Some fast guys, Canada's Rollin(g) along...and lots of fast bikes!

Hi All - sorry for the wait but it will be worth it!

(grab a coffee...this one is going to take a while...)

Although the Olympics and summer 08 is over, the fall season does include a ton of sporting events in the Bikey World. The title of World's Fastest Man is always given to the 100m World Record holder (currently Usain Bolt, who will run sub 9.5 if he ever tries to run the whole 100m). However, I would suggest that the World's Fastest Man might just be Haile Gebrselassie, who had broke the mythical Marathon World Record by running 2:03:59 in Berlin today. He broke his current world record by 27 seconds! This adds to his legacy as perhaps the greatest distance runner ever (for example, he set the 5000m world record SEVEN times, the 10,000m world record 3 times, and has set records in other distances from two miles to 25,000m). He decided not to run the Beijing Marathon in August, instead did the 10,000m where he finished 6th. He did admit afterwards that he made a mistake and should have run the marathon, but was over-concerned about the potential air pollution and how it might aggravate his asthma. However, he did make up for it today! The women's winner, Irina Mikitenko, who ran 2:19:19 (only 3 women have ever ran faster!), should get some attention too! Congrats to both of them!



Today was also the Toronto Waterfront marathon, which has been getting increasingly good fields over the past years. It is now rated as an IAAF Silver Label race (which only Ottawa can match in Canada), which means it consistently attracts an elite field and international acclaim. Today's race, although not nearly as fast as Berlin, did prduce a close finish as Kenya's Kenneth Mungara (surprise, a Kenyan won!) beat Peter Kiprotich (shockingly, another fast Kenyan) by 2 seconds. Their times were right around 2:11, but that 2 seconds were worth $4000 per second for Mungara! $20K for the winner, $12K for the second place. Kenyans also finished 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th, and 10th! Unreal. I was also interested in seeing how the Canadians did - most notably how Dylan Wykes would do in his second career marathon. He finished 11th, with a 2:16:21 (about one minute slower than his debut marathon in Rotterdam. But that is still fast enough to be the top Canadian. (Stephen Drew also broke 2:20, running 2:19:59!). The women's winner was Ethiopian Mulu Seboka who ran 2:29:06 while the top Canadian female was Suzanne Evans in 2:44:23. Other Canadians were not so fortunate, with Matt McInnes and Lisa Harvey not finishing).

Before we move on to cycling and triathlon news, let's take a minute to reflect. Twenty years have now passed since Canada's "JFK" moment (this is what the London Telegraph called it) but the events following the positive test still resonate through the Track & Field community. Ben Johnson will forever be known as the first big-name sprinter caught in the anti-doping movement (even if he acknowledges that he started doping in 1981 and didn't get caught until 1988). His positive test was followed by positive tests from such elite sprinters like Linford Christie, Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery and Justin Gatlin (all world or Olympic champions). It's sad for Canada that Ben Johnson will always be the scapegoat, since it has been revealed that 7 of the 8 sprinters in the 1988 100m final subsequently tested positive. This includes Carl Lewis, who allegedly tested positive for stimulants in the 1988 US Olympic Trials, but his never-announced 12-week suspension was then reduced by the US Olympic Committee. This was to allow "Mr US Track & Field" to compete in Seoul, where he won two gold medals (including the 100m when Ben Johnson was disqualified). Interesting story. And for posterity, here is another look at the 100m final.



In a normal week, I could've filled an entire column on Canadian Cycling. Yep, there has been a lot of news on this front. First, the bad news...Canada's best Pro Cycling Team (Symmetrics Pro Cycling) had to close up shop for 2009 due to no major sponsor stepping forward. This is the developmental team that Svein Tuft and Zach Bell both compete on (they both had 7th place finishes in Beijing). However, the team is leaving on a great run, despite their budget being about 1/5th what Team CSC would spend on ONE rider like Cancellera or Sastre! First, Svein Tuft followed up his 7th place in the Olympic time trial by finishing 3rd in the Tour of Missouri. Although the Tour of Missouri does occur at the same time as the Vuelta De Espana, there is a number of top cyclists in the race. For example, Michael Rogers finished second in Missouri and he is 3-time World Time Trial Champion. George Hincapie finished 4th! And Canada's Tuft was third. So that is a super result for the 31 year old Tuft. To further the Canada cause, Bikey fave Dominique Rollin finished 9th (and won the King of the Mountain jersey) and Olympian Michael Barry was 10th overall. So a successful Tour of Missouri for the Canucks.


The good news continued for Tuft and Rollin. Tuft found a new ride for 2009, signing with Garmin-Chipotle (where fellow Canadian Ryder Hesjedal will be a teammate). Dominique Rollin also made a huge leap, going from the Toyota-United team all the way to the Cervelo TestTeam, where his teammates will include Thor Hushovd and Carlos Sastre.



For Tuft, good things DID happen in three's! He finished 2nd at the World Cycling Time Trial Championships this week in Varesa, Italy. The last Canadian male to medal at a World Cycling Championship was a looonnnngggg time ago(it was Steve Bauer in 1984). He finished the 43.7km course in 52:44 (almost 50 km/h!) and was only 42 seconds behind Bert Grabsch of Germany. And he did it despite flatting with 5k to go in the time trial and was forced to switch bikes! Wow. Here's a quick interview with Svein if you're interested...





The marquee event of the World Cycling Championship was today's Men's Road Race, where the 260 km event came down to a group of 12 riders, which didn't really include any of the pre-race favorites (Bettini, Valverde, Sanchez, Boonen, Contador, and McEwen to name a few). With about 2 km to go, Alessandro Ballan took off in a counter-attack and had enough to hold on for gold! He now gets to wear the rainbow jersey in 2009. Italy took second, with Damiano Cunego finishing second and Matti Breschel getting bronze. Canada's Michael Barry was the only Canadian finisher in 33rd.



In the women's road race, Nicole Cooke from Great Britain defended her Olympic Gold by winning the race in a sprint over co-favorites Marianne Vos and Judith Arndt. Canada's Alex Wrubleski was 9th.

One last cycling item for the doping fans. On Friday it was announced that Frank Schleck was perhaps a customer of cycling's Dr Evil, Eufemiano Fuentes. Dr Fuentes was known as the centrepiece of Operation Puerto, the doping investigation that has ensnared cyclists like Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso, Oscar Sevilla, Francisco Mancebo, and Tyler Hamilton. Once this announcement was made, the Italian police raided the hotel that the Luxembourg team was staying at during the World Championships. The doping soap opera continues...

Triathlon news...and unlike the news about Svein Tuft, this is not good news for Canada. Sam McGlone, who is Canada's best Ironman triathlete, is injured and will not compete in Kona in October. She has had problems with her Achilles for about a year or so, and admits now that it's not healthy enough for her to run the Ironman marathon on. Too bad, since she is one of the true rivals for the so-far unbeatable Chrissie Wellington.

Ok, I know you've been reading this far because this week was the Holy Grail of the bikey world, Interbike. And while industry professionals go there to check out the competition, us Bikey fanatics just love looking at bike porn. And there was plenty to see. While I found about 5 or so bikes that grabbed my attention, for those of you who just can't get enough should check out Tom Demerly's post here. He has another 50 or so pictures that are definitely worth checking out. Without further ado...enjoy the bikes and my personal Top 10!

10. New bike from CEEPO with some crazy frame shapes


9. Pinarello's sexy Italian triathlon bike


8. The new Scott Plasma 2


7. QR's new Caliente


6. Ridley Dean


5. Felt's aero Road Bike, the AR2


4. Fuji's new high-end bike

3. The QR Cd0.1 - which has offset bottom bracket to deflect airflow away from the drivetrain. Cool idea.



2. Michellie Jones' new Felt DA


1. The yummy Litespeed Blade returns!


Can you believe it - I didn't even get to Lance...come back Friday. Lots more to get to then!

The Curtain Finally Comes Up!

Today marked the official unveiling of the vaunted Cervelo P4! For $4800 Canadian (frame price), you can own the newest Cervelo speed machine when it launches in December.

Actually, I'm a wee bit disappointed. Although it looks nice (except for ridiculous graphics, it just bring in technology that lots of other bikes have (such as tucked away rear brake, custom fork, front wheel cutout, etc). It does have an integrated hydration station which is novel, but am not sure how useful it will be.


Anyhow, let the speculation begin...

Oh yeah, Lance joins Astana. See you on Friday.

Celebrities doing Triathlons?

Hey All,

For those of you who like real pro athletes - you might want to skip this first section...

I'm not sure what to make of all the commotion on the net last weekend surrounding J. Lo doing her first triathlon...ok, let me recap for those of you who don't read People magazine. About three months ago, it was announced that Jennifer Lopez was training for a triathlon. I didn't pay much attention since I was a bit torn about what it would do for the great sport of triathlon. Anyhow, this Sunday she was the star attraction of the Malibu Triathlon, as she completed the half-mile swim, 18-mile bike, and 4-mile run in about 2 hours and 23 minutes. She finished 5th (which was last by the way) in the celebrity female event but considering that she was a triathlon rookie, was competing about 7 months after giving birth to twins, and raised about $125 thousand dollars for the LA Children's Hospital, I think she represented herself rather well. Except for her race outfit...



Now, i wasn't sure how big of a deal this was, until i started poking around online. Check this out: a Google search for "jennifer lopez triathlon" retrieves 410,000 hits. A Google search for "peter reid triathlon" retrieves 48 000 hits and "simon whitfield triathlon" gets about 57 000 hits. Her celebrity could potentially bring much more exposure to the sport of triathlon than almost anyone outside of...say, Lance Armstrong?

Here's a video of J. Lo in action. Other celebrities that participated in this race (either solo or as part of a team) include Anna Kournikova, Felicity Huffman, Matthew McConaughey, and Saved By The Bell costars Mark Paul Gosselaar and Tiffani Thiessen.



Ok, onto real sports news. Lost in the shuffle of Lance's announcements from last week, his one-time teammate Floyd Landis is also planning a comeback in 2009. Landis, currently serving a 2 year suspension for failing a drug test during the 2006 Tour de France (which he ended up winning but had the title stripped), appears to be joining the US Health Net-Maxxis team for 2009. Floyd is only 32 years old (5 years younger than Lance), and might be using next year as a preparation for rejoining a ProTour team in 2010.



Speaking of the ProTour, I feel I have been neglecting this year's Vuelta a Espana, which is wrapping up this weekend. As expected, Team Astana is dominating the race, with Alberto Contador winning back-to-back mountain stages to take charge of the Gold Jersey this week. First he dropped fellow contenders Valverde, Leipheimer, and Sastre with 3.5km to go in Stage 13, then he and teammates Leipheimer put further time into the rest of the peloton with a coordinated attack in Stage 14. Going into today's final mountain stage and tomorrow's time trial, Contador leads Leipheimer by 77 seconds, and is ahead of Sastre by over 3 minutes. With a solid weekend of riding, Contador will add to his win at the Giro D'Italia and solidify his reputation as the best rider in the peloton. Only 25, it will be interesting to see what he does when Lance might be a teammate of his next year...




Couple of quick triathlon updates. My predictions for the inaugural Muskoka 70.3 race did not come true, with Lisa Bentley struggling to a 5th place finish. Joanna Zeiger was the fastest women's swimmer, and held on throughout the bike and run to win the race. Craig Alexander did win the men's race with ease, with Simon Lessing falling back into 4th place. The race was also the first 70.3 race for Canadian Olympian (2004) Brent McMahon, who finished in 6th place. Maybe he can convince Mr Whitfield to race a half someday...

Moving on, I discovered a pretty cool innovation last weekend. The Grand Columbian triathlon used a "buoy line" that floated about 6 feet below the surface between the buoys. Crooked swimmers rejoice! Linearly-challenged swimmers could just keep their head down and follow the rope...how cool is that?

Last two things...your kids could potentially use triathlon to go to university! Yep, UCLA has become the first university to award a triathlon scholarship! These lucky kids get pro level coaching, a ton of gear (including BMC bikes, Powertap powermeters, and Xterra Wetsuits) plus a "generous race budget". That's amazing...if only i was 18 again. And fast.

One last thing that I'm sure will be lost next week when BikeyFriday will be overrun by all things Interbike (i can't wait!!)...next weekend (the 28th) , the Toronto Waterfront marathon will be run. This is exciting since Canada's Dylan Wykes, who is only 25, will aim to improve on this 2:15:13 marathon debut. He is unquestionably part of the bright future of Canada's marathon team, along with Reid Coolsaet, Eric Gillis, and Simon Bairu (who are all 10,000m runners currently but will move up to the marathon soon). Athletics Canada is solidly behind trying to build a stable of top marathon distance runners, so Canada will hopefully be well-represented at future world championships and Olympics. This is great news, and the first successes will hopefully be seen this weekend!

More on Lance...and some tri stuff too!

Hi All,

So Lance is officially back. It is still up in the air which team he will race for. Team Astana - with his old buddy Johan Bruyneel, is by far the favorite (since Lance implied that in his press release). However, Astana is currently denying those reports, and Bruyneel himself claims they are only "rumours". So we'll see what happens. Two other American teams - Garmin-Chipotle and Team Columbia, both have riders that have relationships with Lance, so they can't be completed eliminated yet. Team Astana would thus have Lance, Levi, Alberto Contador, and Andreas Kloden. That team would be a powerhouse in France next July!!

This news has really shaken up the cycling world. Even Lance rivals Joseba Beloki and Michael Boogerd are apparently rethinking their current retirement plans. Unfortunately, despite one blogger's best efforts, http://bringbackjan.blogspot.com/, it appears that Mr Ullrich is happy to stay home in Germany and avoid further drug tests.

Others too have weighed in positively. The UCI president is thrilled (probably mostly since his sport will get more media attention. He adds that Lance's comeback in this brave new world of drug testing (EPO tests, biological passport, etc) will "give him the opportunity to prove he can do it clean".

On the other hand, Christian Prudhomme, the director of the Tour de France noted that Armstrong was "welcome in principle" at next year's race. "If his yet unknown team as well as himself comply with today's much more severe anti-doping rules, then we will accept his participation," Prudhomme told AFP, even though "Armstrong's victories have been tarnished by suspicions since 1999." He sounds like a bitter Frenchman who doesn't like American riders winning Le Tour! And I sure liked his hints that today's tests are much harder to beat...i wonder what he's implying?

For those of you who want the whole story, check out the Vanity Fair article here. And here is a pic of Lance from the article that might appeal to female readers...


This weekend brings the Ironman brand back to Canada. Ironman 70.3 Muskoka will be held for the first time this weekend, with over 1700 athletes to compete. The Pro Men's Race will be Craig Alexander's to lose, as he fine-tunes for Kona. Alexander has raced in Muskoka many times, and it's good to see him back. Triathlon legends (ie. past their prime) Simon Lessing and Luc van Lierde are also both competing. The women's race is highlighted by Lisa Bentley and Joanna Zeiger, although Lisa should be considered the favorite. The race also made national news this week when it was announced that hundreds of tacks had been found on the bike course last weekend. Crazy. I don't understand how people are that perturbed at cyclists traveling on the roads.

Persistence pays off for a couple of Ironman elites last week at Ironman Wisconsin. Just 1 week after finishing second at Ironman Louisville, Chris McDonald from Australia won the race comfortably for his second career IM victory (and a course record!). Who needs recovery? Certainly not the women's winner either! Hilary Biscay, who also raced in Louisville 7 days earlier (she finished 4th) FINALLY won her first IM race. I say finally because she races a ton. She finished 8 IM-distance races in 2007 and already has 8 finishes this year! Crazy. Biscay has always trained and raced hard, with a legendary pre-race 42km treadmill run as part of a 60+km running day! I'm not sure if she does that now, but that speaks to her motivation (and mental status?). Good for her...she will race Kona for her 9th Ironman race this year too!

Running out of time for today, so I'll be back on Monday for another update...see you then...

It's Official. Lance Speaks!

Lance's Comeback to Cycling in 2009 -- powered by http://www.livestrong.com

The Return of Lance?

Is Lance back? It appears likely!

According to sources, Lance will return to racing with Team Astana in 2009!

More to come...