler, Samuel Sanchez, and Alexander Vinokourov. It should be a great preview of the Tour!Regardless, it seems as though this race is more important to Contador than to Lance (he almost never tries to win spring races as he revs up for July). But if Contador takes off during the mountain finish, will Lance try to go with him?

Europe is hopping this weekend, with a pair of Belgian classics happening on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday features Tom Boonen and Fillipo Pozzato going head to head in the Prijs Vlaanderen and then Sunday will have Edvard Boasson Hagen trying to defend his title in Ghent-Wevelgem against Cancellara among others. Here's hoping for some good races...Canada is well represented with Michael Barry, Svein Tuft, and Dominique Rollin racing the bigger race on Sunday. Rollin continues to generate good results (with the exception of a DNF at Milan-San Remo) and media attention, including another interview with velonews.com . Can Dominique end up on a podium this weekend?

Phew. That's all for today. Hope you enjoyed it!

Friday part 1: The Runners...and World Records!

2010-03-25T23:46:00.000-07:00

This week we'll mix things up and break down all news separately...I figure all the sports require some undivided attention of their own...

Leading off...a new World Record! I talked last week about Zersenay Tadese asking for pacesetters for a world record attempt in the half-marathon during last weekend's race in Lisbon. He went out so fast that his pacesetters only lasted 9k, but he broke through 10k in 27:53, then sped up for next 10k and broke the 20k barrier in 55:21 (that makes 27:28 for his second 10k, 25 seconds faster than with his pacesetters in the first 10k!) before closing out the race in 58:23, good enough for a 10 second improvement on Sammy Wanjiru's 3 year old world record. A ten second improvement is a huge accomplishment, and vaults Tadese into the discussion of best-runner-on-the-planet. He will actually get a chance to further his legacy when he races against Wanjiru and an elite field at the London Marathon in late April.

Last weekend's other big half-marathon was in New York, where Haile Gebrselassie was expected to showcase his immense skills on the streets of New York. Lately, Geb has either thrilled his fans with epic performances with world record/near-record results or he has disappointed with less-than-stellar results. Unfortunately, New York fell into the lesser category, as Geb just stopped around 15k after falling off the pace of race leader Peter Kamais. Geb resumed running after a minute or so, but later dropped out again, later claiming that asthma was the reason. Kamais ended up running 59:53 to win the race. But the big story was Geb and his "excuse" for dropping out. That list is getting longer, as he has now blamed poor results in the last few years on excuses such as "missing a water station", "slippery cobbles", "too cold", "too hot", "too windy", "too polluted", "didn't sleep well", etc. It's quite a list - but since he almost always run to try and set some sort of World Record, anything but a record might disappoint him and his fans. But he does need to be careful to not always sound like he's complaining...

This weekend ahead has a race of different type: the World Cross-Country Championships. Now, American and Canadian fans probably won't get too much to cheer about, since Kenya and Ethiopia dominate the event so thoroughly that the top 12 places might all be from those 2 East African nations. It is actually such a problem that the IAAF has now decided to hold the event every 2 year (instead of annually) and some people think their domination is "killing the sport". Regardless, the event does highlight up-and-coming runners, and the future of marathoning might be in the race. A 19-year-old Kenyan, Paul Tanui, is among the favorites in the men's race while the women's race could come down to Linet Masai (Kenya) versus Tirunesh Dibaba (Ethiopia). Canada is well-represented in both junior races (6 male and female runners) but only brought one senior runner. Good thing for us it's Simon Bairu, who's won 6 Canadian XC titles, and is prepping for his marathon debut in 2010. Can he finish in the Top 20?

Good news - I have a few more running stories to get to - but with this weekend's recap and lots of big marathons in April, we'll have plenty of time to get to them...

Friday Part 2: The Swimmers...

2010-03-25T23:45:00.001-07:00

This one will be quick, but considering we have zero actual swimming-related stories so far in 2010, I thought it was be an interesting update.

The 15-minute barrier used to be the litmus test for the 1500m freestyle. Only the very best freestylers in the world could approach such a time. However, during the "LZR" era, when the polyurethane suits came into favour (they only launched in February 2008), the 15 minute barrier became irrelevant. 15 swimmers broke the barrier in 2008; another 13 in 2009. But with the ban of "speedsuits" in 2010, swimmers are finding it difficult to even get close to the 15 minute mark. So far in 2010, the best time is 15:17 by the French swimmer Sebastien Rouault. Good news for Canadian swimmers since Ryan Cochrane is ranked third so far in 2010, with a time of 15:19. It's a slow year for swimmers (no Olympics, no World Championships) so it will be interesting what happens as we go through 2010 - although the Aussies, Canadians, and the rest of the Commonwealth will compete in October in the Commonwealth Games.

Remarkably, even with the speedsuits, swimmers didn't get close to the world record of 14:34 set way back in 2001 by the legendary Grant Hackett. It is the oldest world record in swimming today, with every other world record (short-course or long-course, men or women) having been set in 2008-09 with two small exceptions. The men's short course 1500m record is also held by Hackett from 2001, and the women's 1500m freestyle long course was set in 2007 by American Kate Ziegler. Interesting that the speed suits didn't really impact the world records in the longer distance events like they did in every other distance...

Friday Part 3: The Triathletes Get Busy...

2010-03-25T23:45:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

Of all the big events that we're talking about this week, the three triathlons this weekend are what get me most excited. Ironman Australia, Oceanside 70.3, and an ITU race in Australia will really start to put triathlon back into the minds of the fans the world over.

Ironman Australia is happening this weekend - and becomes only the 4th Ironman race to reach it's 25th anniversary (Kona, Canada, and New Zealand are the others). It doesn't have a great pro field in 2010, but remains a classic race among the Ironman community. The men's race will feature Australian pro Patrick Vernay going for his 4th victory in a row against a group of mainly Australian pros. The women's race features Rebekkah Keat as the heavy victory with only American Desiree Ficker as a legitimate contender. However, I will be watching to see if Vernay and Keat can have a good day - remember, Ironman Australia is where racers like Chris McCormack and Lisa Bentley learned how to race (and win) over the Ironman distance...

Meanwhile, about 400 miles up the Aussie coast, the ITU season kicks off with a race in Mooloolaba. This race isn't part of the World Championship Series (starts April 11 in Sydney) but is a World Cup race and features a super field. The men's race was supposed to feature Javier Gomez, but a hip injury scratched him at the last minute. So the men's race will probably be a battle between Australians Courtney Atkinson (winner in 2009) and Brad Kahlefeldt (winner in 2007). The women's race will feature an even deeper field, with the Canadian women Kathy Tremblay and Kirsten Sweetland taking on Debbie Tanner (New Zealand), Laura Bennett and Sarah Groff (USA), and Liz Blatchford (Great Britain). It should be a good test for Sweetland, who won this race in 2009 before injuries cost her most of the season. Will this be her year??

Too bad that Simon Whitfield and the men's team will not be competing. Instead, Simon will be hanging out in Victoria, spending time in his man-cave. Here's a fun video of him showing off his new bike on the rollers...

Lastly, in Southern California on Saturday morning , the North American Ironman season kicks off in Oceanside with the Ironman 70.3 race. This race should be a battle, as there are 4 legitimate big names in the male race. Andy Potts (winner of 2007 and 2008) is a late scratch after this week's birth of his daughter Sloane but Matt Reed (winner in 2009) are back, along with fellow American Tim O'Donnell (won 5 70.3 races last year) and two big name Europeans. German Michael Raelert, who surprised the field at the 70.3 World Champs with a world record time (3:34) in Clearwater, will be racing Oceanside for the first time while Rasmus Henning (5th in Kona) from Denmark will make his Oceanside debut as well. The Oceanside course is fairly hilly, so strong riders like Potts and Reed might have the home course advantage. Regardless, it should be great to see who's on form early in 2010. The women's race will probably have less drama, as Mirinda Carfrae (2009 winner plus 2nd in Kona) will be the heavy favorite. Sam McGlone is probably the only real threat to Carfrae, but McGlone is coming off two tough years and it will be interesting to see if she can keep up with Carfrae, who is normally dominant at the 70.3 distance. Slowtwitch likes Reed and Carfrae to win, but I'll take Raelert in a mild upset.

Okay, that's it for triathlon, enjoy the races!

The Big Boys Finally Get At It...

2010-03-19T15:10:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

A week off last week due to some very tight Chinese restrictions on blogspot.com, but the rest of the world was very busy competing or getting ready to compete. A lot of the big names have been gearing up for their big races in 2010, so let's get everyone updated.

I've been promising some running news for a while, so we'll lead off with some Canadian news. The IAAF World Indoor Championships were held in Doha, Qatar last weekend, and our two most famous Canadian track athletes (Perdita Felicien and Priscilla Lopes-Schliep) both made the 60m womens hurdles final. You can watch the final here - if you don't want the lead up, the race starts at the 3:20 mark...

Despite getting blown away by the very cute Lolo Jones (who was leading the Olympic final until hitting a hurdle late), the Canadians finished 2nd (Perdita) and 3rd (Priscilla). Nice work ladies! Canada also finished a surprising 4th in the men's shot put when Dylan Armstrong threw the shot a National Record length and only missed the podium by 2 inches. Hopefully the three of them and some other Canadian talent can stick around the top of the game thru the London Olympics in 29 short months...

This weekend is a big weekend in half marathoning. Haile Gebrselassie is racing the NYC Half Marathon on Sunday, and while he probably won't break his 27th world record this weekend, the field has several sub 1:00 marathoners and Haile will probably run pretty well Sunday. It's rare for Geb to run in North America so this might be a treat for running fans. As Geb approaches his 20th year in competition (he's 36), it will be interesting to see what he's got left in the tank...

Meanwhile, an ocean away, Zersenay Tadese will be racing the Lisbon Half-Marathon the same day, and is aiming to improve his PB of 58:59! He has asked the race organizers to provide World Record pacesetters so he can try and break the mark of Sammy Wanjiru of 58:33. It would be an impressive feat, but Tadese has won the World Half-Marathon Championships four times in a row!

The World's Fastest Man is getting rolling in 2010 too...he has already ran a 43.58 400m relay split in a race in Jamaica in February (it would have placed him 5th all time in the 400m charts, but relay splits are unofficial) but apparently won't be trying to break the 400m World Record of 43.18 of Michael Johnson until 2012. He will be attempting to break the rarely-run 300m World Record (also by Michael Johnson) at a race in the Czech Republic in May. His payday: a cool $300,000 for showing up. And $300,000 if he breaks the record. $600,000 for 30 seconds of work!!!

Cycling - Milan-San Remo is tomorrow! This epic 298km one-day classic was won by Mark Cavendish in just an absolutely stunning fashion last year, and set up his great 2009 season where he passed Heinrich Haussler in the last couple meters. Just an incredible finish after 7 hours of racing! The overhead view from 0:45 to 0:55 is the best!

This year's race is shaping up to a showcase of many of the biggest names in cycling. Tom Boonen, Fabian Cancellara, Edvard Boasson Hagen, Mark Cavendish, and a slew of top Italians (Petacchi, Bennati, and Pozzato) are among the favorites. Unfortunately, Lance had to drop out due to a bout of gastroenteritis, but the race should be a classic anyhow. Canadians are well represented, with Michael Barry (Team Sky) and Dominique Rollin (Cervelo) waving the Maple Leaf. Go guys!

Most of the Grand Tour are skipping Milan-San Remo after racing Paris -Nice last week. This race had a stacked field, full of Spanish stars and big names like the Schlecks, Leipheimer, and Kreuziger. But in the end, as expected, no one could match the climbing prowess of Alberto Contador. The race was determined in stage 4, where Contador just rode away from the peloton on a steep finishing 3k stretch. Only Alejandro Valverde could finish within 10 seconds of Contador, and the final GC had Contador with an 11 second win over Valverde. Luis-Leon Sanchez was third, while Roman Kreuziger and Sammy Sanchez finished 4-5. Let's face it - in any race with big hills, Contador is the man to beat. Look out Lance...

Triathlon news - this year's first big race was not an Ironman - not even a half - but was a unique 3k, 200k, 20k format held in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Instead of Kona or Clearwater spots, the race was for big money - $230,000 in combined prize money for males and females. And it worked - as the race attracted an unreal field of global competitors. From Faris Al-Sultan, Rasmus Henning, Philip Graves and Eneko Llanos on the men's side to Cat Morrison, Rebekah Keat, Tereza Macel, Virginia Beratasegui, Yvonne Van Vlerken, Sam McGlone and the Brits Julie Dibens and Leanda Cave on the women's side, the race had more stars than any race outside Kona. The conditions made the race fairly tough, but the big names did rise to the top as Eneko Llanos outran Dirk Bockel (who was 7th at Kona last year) to win the men's side while Julie Dibens (who just wins everything lately) beat her countrywoman Cave by 4 minutes.

Two things out of this race: Julie Dibens is amazing and could be a real rival for Chrissie Wellington this year. But more importantly, hopefully races like Abu Dhabi stick around and thrive, as their prize purse helps attract great pro fields, which in turn is great for the fans.

Funny video of the week - although it might appear to be a good idea - riding your bike on a treadmill is not a good idea...

Dude Fails Riding Bike On Treadmill - Watch more Funny Videos

A week behind...the week ahead...

2010-03-05T15:42:00.000-08:00

Whoa - we have gone from zero noteworthy races to so many I can't keep track...it's great to be back in race season!

Lots of bike news - last weekend had two cycling one-day semi-classics in Belgium. The Omloop Het Nieuwsblad went Saturday, and Team Sky continued their great start as a new team (although they do have a epic budget backing them) with Juan Antonio Flecha pulling away with 15k to go to win over a loaded field. Heinrich Haussler (Team Cervelo) beat Tyler Farrar (Garmin) for second place. Flecha joins Edvald Boasson Hagen as Team Sky members with big wins already in 2010, and their Grand Tour guys like Bradley Wiggins are still just getting into shape...Team Sky couldn't replicate their success the next day during the brutal conditions (organizers cut the course by 20k during the race!) at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne despite getting another rider into the decisive break. This time it was Ian Stannard who represented Team Sky, but he was nipped at the finish line by Bobbie Traksel of Team Vacansoleil. Vacansoleil is a Dutch team that is now the home of the Feillu brothers (Romain and Brice - who have both each won Tour de France stages in the past couple of years riding for AgriTubel) and is starting to become a relevant cycling team. Congrats to them. Cervelo's Dominique Rollin, who was aiming for a top finish at this race, did finish 5th overall. A solid result but still not the breakthough podium finish in Europe all of his Canadian fans are hoping for!

Lance is currently racing during the 5-day Vuelta a Murcia in Spain. Bradley Wiggins is also racing here, which is merely a warmup race for some of the bigger races coming up in March and April. However, the rest of the main cycling peloton is gearing up for next week's Paris-Nice race. Starting Sunday, this race is 8 days long and goes from Paris south to Nice. It is nicknamed "The Race to the Sun" and this year is the 68th edition and promises to be a great 2010 kickoff event. It features a great number of Spanish riders, including Alberto Contador, Sammy Sanchez, Luis Leon Sanchez, Alejandro Valverde, Czech star Roman Kreuziger, Frank Schleck, the Americans Levi Leipheimer and Christian Vande Velde, along with Canadians Svein Tuft, Christian Meier and Dominique Rollin. It should be a great race to follow next week...

Speaking of Dominique Rollin and Team Cervelo TestTeam (Thor Hushovd and Carlos Sastre are the main stars on this team) - Cervelo has used the team to help develop a new bike model called the Project California. It is an uber-lightweight frame (only 700 g!) that will cost the bargain price of only $9600 US. Thats just for the frame. Yikes. Regardless, it is great to see a Canadian cycling company using their partnerships to develop new products...check out the video below...

On to triathlon...last week was the first Ironman race of 2009 - in bloody hot Malaysia. Although it was nice to see great results from Marino Van Hoenacker and Belinda Granger in winning the race, controversy occured post-race when the new WTC rules for pros left many of the Top 10 pros without a payday. Under 2010 rules, only those athletes that finish within 8 percent of the winner's time qualify for prize money. Because of the great races by Van Hoenacker and Granger, only 4 men and 2 women qualified for prize money (normally prize money went 5 deep). So 4 pros who deserved money went home empty-handed. And to top it off, the WTC didn't re-distribute their money to the qualified athletes. There was such an uproar over this that the WTC had to change their rules this week - so now the athletes who qualify for prize money will share the entire prize pool. There are similar new rules for pros to qualify for Kona spots (need to finish within 5% of winners time). It's getting harder to be a pro triathlete...

Today - actually currently going on right this second - is Ironman New Zealand. This race has been owned by New Zealand stars for a long time, with Cam Brown winning eight in a row in Taupo and Jo Lawn won 6 years in a row before losing to countrywoman Gina Crawford in 2009. This year, Terrenzo Bozzone (another Kiwi) will mount a serious challenge to Brown, while Lawn and Crawford figure to battle it out in the women's race. Good luck Kiwis!!

Two quick reads that end off this week - a new tri magazine is on the horizon. Coming in July, the new magazine will be called Lava, and is being developed by Ironman Corporation and the WTC to compete with Competitor Group's Triathlon Magazine and Inside Triathlon. It should be great to see a magazine that focuses on Ironman racing. And with a heavy-hitting group of ex-Triathlete Magazine editors and publishers, it should have ever shot of success....

Last triathlon note of the week - a nice preview of Canada's rising star Magali Tisseyre appeared this week. And along with continuing to race 70.3 races, it reveals that Magali is likely to make the jump to Ironman racing in 2010 (potentially Lake Placid in July). Can a Canadian Top 3 of Tereza Macel, Sam McGlone, and Magali take over Kona like Heather Fuhr, Lori Bowden, and Lisa Bentley did a decade ago?

I'll get to the running news du jour in a later post. As for the next swimming update, only 875 days until swimming becomes relevant again (London Olympics). The chances of a swimming world record being set without a speedskin is very low...but at least Michael Phelps made some Olympic headlines by hanging out with a Canadian hero...

See you next week...or sooner...

Bikey Whoops...

2010-02-27T19:48:00.000-08:00

Hi All,

I tried posting the post below on Thursday night, but for whatver reason the blogging gremlins only let me post a portion of it. I did fix it(many thanks to Google for finding portions of it). I also found a nice preview of Canadian Dominique Rollin as he gets ready for Sunday's Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne classics race. Amazing to read that he can generate 1700 watts of power on the bike! Good luck tomorrow Dominique!

A ton of updates...Lance, HGH, injuries, and European Cycling

2010-02-25T21:32:00.000-08:00

Hi All,

Lots going on these past couple of weeks, with news from pro cycling, triathlon, swimming, and everyone favorite topic - athletes getting caught for doping.

Here we go - Lance Armstrong is trying to make Twitter his newest success story. With over 2.4 million people following his every Tweet, Lance is now using Twitter as a way to encourage his followers to join him at various events. He has done Tweet-rides in various cities around the world, inviting fans to come join him for a leisurely morning ride. He has done these in countries around the world, but took it to a new level last week when he invited Chris Lieto (second in Kona last year) to a little Tweet-time-trial when both of them were in Kona. Check out the videos below for the highlights.

This week, Chris Lieto fueled more speculation during an interview with Competitor Group where he thought that Lance could finish Top 5 when he decides to focus his training on preparing for Ironman. That could be the event where Ironman really makes a large jump in the public consciousness among casual sports fans. Whether it will be 2011 or 2012, it should be a great day for the sport. However, Lance still isn't yet a triathlete - the biggest global stars are still the ITU pros who race around the globe every couple of weeks and take centre stage during the Olympics. However, the biggest problem these top pros are having is getting to the start line healthy. Last year, it was Emma Snowsill (cracked rib, then hip injury) and Vanessa Fernandes (broken clavicle) who missed large chunks of the season, opening up the women's field for Emma Moffatt to win the ITU World Title. This season won't start out well for Moffatt, who was just in a serious bike injury while training and ended up with a broken shoulder. So her bid to repeat gets off to a rocky start. However, it is better than the odds facing Alistair Brownlee, who has a severe stress fracture in his femur and is out of ITU racing until at least June. Yikes. Brownlee was almost unbeatable last year (only lost Euro Championships). Until he's beaten at Worlds, he's the man to beat.

The Ironman pros aren't immune to serious injuries either. Virginia Berasategui, the Spanish star who finished third at Kona behind Chrissie Wellington and Mirinda Carfrae, was hit by a car while training and ended up with facial injuries and minus 3 teeth. It seems as though she'll be fine, but is a reminder to be careful out riding. Even the best cyclists can't compete with the cars out there. Her rival Chrissie Wellington is beginning to prepare for her 2010 season (first race will be Roth in June), eating 4000 calories a day to fuel her training plan. She reveals her secret in this article: 6 hours of training, 7 days a week, 11 months a year. Good luck ladies!

Some breaking news from the anti-doping world - we finally caught an athlete for HGH! The bad news - it took over 30 years. Although illegal for years and years as part as WADA's list of banned substances, the drug has been suspected of being used by endurance athletes for years now. But finally, the vaunted blood test (first developed for the 2004 Olympics) has caught an athlete. Who is it? A British rugby player. Hmmm. So that was a little disappointing. But he is banned for 2 years, and at least it opens the door for some other anti-doping agencies to start catching some bad guys. Will the Olympics catch any cheaters? So far, over 1800 tests are complete, and the only positive test was a Russian female hockey player who tested positive for a decongestant (she was only reprimanded) - however, they are keeping samples for 8 years and doing some double-secret additional analysis on a small number of samples. Stay tuned.

Pro Cycling is flying along right now in various non-winter climates - and the big names are doing their things. Alberto Contador showed he's still the man to beat in the big climbs - his team Astana got him to the bottom of the finishing hill at the Vuelta d'Algarve, and then he kicked into gear and blew away the peloton(lots of pictures of Alberto and his trademark finger-banging below). The next day, he was actually beaten at the time trial at the same race, but he did do the time trial on a bike he had never ridden. The UCI actually banned his Specialized Shiv time trial bike a couple of days before the race (there are "two parts" of the bike in question). So he ended up riding a Specialized Transition triathlon bike for the time trial, and still finished second. Guess it isn't all about the bike. In any event, the UCI appears to not be happy with the Shiv this year (even though it was ridden throughout 2009 without issue). Both Astana and Team Saxo Bank ride the Shiv and will be looking at alternatives for time trials for the time being. Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank) and Edvard Boasson Hagen (Team Sky) both looked great in Oman with the Swiss master winning the overall despite Boasson Hagen winning two of the six stages in the race. The mid-European cycling classics start this weekend...can't wait!

Next week - updates on the first two bike European single-classics (Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne) that happen this weekend in Belgium, plus the first Ironman race of 2010 that also goes in Malaysia this weekend!

Floyd Landis - Computer Hacker??

2010-02-15T12:12:00.000-08:00

Hi All,

The Floyd Landis story will not end. He's not currently riding on a major cycling team, but his problems continue. He is now facing an international arrest warrant for allegedly hacking into an anti-doping lab computer. Really Floyd?

A quick timeline - Floyd won (ummm...until he was DQ'ed) the 2006 Tour De France. About a week after the Tour ended, he tested positive for a high testosterone-to-epitestosterone ratio and was disqualified - awarding the title to Oscar Pereiro. Rather than take his punishment, he dragged out the process through the courts, losing court battle after court battle, eventually losing his final appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. This last appeal included having to pay the CAS's legal fees (in excess of $100,000).

Eventually, Landis returned, racing for the American team Ouch Cycling in 2009. He still wished to return to European cycling in the future - although this latest allegation might finally end his career.

This latest allegation circles around an IP address that came from Floyd Landis' coach Arnie Baker. The anti-doping lab reported way back in late 2006 that this computer hacking had occured, and that data was removed or changed on the computer in question. It is still unsure what exactly happened, but it seems that the French asked Landis and Baker to testify about this matter last year - and they didn't. So now the international arrest warrant is issued. Is this a case of the French unjustly targeting an American? Or is the Landis story going to take another gossipy turn?

As always - stay tuned...

The Dog Days of February...

2010-02-11T15:28:00.000-08:00

Hi All,

Just when the swim-bike-run world made it through the slow times of December and January, along comes February, where nothing is really happening of great significance. The triathlon world is still limited to the southern hemisphere, the outdoor racing and track season doesn't start until April, bike racing doesn't really hit the big time until Paris-Nice in the first week of March, and swimming won't be popular until the 2012 Olympics (since world records won't happen without fancy speedsuits).

In honour of our title, let's lead off with this gem.

As a follow-up to the previous post about the new Canadian cycling team - Team SpiderTech - they are up and racing already. They have a slick new website, and a great team video. It will probably be a quiet year for the team, but with a bigger budget, this team will be making headlines for a long time to come.

Cycling stories - since there hasn't been too many races of note, the good folks at VeloNews have done some good feature stories. Our Canadian star Ryder Hesjedal has a nice story where he looks ahead to 2010 - his goals include podium finishes at some of the biggest spring classics before regrouping for his third straight Tour in July. He finished off 2009 with his first Grand Tour stage win, and with Bradley Wiggins leaving Garmin this year, he will be counted on to assist Christian Vande Velde with the team's leadership.

Speaking of helping team leaders, Alexander Vinokourov is promising to do just that with Alberto Contador and Team Astana. He aims to help Contador win the Tour while potentially winning a stage or two himself. Vino at his best is a threat to win almost any type of stage; at his worst, he is unapologetic doper. In any case, he brings drama to the peloton, and hopefully he will keep his nose clean and continues to win (or almost win) lots of bike races.

USA Cycling has a great fundraising idea - they have teamed with 2 teams - Garmin and HTC-Columbia - to auction off seats in the mechanic's cars for two upcoming European classic races. Garmin's auction is for the Paris-Roubaix, and Columbia's is for Tour of Flanders. It would be an awesome experience - head over to eBay if you've got an extra $5000 or so.

Three doping stories - actually warnings - in the news lately. On the cycling front, the UCI has confirmed that Danilo Di Luca's EPO positive from last year's Giro has resulted in a 280,000 Euro fine. That's on top of the automatic 2-year suspension. It's nice to see that the athletes are being hit in the pocket book, and the money does go towards the UCI anti-doping fight, which might help more down the road.

The Italians have taken the UCI idea and ran with it. All 109 Italians competing at the Olympics this month have signed a contract that stipulates they will pay a 100,00 Euro fine to the Italian Olympic Committee if they test positive during the Games. I think it's a great idea - especially when that amount is more than 99% of Winter Olympians make. They should probably quintuple that amount for the Summer Olympics though...

With the Olympics only days away, it appears that the World Anti-Doping Agency is concerned with the possibility of gene doping. Hypothetically, athletes could use gene doping to "boost endurance through increased red blood cell production, increasing muscle mass, manipulating the production or use of metabolic energy or altering fat metabolism or pain perception".The good news : there are currently no tests to detect gene doping. Hmmm, that's not good news.

Cool clothing alert - Tim Deboom has started a new clothing that sells cool triathlon-themed casual clothing. The company is called Endurance Conspiracy, and if Tim can develop his company as well as his wife Nicole has done with her (Skirt Sports), there are plenty more good things to come.

Last thing...check out this great advice from Jens Voigt.

See you next week..

Canadian cycling rocking the Tour? It might happen...

2010-01-29T15:49:00.000-08:00

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!

Doping...2010 Style!

2010-01-24T22:36:00.000-08:00

Hi All,

I guess the good news is that we've made it all the way until January 24th without me needing to write a post about doping. But now I do have some good news, some bad news, and some could-be-bad-could-be-good news. So keep reading...

Okay - let's start with the good news. According to one recent article, the steps taken by pro cycling (mainly the suspensions and the biological passport) are the reason that more companies are jumping into lucrative sponsorships. Team Sky, Radio Shack, HTC-Columbia, and Team Garmin (now Garmin-Transitions) all have attracted new sponsors for 2010.

Not at all related to doping: I find it interesting that all 4 of these teams are UK or US-based. However, 2 more ProTour teams are already having sponsorship issues. Both Team Milram and Team SaxoBank face serious financial issues and may be looking for major sponsors or potentially be disbanded. These teams are German and Danish-based teams, right in the heartland of cycling. So why are they having problems? Is it purely financial due to the problems in the global economy? Or is it because sponsors are tired of hearing their names associated with doping? Ok, maybe this was related to doping a bit...

(Side note: if Milram folds - there will be zero German pro cycling teams. Somewhere, Jan Ullrich is shaking his head...)

Ok, that's the good news. The sorta-good-sorta-bad news starts with Lance Armstrong. He decided to stop his personal and independent doping testing for 2010, which he has been posting on his personal website since his return. His rationale is that the UCI's biological passport along with the testing done by the various cycling federations make the independent testing redundant. Personally, any time Lance generates any type of doping headlines it's probably not a good thing. But after all these years, I guess Lance doesn't really care anymore. He is more concerned that posting his results online causes more problems than it solves since all it takes is one knucklehead to blog about his values online and that can snowball, even if there is little to no validity. I guess I can't argue with that...

We've all known for years that steroids are bad. Yes, they make you stronger, help you recover, make you beat Carl Lewis in the Seoul Olympics, etc, but they can also kill you. Liver damage, roid rage, hormonal imbalances, sterility, acne, etc, the list goes on and on. People know that steroids are bad. But how about EPO? EPO, which has been the cyclists doping drug of choice for many years, was initially developed as a therapeutic agent to help treat anemia (in patients with cancer or kidney disease). So it must be safe? Not so, according to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine. The researchers studied 4000 patients who were given EPO or placebo, and studied their rates of heart attack, stroke, as well as their quality of life. The researchers were surprised to find out that more patients taking EPO had heart attacks, almost twice as many strokes, and scored essentially the same on quality of life. Hmmm, maybe going a wee bit faster on a bike isn't worth it?

If you want to read more on this topic - read this NY Times article. It's very interesting that finally athletes seem to be less likely to take performace-enhancing drugs. For years, the Goldman Dilemma asked elite athletes if they would be willing to take a drug that would win them a gold medal but kill them within 5 years. For years, this test showed about half the athletes would be willing to make this trade. Today, the researchers expect that 10-20 percent of athletes would still take the drugs. Interestingly, less than 1% of the general population would make the same deal. Are we making progress? At least it appears that more people are A) aware of the dangers and B) think less highly of doping and dopers.

I guess this "Doping and Cheating Aren't Cool" movement hasn't reached China yet. Over 30 runners who finished in the top 100 in a recent Chinese marathon were disqualified for various cheating actions - jumping into vehicles, giving their chips to faster runners, having imposters run for them, etc. The Chinese university system actually gives credit to students with fast marathon times, so for many students, attempting to shave time off might help their career plans.

One last thing - Canada's least favorite sprinter Ben Johnson is publishing his autobiography next month, where he claims that he has proof that his drink was spiked with stanozolol after winning the 100m at the Seoul Olympics, and that it was a colleague of Carl Lewis who did it. Ben also allegedly admits that he only took furazobol (a different steroid) and that the IAAF knew of several positive drug tests leading up to the 1988 fiasco. It might be an interesting read - but I can't find any sign of it online. I'll keep you posted...

Go Canada Go...

2010-01-22T08:12:00.000-08:00

Hi All,

Have I ever led off a blog with two stories on fast Canadians? Maybe not...but this week both Eric Gillis and Simon Bairu deserve some love for their incredible runs last weekend. (Of course, in my foresight, I predicted Tara Quinn-Smith might be the one to watch...oops). Plus some more interesting stories...

Simon Bairu made US headlines by soundly defeating Ryan Hall last Sunday at the Phoenix Rock N Roll Half Marathon. Ryan Hall is probably the most recognizable US endurance runner due to his recent results and his wealth of sponsors. But last week, in only his second half-marathon, Simon Bairu of Regina made short work of Hall, as they ran together for 10 miles then Bairu kicked into high gear before winning by 1:21. Bairu ended up running 1:02:47, a PB by 23 seconds and a race record. Bairu is hoping to make his debut in the marathon later this fall (perhaps at NYC) where he will take a shot at the Canadian record of 2:10:08. How old is this record? It was set in 1975 by the great Jerome Drayton at the Fukuoka Marathon.

The other big Canadian news is that Eric Gillis ran the Houston marathon in a stunning 2:13:56 in his marathon debut. According to one source, it was the second fastest marathon debut by a Canadian and the 3rd fastest marathon by a Canadian in the past 14 years. You can read Gillis's blog post of his day here. Gillis was the 10,000m Canadian champ in both 2007 and 2008 (Bairu won in 2009), so it's not unexpected, but it's nice to see that Canadians are finally developing some great talent and seeing their results pay off in the marathon!

Couple other running notes - Deena Kastor ran an amazing half-marathon in Phoenix as well, running 1:09:43 to smash the course record and to show the world that she is still a favorite, despite being 37 years of age and coming off 2 injury-filled years. Congrats to her.

The running world shifted their attention to Dubai last night/this morning to pay attention to Haile Gebrselassie, who kicked off 2010 with a solid 2:06:09 marathon, good enough for the win and his 10th sub-2:07 marathon! Unfortunately for Geb, any time he runs a marathon and doesnt challenge the world record (his splits are here)it is probably considered a bit of a disappointment. However, the $250,000 first prize cheque is a nice consolation prize for his effort. We might have to wait until September for his next marathon (Berlin) but he did confirm this week that he will run a half-marathon in March in New York City. Although known for his marathon skills, Gebrselassie is equally dominant in the half, with 9 wins in 10 races. It should be good for running to have Geb run on US soil as well...

The Tour Down Under bike race is flying along in Australia, and although the race does have some big names participating (Robbie McEwen, Lance Armstrong, Cadel Evans, Alejandro Valverde), the big news in Australia has been Andre Greipel from HTC-Columbia. The "other" sprinter on HTC (they still have Mark Cavendish of course), Greipel has won 3 of the 4 first stages in Australia, and now holds a 20 second lead going into the last two stages. The other big names have all made headlines (Lance made a late attack yesterday, Evans and Valverde finished 2nd and 3rd in stage 3, McEwen was third in stage 2 and second in stage 4) during the first 4 days. Huge crowds continue to follow the racers, as pro cycling continues to grow outside of Europe.

Two more notes on Lance Armstrong - one of the fallouts from Lance's potential two more years in pro cycling is that his debut at Ironman may now have to wait until 2012. According to one report, Lance will race Kona 15 months after his last appearance at the Tour de France. So now we have to wait and see what happens this July...Lance's coach Chris Carmichael also announced that Lance is currently in as good or better shape as he was when he won multiple Tour de France titles. According to Carmichael, Lance is in much better shape than he was last year, way ahead of his normal January fitness, and he should be more "explosive" in 2010. Will this translate into better results in France? As always, we are forced to wait...

Ok, thats it for now...I'm working on a weekend doping piece, so come back soon for a look...

BIKEY IS BACK!

2010-01-15T00:01:00.000-08:00

Hi All,

For a wide number of reasons, BIKEY took a little holiday these last few weeks. This is mainly because there hasn't been a significant running/cycling/swimming/triathlon event these last 6 or so weeks. But a lot has happened, and I'm hoping to get you caught up on the various topics in the next few paragraphs.

Okay, ever since Kona, the triathlon world has been very quiet. A few small Southern Hemisphere races (Ironman Western Australia, Port of Tauranga Half, Ironman 70.3 South Africa this weekend) with mainly Aussie/Kiwi athletes have done little to get fans very excited. Most of the top ITU and non-drafting (Ironman) pros have spent most of the past two months recovering for 2009 and starting to get their 2010 training started. We are still two months away from Oceanside (Ironman 70.3 California) which really kicks off the North American tri season.

Some scary news for Chrissie Wellington, who crashed her bike on a January 2nd ride and broke her right arm, wrist, and a couple fingers. Oops. Fortunately, she'll be fine in about 6 weeks, and as the picture below shows, it hasn't affected her bike training or her ever-present smile...

Pro Cycling News: Lots.
1. Lance is back. We knew that. But he did announce that he will race for 2 more years with his new team. So he will be trying to win the Tour de France in both 2010 and 2011 with Team RadioShack. Team Radioshack also has very ugly jerseys and bikes (see below) but I guess after Astana and Team Discovery I shouldn't be surprised...

Lance and his new team will have their first race start this weekend for the Tour Down Under. It's actually a pretty impressive field, with most of the big pro teams lined up to start the week-long race. Although it might get less press than last year's race (which was Lance's first race back from retirement), the race will feature riders like Cadel Evans, George Hincapie, Alejandro Valverde and a ton of good Australians like Stuart O'Grady, Robbie McEwen, and last year's winner Allan Davis. The only Canadian in the race will be Christian Meier on Garmin (should not be confused with Cameron Meyer - his teammate who just won the Australia national championships). Should be a great race.

December also included the (finally) move of Bradley Wiggins from Team Garmin to Team Sky. This move had been rumored for months, with allegations and denials flying back and forth for months. Eventually, money won out and Team Sky got their leader. He'll be their main Grand Tour hope in 2010 and beyond while Team Garmin regroups behind Christian Vande Velde. Unfortunately for Team Sky, they too picked some really ugly team uniforms for 2010. The tall guy with the glasses in the picture is Canadian Michael Barry, who is now with what seems like his 10th pro team. He has ridden with USPS, Discovery Channel, T-Mobile, Columbia-HTC, and now Team Sky. A pretty impressive career, but Barry still has never started the Tour de France. Will 2010 be the year?

Astana has also ironed out their contract with Alberto Contador and their own PorTour status for 2010. They are almost an entirely new team this year, with really only Contador and Benjamin Noval back from last years team. But they have added Oscar Pereiro and a few other Spanish riders to help Contador win a few more big races in 2010. Astana has flipped from Trek bikes to Specialized, and has added some more colour (yellow and red) to their jerseys for 2010. At least they'll be easy to see...

2010 is shaping up as a huge year, with many stories to play out in the next 6 or so months. Who will win the battle between Lance and Alberto? Can Andy Schleck take the next step? Will Team Sky be a factor? Can Cavendish be defeated? What will happen with race radios? Who will get caught doping (hopefully no one but let's be real)? It should be a great year. Here is what Bicycling Magazine is looking forward to...

A big weekend in American running ahead, with both the Phoenix and Houston marathons and half-marathons being run this weekend. The biggest name competing is Ryan Hall, who is running the half in Phoenix as a tune-up for Boston in April. He is the American record-holder (59:43 in Houston) and might aim at lowering it this year. Hall was once the great shining hope for US running, but his lack of wins the last two years and the impressive win by Meb Keflezighi in New York might have pushed him off the front page. Let's hope he has a great year in 2010 and finally breaks through to win an international event. Deena Kastor is also racing Houston, where she too will be preparing for a spring marathon. Kastor is coming back after injuries have cost her parts of the last two years, and at age 37 only has a few more years of high level running. Tara Quinn-Smith, who is probably in the Top 2 or 3 marathoners in Canada, will be running the Houston Marathon. She has an outside chance at winning...

We are still awaiting word on the official update to the Caster Semenya story. Although she still hasn't been cleared to compete as a female in 2010, she is already making race plans to do so. Perhaps, she is as bored waiting for the "official inquiry" to be complete as many of us track fans are. It is still possible that the IAAF could rule she has a gender advantage over other female athletes and ban her from competing. In any case, the biggest story of 2009 outside of Usain Bolt threatens to still be a story well into 2010.

One more great running story that must get mentioned...a Calgary man is trying to run 5 marathons. Every week. For a YEAR! Yep, Martin Parnell is trying to run 250 marathons in 2010, in and around Calgary and Cochrane. He is doing this to try and raise funds for Right to Play. His goal is $250,000. Amazing. You can follow him (and donate funds) on marathonquest250.com, and even join him for one of his daily marathons!

I'll end with a really cool video. In North America, we use our bikes for fitness, commuting, or sometime as a clothes-hanger. In China, cycles can be weapons...here's the Youtube description. Two thieves on a motor-scooter flew by and snatched a womans purse on a street in Wenzhou, China. Surveillance video shows a man riding a bicycle. As he was passing by the front of a hotel near where the thievery happened, he stopped, calmly got off his bicycle, picked it up, and then threw it at the thieves. The bicycle hit them, they lost control, and crashed to the ground.

See you next week for more...

Not sure if this is hilarious or tragic...

2009-11-20T21:04:00.000-08:00

70.3 Worlds...Caster and the BladeRunner...and Contador...

2009-11-19T17:17:00.000-08:00

Hi All,

Let's start our weekly recap with last weekend's Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Clearwater, Florida. Let's just say - it was fast. Very fast. How fast? According to triathlonranking.com, in the 33 70.3 events in 2009, there was one man who broke 3:45 over the 70.3 distance - Marino Van Hoenacker at Antwerp 70.3 (3:41:46). That time would not have earned Van Hoenacker a place in the Top 10 at Clearwater last weekend. Unreal. The winner, Michael Raelert, posted remarkable splits of a 21:58 swim, a 1:59:35 ride, and a ridiculous 69:05 run to win the world title by 2-and-a-half minutes in a record-shattering 3:34:04! Raelert, a relative unknown (he has one Top 10 finish in a 70.3 race this season as he raced mostly non-drafting Olympic distance this season) who might be confused with his older brother Andreas, who was 2nd in last year's 70.3 Worlds before making the huge leap to finish 3rd at Ironman Worlds in Kona this year.

Raelert was not the only surprise in the men's race. It was expected to be a battle between Americans Tim O'Donnell, Greg Bennett, and Matt Reed, but O'Donnell got one of the few drafting penalties on the day and finished 12th. Bennett faded badly and finished outside the Top 30. Last year's winner Terenzo Bozzone didn't have enough run speed after finishing Kona a month ago and finished well back. Matt Reed did have a great race but could only hold on to 3rd. Italian Daniel Fontana was 2nd. Top Canadian was Brent McMahon, but he finished 25th place, over 10 minutes behind Raelert.

The women's race went a little more according to plan, with Julie Dibens underlining her pre-race favorite status by blowing away the field on the bike to take a 4 minute lead into T2. From there, she held on easily to win her second world title in a month (she won Xterra Worlds in October). Her finishing time of 3:59:33 was the first time a woman has broken the 4-hour barrier and left her with a 4 minute victory. Mary Beth Ellis (another ITU veteran) finished 2nd for the second year in a row. In a breakthrough performace, Canada's Magali Tisseyre finished 3rd after a race-best run 1:20:31 run split. She might be the next great Canadian Iron-threat, as she will hopefully follow Sam McGlone into the Ironman distance in the near future. Congrats Magali!

Regardless, Michael Raelert's and Julie Dibens' day were the best among a record-breaking day in Clearwater. 5 men broke the 3:40 barrier (which had never been done before), 14 men biked the 56 miles in less than 2 hours, and 25 men finished the race before 3:45 had passed. It is interesting that we are seeing more and more fast athletes coming up thru the ITU and 70.3 disciplines, and that those times are steadily improving (Brownlee's 29 minute 10K speed comes to mind) but that some of the sport's Ironman records have stood for 15 or 20 years. Mark Allen's run record at Kona has stood since 1988 and the Top 6 men's finishing times at Kona are all at least 13 years old. True, Chrissie Wellington did break the women's course record and Mirinda Carfrae the run record in 2009, but the women's bike record has stood since 1993. Will we see more records broken in the future?

Let's change gears and update you on some of the most famous male and female track athletes. Not Usain Bolt and Yelena Isinbayeva, who might be the most consistent male and female athlete, but Caster Semenya and Oscar Pistorius, both from South Africa. Semenya is famous for winning the Women's 800m at Worlds this summer, then undergoing a public blitzing about her gender identity. It was assumed that once these tests were finished, the IAAF would make some decision about her eligibility for future races, whether she could keep her medal, etc. However, her South Africa Federation announced this week that they had reached agreement with the IAAF that Semenya will keep her gold medal, regardless of the outcomes of her tests, which now will not be known until early 2010. However, there will be no official public announcement about the results of the tests will be made public, as this is will be treated as "a confidential matter between a doctor and a patient". So we might never know the full truth...

Oscar Pistorius also made headlines this week, when a study was released that shows that his carbon-fibre lower legs might make him 10 seconds faster over a 400m race. Ten seconds in a 45 second race is a lot! Anyhow, this is making news since Pistorius did win a court case (in the Court of Arbitration for Sport) in 2008 that "allows" him to compete against able-bodied athletes. This trial stated that "at the moment, not enough is known scientifically to be able to prove that Mr Pistorius obtains an advantage from the use of the prostheses. Consequently, it has cleared him to run". Does this new study change the ruling? A complicating factor is that the scientists/authors who made this "10 seconds faster" claim were actually scientific advisors that helped Pistorius win his court case in 2008. So obviously they have changed their mind, and the future of Pistorius being able to compete is going to have to be re-decided...lots more good editorial content here.

Alberto Contador and Team Astana are staying together. Today, it was announced that Alberto Contador will remain with Astana for the final year of his contract. This had been the cycling hot-stove topic for the past three months, but Contador will stay with Astana if they get their ProTour license approved for 2010. If not, Contador will be free to sign with any ProTour team (he has been linked to almost every team except for RadioShack). However, Friday is only a soft deadline, and it might take some time for all the documents to be signed. It is expected that Astana will do their part, get their license approved, and be ready to defend their Tour title in 2009. We'll see...

In other Contador news, he has signed a $1 million dollar endorsement contract with Specialized bikes for 2010. Does this mean that Astana has signed a deal to ride Specialized too? I guess we'll find out when and if their ProTour license gets approved. This article also mentions the possibility that Ivan Basso might join Contador at Astana next season as well. Interesting...

Worlds 70.3 and Canadian Content

2009-11-13T11:07:00.000-08:00

Hi All,

Tomorrow bright and early in Clearwater, Florida, the 70.3 racers have their chance at winning the Ironman 70.3 World Championships. It's an interesting race, short enough for ITU athletes to use their superior speed, while long enough that Ironman pros and non-drafting athletes can use their biking abilities to speed ahead. But in reality, it appears that this event is a precursor to greatness at the Ironman distance. The winners in 2006 were Craig Alexander and Sam McGlone (who both finished 2nd at Kona the next year); in 2007 it was Mirinda Carfrae (2nd at Kona this year) and Andy Potts (twice top 10 in Kona since); in 2008, the top two guys (Terrenzo Bozzone and Andreas Raelert) both made top 11 at Kona. So if history holds, we might be looking at the next up-and-comers to make the jump at Clearwater...

Ok, so who's racing? The entire pro list is pretty lengthy. But a few names do stick out as the favorites..the men's field is loaded. I consider the race to have 3 main favorites: Matt Reed, Tim O'Donnell, and last year's champ Terenzo Bozzone. We might ordinarily discount Bozzone after just finishing Kona about 5 weeks ago, but he has the speed and youth to recover and reload to defend his title. Both Slowtwitch and Triathlete Magazine picked Matt Reed to win, based on his very good season so far. But I think something will go wrong and he'll be unable to stay away for the entire bike ride, leaving the race open to a foot race. And here I'll pick Tim O'Donnell, who has won almost everything this year, and who looks as though he is still peaking (won the ITU Long Distance title in October). I think it's his time to shine, he's 29 and ready to make the next step.

For my long shot special, I like Joe Gambles (from Australia) as a guy ready to fight for the podium with the big names. Other names to watch include Philip Graves (20 years old!)and Fraser Cartmell. Canada has 7 pro men (!) in the field, led by Brent McMahon, who has had a decent season in 2009 (unlike his rock-solid finish to 2008). It started off with a bang when he beat Craig Alexander in April at 70.3 New Orleans, but after an uneventful summer racing ITU, I'm not sure if he's ready to go all out in Clearwater. He's our best shot for a Top 5 finish.

Last year's women's race was a USA three-peat (Joanna Zeiger over Mary Beth Ellis and Becky Lavelle). This year could be a Great Britain three-peat. They have 4 very fast females in the field including Leanda Cave, Julie Dibens, Catriona Morrison, and Jodie Swallow. Dibens and Swallow have won world titles in the past month in Xterra and ITU Long Distance events, while Cave and Morrison are veterans who know how to show up at big events. It will be interesting to watch the British and the American go head to head. Zeiger and Ellis are back again in 2009, joined by very fast Rebaccah Wassner, Sarah Groff, and the veteran Laura Bennett. It should be a nice battle...

Triathlete Magazine likes Dibens-Swallow-Bennett-Zeiger while Slowtwitch likes Dibens-Swallow-Bennett-Groff-Zeiger (yikes, eerily similar). As much as I want to pick against Julie Dibens (who beat Chrissie Wellington at a half-Ironman this summer), I don't think I can. Let's go with Dibens-Bennett (Laura can always run with the best) with Canada's Magali Tisseyre in third. Yep, a complete homer pick but she's fast and might be ready to run herself onto the podium. A couple of dark horses could be Sam Warriner (shows up in big races) and Lucie Zelenkova (another TBB athlete who is really strong swim-bike). And yes, a Great Britain sweep will result in another "The Brits are coming" post...

Whole race is live on Ironman.com Saturday morning!\

And full recap to come next week...check back...

Where will they end up?

2009-11-10T21:02:00.000-08:00

Hi All,

I have lots (LOTS!) to get to over the next few days, with lots of triathlon news, running news, etc, so feel free to come back in the next couple, but wanted to try and sort out the biggest story in Pro Cycling (and remarkably, has been since September) and that is the whole Who-will-Alberto-be-riding-with-in-2010?

If you don't know the whole story - here goes. Alberto Contador signed a 3-year contract with Team Astana for the 2008 thru 2010 seasons. Then Astana got blackballed (thank you Alex Vinokourov) for the 2008 Tour, so he just won the Giro and the Vuelta that year. Then Lance comes back in 2009, Alberto and Lance try to play nice, end up sniping thru the summer, Alberto wins the Tour as Lance tries to upstage him, then Lance leaves Astana to start his own team and takes most of the key Astana riders with him. Then Vinokourov comes back from his suspension to rejoin Team Astana (which was essentially created to support him) and Contador wants out. Problem is that he still has a contract and Astana really doesn't want to let him leave. So he's stuck...

The last few months have been full of rumours. At least 5 big ProTour teams have been rumored to be interested in signing Contador if they could work out a deal with him and Team Astana. Once it became apparent that Team Astana was not going to just release him from his contract to save his reported €2 million per year. But Astana insisted he would ride with them for 2010. However, Astana still haven't secured their ProTour license for 2010, which needs to be completed or Contador could walk away and become a very big free agent cyclist.

That is not nearly the end of the story. In the past week, all of these stories have been posted.

1. Last week, it was reported that Contador was re-negotiating a new contract with Astana for upwards of €4 million per year. However, his new contract would contain a provision that if anyone on Astana tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug, he would be free to leave the team.

2. Then came news that Astana has offered Contador a new contract for 4 more years, at a reported €8 million per season. Wow. It appears that Astana wants to simply offer Contador more money than anyone else to keep him. This is twice as much money as they offered him in late July on a similar 4-year deal.

3. Contador's brother and manager is now trying to clear up some of the confusion, saying that Alberto would only remain at Astana for one more year at most. Is this a strategy to maximize the amount of money he can get out of Team Astana? Or are they seriously looking at leaving €32 million on the table?

With all these stories, it might be evident that Contador will be riding in the teal of Astana in 2010. Well, maybe not...

A story today suggested that Team Quick Step has offered Contador a €20 million contract over 4 years. So maybe that explains why Astana upped their offer so much. So they are betting that Contador doesn't re-sign with Astana and that they lose their ProTour status in 2010. Very interesting...

Contador is not only the big name still out there...Bradley Wiggins also has a contract for 2010 (with Garmin) but continues to be rumored to be moving to Team Sky (the new British ProTour team). Team Sky was supposed to announce their entire 2010 team at a media event last month, but delayed the event for unknown reasons. Similar to Quick Step, Team Sky is very vocal in their pursuit of Wiggins. Plus the Contador-to-Garmin-if-Wiggins-leaves-Garmin-for-Sky circle has been rumored for months as well.

So while we are about 2 months from the beginning of 2010, we are still waiting for the last few cycling dominoes to fall? It should be all done by the end of November, but we were assuming that it would all be done by the end of September. Once these two cyclists find homes, then we will sort of the rest of the questions for 2010...but let's deal with those later...

More to come this week - including a preview of Ironman 70.3 Worlds...see you soon!

Cadel on the move...

2009-11-01T20:50:00.000-08:00

Hi All,

Some late-breaking pro cycling news this weekend concerning our current World Champion Cadel Evans. Normally late-breaking news about a pro cyclist would involve a positive doping violation but not this time...

Cadel Evans surprised a lot of people in the cycling world on Saturday by exercising an out in his contract with Silence-Lotto and deciding to leave the team with whom he has twice finished second and once third in the Tour de France in the past 4 seasons. There had been speculation that Evans was dissatisfied with his team over they years for not surrounding him with strong enough helpers to help his ascent of the TDF podium. Evans had been with Silence-Lotto since 2005, and finally broke thru with the biggest win of his career when he solo'ed away to win the World Championship Road Race in September.

Of course, with a GC rider of Evans stature on the free agent market, the rumor mills were very busy yesterday. Would Evans go to Team Sky to be their leader in 2010? Would he join Vinokourov on Astana? Perhaps Garmin would grab another GC contender? However, the discussion were short-lived when it was announced on Sunday that Evans would be joining BMC Racing Team for 2010 and beyond. This gives BMC - who are making the jump from a continental team to a pro-continental team, a giant extra reason for race directors to invite them to prestigious races in 2010, including Grand Tours like the Tour de France. Evans joins 2008 World Champion Alessandro Ballan and American George Hincapie on BMC in 2010, which has gone from a "Who?" team to a solid race contender with the addition of those 3 racers, plus a couple of other veteran riders.

So in 2010, we will perhaps have 3 more brand new teams in the Tour. We have the Lance-lead Team RadioShack, the mostly British Team Sky, and now Team BMC. It is already shaping up to be a very good 2010.

Of course, Evans' defection does mean that Silence-Lotto will lost out on the chance of having the rainbow jersey on one of their riders in 2010. But perhaps the extra money this frees up could help them attract a certain Spanish rider who still might need a new team in 2010...as always, stay tuned...

100% Non BikeY...

2009-10-30T07:52:00.001-07:00

Hi All,

Bikey is taking a day off, as we are two days away from the end of the 2009 Elite Marathon season, with Sunday's New York City Marathon on the agenda. So no bike or triathlon news right now, it's all running this week...

The New York City Marathon doesn't have the history of Boston (117 years vs 40 for NYC) or the uber-fast times of Chicago (where 4 marathon world records have been set, including Paula Radcliffe's 2:17 in 2002) but it seems to have an aura about it. It helps that it can afford to attract a great elite field year after year. Paula Radcliffe has won this race 3 times, and is going for number 4 in her return to the marathon. She hasn't run one since NYC a year ago, but has always performed great at this race. She runs from the front, dares the other women to hold on, and outkicks any one who remains near the end. This year she doesn't have too many rivals to worry about, because there have been 5 major female pro withdrawals, so Radcliffe goes into Sunday's race as an overwhelming favorite. Radcliffe has only 2 main competitors including 2009 Boston winner Salina Kosgei. However, Radcliffe has stated that her 2009 win includes breaking the women's race record of 2:22:31. We shall see...

The men's race is noteworthy as well since Ryan Hall is making his NYC marathon debut. He did run 2:09 two years ago in New York City while at the US Olympic Trials but that was a modified Central Park course. So he will be the people's favorite but will be challenged by a very strong mens field. Ryan Hall has a PB and US record of 2:06:17, but that is only the 4th fastest PB in the field, and those other guys have all run faster than that in 2009. Check out this list:
* Jaouad Gharib (Morocco) - ran 2:05 in London this year, silver in Beijing Olympics, 2-time World Marathon Champion
* James Kwambai (Kenya) - ran 2:04:27 in Rotterdam (and finished second!) which makes him the 3rd fastest man all-time, has ran a 59:08 half-marathon less than 2 months ago
* Patrick Makau (Kenya) - ran 2:06 in his marathon debut in April in Rotterdam, is the second fastest half-marathoner of all time (58:52)

There are many other elite men in the race - you can check out the list here. Who will win? Since Ryan Hall has often run well in his major marathons but ultimately has a bad mile or two and falls off the pace, I can't pick him to win. Let's go with Kwambai, who'll use his experience to outlast Makau and Hall. Of course, that means Gharib will win going away...

I didn't talk at all about this month's very frigid Chicago Marathon, which was run about three weeks ago. It included a new course record (and a North American marathon record) of 2:05:41 by Sammy Wanjiru, which is a whole 1 second faster than the previous record. That 1 second was worth an extra $100,000 to Wanjiru, who is widely regarded as the best marathoner in the world today. He won Beijing last year, London this spring, now Chicago in the fall. He also owns the half-marathon world record and has run 2:05 twice this year. Wanjiru also moves to the top of the World Marathon Majors for 2008-09, which will be worth another cool $500,000 for him. It's so sad that he won't run against Gebrselassie (or vice versa) one time so we can see what they could do running against each other. The next step for Wanjiru appears to be a shot at the world record...stay tuned!

The women's winner in Chicago was not pre-race favorite Irina Mikitenko, but a Russian track star, Liliya Shobukhova, hammered the last 2.2 km (apparently running that split in 6:36, faster than Wanjiru did!) to beat Mikitenko by 35 seconds. Apparently, the combination of her track speed (she had world indoor record in the 3000m) and her huge training (regularly runs 250 km a week!) has honed Shobukhova into a future marathon star. Mikitenko can be consoled by her second place finish with the knowledge that she has already won the half-million for the World Marathon Majors for 2008-09 (she also won the 2007-08 segment and leads the 2009-10 segment as well).

I could depress you with some stories about the recent "rash" of marathon deaths that the media likes to discuss, but instead will leave you with a couple of stories to think about. One is a Globe and Mail story about the combination of drinking and running (includes the BeerMile) and the others are from the NY Times (caution: you may need to create a free account to read them). One is about the rash of "slow" runners who are now participating in the marathon. They make a case that 44% of runners in last year's Honolulu Marathon took longer than 6 hours to finish the race, and that keeping roads closed and volunteers out on the course creates headaches and extra costs for race directors. An interesting read. The other one is a fascinating look back at the NYC Marathon in the 1970's where 8- and 9-year-old children ran the marathon in 3-and-a-half hours or less! One of them later ran a 2:38 when he was 15! Ahhh - the days before Nintendo and Xbox, when all kids could do is go outside and run...

That's it for now...

The Brits are Coming...

2009-10-25T21:07:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

2008 was known as the "Year of the Spaniards" with dominant years by Alberto Contador (Giro and Vuelta champion), Carlos Sastre (Tour de France champ), Samuel Sanchez (Olympic champion), a second place finish at Ironman by Eneko Llanos and a dominant year by Javier Gomez in ITU triathlon (who won everything but the Olympics). Add in Rafel Nadal's amazing summer of 2008, and it seemed that Spain owned everything sporting in 2008.

2009 can now definitely be called the "Year of the Brits". As if great seasons by Mark Cavendish (did he ever lose a sprint?), Alistair Brownlee (perfect in ITU championship races), and Chrissie Wellington (she never loses either) are not enough, this weekend included more of the same.

Two follow-up races to Kona are the Xterra Worlds, held every year a week after Kona in Maui. A few Ironman pros attempt the Kona-Xterra double, but mainly this is the weekend for those offroad triathletes to get their time in the spotlight. For multiple time world champions like Conrad Stoltz, Jamie Whitmore, and Canadian Melanie McQuaid, this is the one race that can define a career. With a unique 1500m swim, 30 km mountain bike, and 11 km trail run distance, this event has even been won by short-course specialists like Michellie Jones and Hamish Carter.

As you might have guessed from the introduction, the Brits did come to play in Xterra today. Julie Dibens, the 2007 and 2008 Xterra champion, quickly broke away on the bike to open up a huge lead over the rest of the women's field. She had over a 4 minute lead off the bike over Melanie McQuaid (a 3 time winner herself) and would not be challenged as she won by almost 8 minutes over Lesley Peterson, who is, yup, from Great Britain. McQuaid did finish third for her 7th career podium finish at Xterra Worlds. She's the Peter Reid of Xterra! So congrats to Dibens and to Melanie McQuaid for representing Canada so well again.

A quick note on the men's race. Before he was known as an Ironman threat, Eneko Llanos of Spain had won Xterra worlds twice (2003 and 2004). However, today, just 15 days after Kona where he had finished 14th overall, he outran fulltime Xterra pros Nicolas Lebrun, Olivier Marceau, and Conrad Stoltz to win his third Xterra world title. He joins McQuaid, Stoltz, and Dibens as a three time champ.

Quick Canadian content update - McQuaid was joined by two other Canadian women in the top 10 - Danelle Kabush was 7th and Christine Jeffrey was 8th. Our men weren't quite as fortunate as we were last year, when Brent McMahon and Mike Vine finished 3-4. This year, Vine was 12th and Kelly Guest was 16th. Also congrats to Calgary athletes Cal Zaryski and Sheri Foster for becoming world champs in their respective age groups.

One more for your Great Britain fans. As if having world champs in ITU racing, Ironman racing, and Xterra racing was not enough, you can add one more. The ITU Long Course world championships were also held this weekend in Perth, Australia. the 3k-8-k-20k format means that both short-course and long-course athletes can try for an ITU world title. This race actually used to be a 4k-120k-30k format until 2007, and Ironman athletes like Greg Welch, Simon Lessing, Luc Van Lierde, Torbjorn Sindballe, Eneko Llanos and Chrissie Wellington have all previously won this event. Now, with it's close-to-70.3 distance, but without the Ironman brand, and with a spot on the calendar between Kona and Clearwater, it sort of loses a bit of prestige since many pros regularly skip it. The 2009 event was supposed to be a nice post-Kona showdown between the dominant 70.3 champion Tim O'Donnell and Kona champion Craig Alexander, but Alexander decided to skip the race at the last minute. This left O'Donnell as the clear fave, and he won by a minute to show the rest of the world that he might be the best middle-distance racer in the world.

On the women's side, it was yet another dominant win by Great Britain. Jodie Swallow, who races ITU short-course mainly, absolutely dominated and won by over 10 minutes over hometown fave Rebekah Keat, who was hoping for some vindication after getting disqualified at Kona. But Swallow was first out of the water, lead by 8 minutes off the bike, and cruised to an 11 minute win. What can't the Great Britain athletes win? I guess Joel Filliol is doing an okay job over there...

More coming real soon...lots of racing news still to cover!

Big Bikey News...

2009-10-23T21:13:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

Some just-breaking news tonight, when it was announced by the UCI that Alberto Contador can leave his contract with Astana due to Astana missing a key administration deadline this week. Essentially, teams have until mid-November to submit to the UCI a budget, a list of riders, sponsorship contracts, etc. However, any team that didn't have this information submitted by the 20th of October (a month before the actual deadline) does open a loophole where riders under contract can leave their contracts without penalty. A number of pro teams did miss this deadline, including Astana, thereby allowing Contador the opportunity to seek employment elsewhere.

Anyhow, if Contador does leave Astana, it is still expected that 3 or 4 other ProTour teams will seek to sign him. Quick Step, Caisse D'Epargne, and Garmin-Slipstream have all expressed interest, and it will be interesting to see what team can provide both the financial backing for Contador as well as providing him a team that can help him win his 3rd Tour de France. Or the Giro d'Italia. Or both.

Quick Step has traditionally been built around Tom Boonen and his preference for one-day race success (Paris-Roubaix, etc) or his desire to compete for the Green Jersey at the Tour de France. They have never been a real Yellow Jersey contender and are not built to support a rider like Contador. However, they are a stable, well-run team.

Garmin-Slipstream is a team that needs Contador. They have been trying to develop a Grand Tour winning team for the past two years, with three stage wins in the Vuelta to show along with a whole bunch of second places. They have been successful in protecting their GC guys the last two Tours, as both Vande Velde in 2008 and Wiggins in 2009 being fairly well-protected by their teammates. Add in Tyler Farrar (who might be the second best sprinter in the world) and Garmin could be a threat on every Grand Tour stage next year with the addition of Contador. Hmmm...

However, the favorite right now might be Caisse d'Epargne. Despite being sponsored by a French bank, this team is filled with Spanish riders such as Alejandro Valverde and Luis Leon Sanchez. For 2010, the team has already signed Christophe Moreau and Mauricio Soler (Polka Dot jersey winner in 2007 Tour) to bolster their lineup. With Contador in the fold, they could field a Grand Tour team that rivals that of Astana in the 2009 Tour (with Contador, Armstrong, Leipheimer, and Kloden). This might be the most appealing option for Contador.

Who knows? Maybe he decides to stay with Astana for one more year. They have really bolstered their team for 2010 lately too, with Gilberto Simoni the latest to join Vinokourov's group for next season. Only Alberto knows right now...we'll keep you posted...

Cycling tidbits..

2009-10-16T15:17:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

Rather than trying to talk about 19 items every Friday, I might try and break it into smaller chunks for the next while to discuss all things Bikey...starting this week with a bunch of news on the Pro Cycling world.

2010 Team News - Team Astana finally let 3 key riders and their director out of their 2010 contracts so they could ride with other teams. Gregory Rast, Andreas Kloden, and Yaroslav Popovych, along with team director Johan Bruyneel all were allowed to leave Team Astana and all 4 of them have joined Lance, Levi, and Team RadioShack. Unfortunately for most of the cycling fans outside Kazakhstan, Astana did not release Alberto Contador. So it appears that Team Astana 2010 will include both Alberto Contador and Alexander Vinokourov, as well as Haimar Zubeldia, who Contador was allowed to keep as his personal domestique.

Team RadioShack also got some more great news this week as they were awarded a ProTour license, which essentially grants them entry into all the prestigious races for next season. Some traditional cycling teams like Bouygues Telecom and Cofidis have lost their ProTour status for next year, so for a first year team like RadioShack to be assured entry without needing wildcard status will be a relief for Lance and his crew.

Wednesday was the official unveiling of the 2010 Tour de France route. Starting with the prologue in the Netherlands, the route goes clockwise thru France towards the Pyrenees with several tough mountain stages before the traditional finish in Paris. Here is a cool Google maps view of the route.

View 2010 Tour de France in a larger map

Unfortunately, the Tour is skipping both a team time trial and a trip up Alpe D'Huez for a second year in a row, but will try and reward fans with 2 trips up the giant Tourmalet. The riders climb Tourmalet as part of a 4 mountain day in Stage 15 before finishing on top of the same hill in Stage 18. This is the highest road in the Pyrenees and will surely factor in the final podium - the road averages over 7% over the 17+ km length! Also new for 2010 is an early couple of stages that include cobblestone sections (up to 30km!) which may take a contender or two out - that's what cobblestones seem to do best. There are also 6 days in the high mountains, including 4 of the last 6 stages before Paris. You can read more on the route here...

Kona recap 2009 coming this weekend...cheers!

My Kona Picks...

2009-10-09T23:35:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

Just to be for the record, here are my late-breaking Kona Top 10 Predictions. They are guaranteed to be 100% inaccurate!

The Men
1. Craig Alexander - repeat. He'll be invisible as the top cyclists go nuts on the bike but will run everybody down. Again.

2. Gut tells me Eneko Llanos, but he won't be second again. So instead I'll pick Timo Bracht as breakthrough German of the year.

3. Marino Vanhoenacker - some one off the radar for the final podium spot.

4. Rasmus Henning - uber talent can run a ton, and hopefully he doesnt lose his chance for top 10 with a bad swim after breaking his hand about a month ago.

5. Chris McCormack - I think he doesn't have the blazing speed anymore to hang out near the top of the race in the end.

6. Chris Lieto - i anticipate a huge bike, and then a decent start to the run before the very fast runners come flying by.

7. Eneko Llanos - so consistent, but not this year. I think.

8. Terrenzo Bozzone - future of the sport. I expect him to lead at some point on Saturday - just not when it matters.

9. Matthias Hecht - another under-the-radar German who will consistently hang out with big guns.

10. Patrick Vernay - one last top-10 for him

Notable omissions from top 10 that make up the next 10 (although a few DNFs will be in this group): Andy Potts, Cam Brown, Norman Stadler (this one pains me), Faris Al-Sultan, Ronnie Schildknecht, Andreas Raelert, Tim Deboom,Philip Graves, Mike Lovato and Reinaldo Colucci.

The Women

1. Chrissie. #1 fave until she gets beaten. And that might not happen for a long time.

2. Rebekah Keat- the new Aussie star.

3. Yvonne Van Vlerken - second last year, will come from way back to end up third this year.

4. Mirinda Carfrae - 4th in her Ironman debut? Has the speed on the bike and run to mirror Chrissie, but can she last 140.6 miles?

5. Bella Comerford Bayliss - could be her breakthrough year into the top 5.

6. Cat Morrison - might be a nice battle between her and Bayliss for 2nd best GBR finish. Morrison might need 1 practice run at Kona before becoming a podium threat next year.

7. Kate Major - always seems to be in the mix in Kona

8. Tereza Macel - two summer Ironman victories will take a bit out of her legs, but she'll still be around for much of the day

9. Sandra Wallenhorst- No reason she can't finish 3rd again, but I think she'll slide a bit in 09.

10. Sam McGlone - an injury plagued couple of years will end with her second top 10 in Kona.

Notable omissions : Erika Csomor, Belinda Granger, Michellie Jones, Natasha Badmann, Gina Ferguson, Jo Lawn, Leanda Cave, and Linsey Corbin. The women's field is loaded...

T minus 2 years...

2009-10-09T22:40:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

In what could be the most talked about comeback since Brett Favre, the return of Lance Armstrong to his triathlon roots appears inevitable. And if you can believe his coach, Chris Carmichael, Lance has his eye on a particular race in 2011...

Yep, Lance in Kona in 2011...let the speculation begin!

A quick update...

2009-10-02T09:33:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

With only 8 days until Kona 09, most people would expect a slew of stories and predictions. However, with my flight to Kona early next week, I would expect that there might be multiple posts next week on the biggest race of the year.

Ok, I fold. The good folks at Slowtwitch have come up with a list of odds for the favorites for Kona. There is a list of male pros and one for female pros. Of course, betting on Chrissie W might be the triathlon equivalent of betting on a 18-0 New England Patriots team from a few years ago (and we all know how that turned out). She's never lost an Ironman race (never really been pushed actually) but that "you never know" factor will keep us all watching on October 10.

Moving along, the Pro Cycling world (UCI) wrapped up the important part of their 2009 season with the Worlds Road Race last week. This is the race where World Champions are made, and forever become part of cycling lore. Past champions include Fausto Coppi, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Greg Lemond, and even a very young Lance Armstrong way back in 1993. Recent chamions include Oscar Friere (3 times), Tom Boonen, Paolo Bettini, and last year's champ Alessandro Ballan. This race is different than most since it becomes a country-vs-country race, with Italians competing against Spaniards and the like, with each national team trying to set up their big names for the finish. This year's race involved 19 laps and 38 monster climbs over 262 km, and the difficult course in Switzerland really did let the world's best cyclists come to the front.

Here is a 10 minute video of the last few km, and you can see that the final select group includes Alejandro Valverde (winner of the Vuelta), Sammy Sanchez (Beijing gold medal), Fabian Cancellera (Beijing TT Gold Medal, Worlds TT Champion, Home Town Favorite), Damiano Cunego (who excels in one day races) and Cadel Evans (Mr Almost-Win-The-Big-Race) among a group of 9. Earlier in the last lap, names like Tom Boonen and Alexander Vinokourov (in an epic solo attack that ended with him getting pulled back on the first of 2 climbs on the final lap) also made appearances at the front of the race. This truly was an epic grouping.

As you can see, Cadel Evans made the decisive move, and powered away to the biggest win of his career. The last 5 or 6 years are full of close calls in big races (2 second overall finishes in the Tour de France, plus a 4th place finish, also a 3rd and a 4th in the Vuelta D'Espana) so to see the Aussie finally get the proverbial kangaroo-off-his-back was nice to see.

By the way, kudos to Michael Barry, who finished 18th overall at the Worlds Road Race and was both top Canadian and top North American finisher. Both other Canadians did not finish (Ryder Hesjedal and Svein Tuft) but they had plenty of company as over half the field did not finish.

Come back later for more...but here's a funny poster...

The End of the Vuelta nears...

2009-09-18T07:11:00.001-07:00

Hi All,

I guess the fact that I didn't post on Sunday or Monday of last week would hint that our Canadian men and women did not come home from the ITU Worlds Finale with a great showing or two. This week, I will also touch on the transfer of a few key cyclists, and get you ready for the weekend ahead.

Okay, last week ITU Worlds began with a bang for Canada (Paula Findlay's bronze in the U23 race) but ended without much noise for our pro teams. In Saturday's male race, the 4 Canadian men all made frequent television appearances during the bike portion but not much on the run portion. Paul Tichelaar was a beast on the bike, as he made multiple attempts to escape from the 40+ man peloton on the bike leg. Ultimately, he ended the bike slightly ahead of the main field, closely grouped with 3 other strong cyclists, but couldn't hold off the sport's strong runners for the 10k run. He was actually still in 2nd place at 2.5k but faded down the stretch to finish in 20th. Simon Whitfield got into T2 in good shape, but an immediate acceleration by Alistair Brownlee, Jan Frodeno, Javier Gomez, and Maik Petzold left Whitfield in a 2nd chase pack. He ultimately finished in 8th place, 10 seconds behind the third place runner. But the real drama occurred at the front of the pack, where Brownlee-Gomez-Frodeno just kept surging, trying to break each other. It was actually riveting to watch, as Gomez tried again and again to drop Brownlee. On the final lap, Brownlee surged again and broke Gomez, giving him a 7 second victory. His final run time was 29:04 on a course that was measured exactly (supposedly). That's ridiculous...Gomez held on for second, and Frodeno was third after getting dropped about the 5k mark. A great race (or a least a great run) where 3rd place thru 20th place were decided by only 72 seconds. Congrats to Brownlee for a perfect ITU series (5 for 5 for the 21-year old!) and now everyone knows who the man to beat in 2010 will be. Brownlee also took home $85000 for his win in Australia and his overall World Series championship.

After the great race on the men's side, I was excited to see what the women's race would provide. It was a much closer Series, with Lisa Norden having a great chance to overtake Emma Moffatt in the final race. It was also a much more open competition, without Emma Snowsill and Vanessa Fernandes both being injured going into this race (Fernandes ended up not finishing, Snowsill never started). Anyhow, the women's race was much more tactical, as a group of 7 escaped early on the bike, eventually gaining over a minute from a chase pack of 10. Those two groups of cyclists contained zero Canadians and that was it for the Canuck presence. The lead group of cyclists got out of the water between 21:30 and 21:49 and the second group swam 21:47 to 22:08. The two Canadians (Tremblay and Groves) swam 22:17 and 22:14 and those few seconds were enough to eliminate them from contention. By the way, Kirsten Sweetland was a late scratch as she was still not 100% healthy. The race at the front contained the big names (Moffatt, Luxford, Jenkins, Norden, Haskins) and they worked well together to earn a 45 second head start at T2. The race actually came down to a head-to-head race between the 2 main contenders for the jackpot (Norden and Moffatt) but lost a little drama since Norden had to beat Moffatt by 2 spots to win the title. It was funny that Norden kept turning around waiting to see if someone else would bridge up to help her win the overall title. However, it did not matter in the end as Moffatt made a late surge to win the race and the overall World Title. Lisa Norden finished 2nd in the race and 2nd overall...top Canadian was Lauren Groves who ended up way back in 19th place.

Some big news came down last night as it was announced that Bradley Wiggins (Team Garmin - 4th at Tour de France) had arranged a buyout of a his 2010 Garmin contract and would be moving to the new UK-based Team Sky as their team leader. This had been rumored for a while as Wiggins is a UK citizen and would provide a nice boost for the first year team. Team Sky has been very busy since September 1st, as they have also added Simon Gerrans (ex-Cervelo rider who has won stages this year in the the Giro and the Vuelta) and rising superstar Edvard Boasson Hagen (Team Columbia) to their roster for 2010 to go with other notables like Juan Antonio Flecha and Kurt Asle Arvesen. The other news in this article is that the buyout of Wiggins from his Garmin contract was 2 million British pounds, money that Garmin would then use to buy out to Alberto Contador from his Team Astana contract. So it was essentially a win-win-win deal where Astana would get some money, Garmin would be getting Contador in exchange for Wiggins, and Team Sky would be getting the hometown star. However, Garmin's director, Jonathan Vaughters, claimed on Friday morning that "there is no agreement like this" for Wiggins and that Wiggins will continue to ride for Garmin in 2010. I'm predicting that this might be some legal posturing, and would be very surprised if this deal did not go through sometime this fall.

In a related and not surprising move, Alberto Contador re-iterated today that Garmin would be a great option for him in 2010 if he can get out of his Astana contract. I'm not surprised at all since it appears Contador would be happier anywhere but with Astana, especially since a lot of his teammates have already left for greener pastures in 2010.

There have been a number of notable transfers so far this month, with Levi Leipheimer joning Lance at RadioShack, but surprisingly his old buddy George Hincapie did not, opting to sign with BMC Racing. Who? They are a second-tier team (not ProTour but an American based UCI Continental team -like Cervelo and Skil-Shimano this year) who are hoping to take the next step with riders like Hincapie and current world champion Alessanro Ballan.

The weekend ahead includes the final 3 stages of the 2009 Vuelta (Valverde still leads Robert Gesink by 32 seconds with Samuel Sanchez, Ivan Basso, and Cadel Evans 3-4-5) and Ironman 70.3 Cancun. I will talk more about the Ironman world next week...so enjoy the Vuelta and the nice weather!

ITU Worlds

2009-09-11T15:25:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

Got a lot caught up watching Ryder in his bid for some Vuelta history this morning, so I apologize for not getting this up earlier.

Very late tonight (Saturday am actually) the ITU Triathlon World Championship Series wraps up with the Finale event on Australia's Gold Coast. The 2009 season has seen some definite improvements in field quality by deciding their world champions thru a series format (as opposed to the one race winner takes all approach in the past). Unfortunately for the ITU, the domination of young Alistair Brownlee has removed much of the suspense for tonight's men's race. Brownlee has won all 4 of his starts in the WCS series this year, so even if Series #2 Javier Gomez wins tonight, Brownlee needs to only finish in the Top 6 to become the 2009 World Champion. So unless a disaster strikes Brownlee, he should be home and cooled as the victor.

The men's race will be very competitive, even with some of the drama removed. It could be among the deepest races in recent history, with over 50 males competing, including a 4 pack of Canadians (Whitfield, McMahon, Jones, and Tichelaar). The rest of the field includes names like Tim Don, Matt Reed, Jan Frodeno, Kris Gemmell, Brad Kahlefeldt, and American Jarrad Shoemaker. Look for a battle for the podium tonight.

The women's race and the race to the World Championship Series is much more competitive. The 2009 series was expected to be a battle between Vanessa Fernandes and Emma Snowsill, but a multitude of injuries have wrecked their seasons. The other Emma, Emma Moffatt, looked to have the series locked up after 3 wins and a 2nd place in the first 5 races of the 8 race WCS. A plantar fascia injury then put Moffatt on the shelf, and Sweden's Lisa Norden took advantage with a win and a 2nd place finish in the last two races. So now there are two women with a great chance to win (one scenario: If Norden wins on Sunday, Moffatt must finish 2nd to win the overall title). There are also many other women with a chance to upset the Moffatt/Norden tandem, including Daniela Ryf, Andrea Hewitt, Sarah Haskins, and a trio of Canadians including Kathy Tremblay, Lauren Groves, and racing for the first time in half a year, Kirsten Sweetland. Good luck ladies.

Team Canada often sends 4 athletes to these types of international events, but our 4th female, Edmonton's Paula Findlay, raced instead in the U23 World Championship which was held yesterday. She finished third and won a bronze medal, behind a pair of Great Britain athletes. Guess the poaching of Canadian coaches is working well for Great Britain. But congrats to Paula for winning a medal in an international world championship. The future looks bright for you and the rest of the ladies!

Ryder does it!

2009-09-11T09:14:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

I thought my pseudo-reverse jinx of mentioning how Team Garmin always finishes 2nd in Grand Tour stages worked nicely when Tyler Farrar won Stage 11 of the Vuelta D'Espana on Wednesday morning. This came about 12 hours after my comment. But the unbelievable happened again today in Stage 12, when Canadian Ryder Hesjedal once again got in a breakaway, and this time managed to hold on for the stage win!

Today's Stage 12 was the first of a trio of mountain stages expected to really break open this year's Vuelta. It was a difficult day, with three Category 1 climbs. Hesjedal got into the breakaway today, and managed to just barely stay away from the main peloton as the last hill of the day, a 13 km finishing climb, greatly reduced their lead. But Hesjedal outmanoeuvred his opponent with a late surge, and won his first Grand Tour stage. It was also the first ever win for a Canadian at the Vuelta D'Espana and the first Grand Tour stage win for a Canadian since Steve Bauer in the 1988 Tour de France.

Quite a dry spell for Team Garmin (0 Stage wins in Grand Tours the last two years) is now definitely over after back to back stage wins. And the Canadian drought is also over. Quite a day in Spain today...

I was actually planning on posting this Velonews story on Ryder that appeared on Thursday (they called him Mr September) as a nice feature in today's Bikey, but now it needs to be edited to include Stage Winner!

Great job Ryder!

More coming in a bit...triathlon Worlds start soon!