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

Hi All,

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

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

10. The Crashes



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

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



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

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

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

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

7. A Load of Canadian News...


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

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



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

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

5. The Manx Missile

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

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

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

4. A huge list of  GC contenders...

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

3. Is Contador beatable?

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

2. Ryder!!

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

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



1. The demise of Lance Armstrong....

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

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



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

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



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



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

A Nasty Crash at the Tour De Suisse...

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!

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?!?

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...

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...

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...