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..
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