There is still some Tour Trash to look at, what has “Bert” been up too and which team will he be in next year? “Jersey-Gate” moves on and we hear what Lance is thinking about on many subjects. Good news for Sky and what races are coming up? Yea! Lots of Thursday Trash!
Welcome Home, Tour Hero!
Alberto Contador arrived back in Spain at Madrid airport on Monday to a hero’s welcome for a large crowd of fans (with a band) and media. He then went to meet the president of the Madrid Community; Esperanza Aguirre for a presentation, Contador gave the President a Tour yellow jersey which she wore on the presentation stage.
After this he went to the Moncloa Palace, the residence of the Spanish Prime Minister, to meet José Luis Zapatero and also present him with a yellow jersey. Congratulations were conferred and Zapatero is looking forward to the fourth Tour win.
From the centre of Madrid he drove to his home town of Pinto, the last few kilometres with a guard of honour of local cyclists. On the balcony of the Town Hall he thanked everyone and said they were the reason he went training every day. All this and many live interviews on Spanish TV news. No rest though as Alberto was travelling to Amsterdam the next morning (Tuesday) to ride a criterium.
Astana Or Not Astana?
It looks like Alberto will not be wearing the light blue of Astana next year. Astana had given him an ultimatum to sign a new contract on the last day of the Tour de France (last Sunday); he asked for an extra 48 hours to make the decision. He has now announced that he and Astana will go their separate way for next year. Top suggestion so far looks to be a Specialized team with co-sponsor Sunguard under Riis management. Contador wants to take Benjamin Noval, Daniel Navarro, David De La Fuente and Jesus Hernandez with him from Astana.
Not So Happy Tour Ending
“Jersey-Gate” looks like it may rumble on as long, or longer than “Chain-Gate”! The UCI are going to take disciplinary action against team/riders/management of the RadioShack team. I’m sure you all remember the “28” jerseys that had to be changed before the race proper was underway. RadioShack did not clear the jersey change with the UCI or ASO (Tour organisers) before the last stage, which can be done within the rules, according to the UCI. In a statement from the UCI they said; "we (the UCI) regrets that an initiative for a cause as worthy as the fight against cancer was not coordinated beforehand with the Commissaires and organizers of the event". The jersey change caused a 20 minute delay to the start proper of the stage and jeopardized the TV coverage.
It gets worse the UCI added: "Team RadioShack subsequently breached the regulations by wearing an incorrect uniform on the podium for the protocol ceremony having been instructed not to." Then there were heated exchanged between Johan Bruyneel and officials which left those involved “gravely offended”.
Bruyneel didn’t leave it there, later via Twitter he wrote: "Ok people! Now it's official! To be a race commissar, you don't need brains but only know the rules! Their motto: "c'est le reglement!"
Johan Bruyneel will now have to face a UCI disciplinary commission; all fines will be donated to the Swiss cancer charity. One wonders if this will go against the team gaining entry to the 2011 Tour de France?
On Wednesday Johan Buyneel issued an apology on his web-site, it read: "This was not the correct way to handle the situation, nor the example I want to set for my team, family and fans. I understand the race officials' decision and publicly apologize for offending any official or representative of the UCI. It is also my intent to personally apologize to UCI President Pat McQuaid for my remarks."
Armstrong: "I couldn’t abandon"
“I thought, after last year and the beginning of the race, that I’d do better than last year.” Armstrong had said he would pressurize Contador on the cobbles stones of stage 3, but it was him who had the problem of a puncture which followed a crash the day before. “Sportingly, I didn’t go as well as I wanted” he told Euro Sport. “I could say ‘I crashed twice’, find a dozen things that didn’t work out. The result is not ideal, but it would have been a big mistake to abandon the team, the sponsor, my fans…”
What’s Next For Lance?
“I won’t race this year,” he confirmed, “except for some recreational events. I haven’t decided if I will do things next year; in Austin, you’ll see me riding with my children, there will be other charity events… At least for the rest of the year there will be no professional racing”.
“I think I’ve done my competitiveness for the next 40 years! That takes me to 80 years and after that I don’t think I’ll want to make a comeback! I can set myself challenges in the marathon; I can set myself personal goals to surpass. So we still don’t know what he plans to do, marathons, triathlons?
Lance And Floyd Landis?
With the Federal Investigation waiting for Lance when he gets home, what does he think will be the situation? “It will be very competitive,” he said. “We will put out the best team, but in the end it will be a fair competition; today it is not, but ultimately it will be. I will have the opportunity to express my point of view. I’m 100% confident; everything will be said. Someone who says he wants to clear his conscience and also incriminates a dozen people, adding ‘I don’t regret what I did’, that doesn’t add up. That’s just someone who wants to ruin the lives of others”.
“Does it bother me? Yes, it’s not sincere.”
Missing Frank?
It appears that both Andy and Frank Schleck believe that things would have been different had Frank been at Andy’s side instead of being at home nursing a broken collar bone. Frank told sporten.dk: “I was super happy when Andy won a stage and went into yellow,” he told Sporten.dk. “But several times I sat there and wondered what we could have done in terms of tactical maneuvering, if I had been there with him. I believe we would have won the Tour if we had both been there, because I was really strong this year. I’m in really good shape.”
Next Big Races:
San Sebastián Classic
On Saturday the 31st of July Spain has its biggest Classic one day race, the Clasica Ciclista San Sebastián or Donostia/Donostia Klasikoa in Euskera, the Basque language. The course has been changed this year for its 30th anniversary and it’s much, much harder, passing over the mega-hard Jaizkibel and the sharp Arkale climbs twice all in the last 85 kilometers of its 234 kilometer distance.
According to the sponsoring and organizing newspaper: dariovasco Tour winner Alberto Contador (Astana) will be amongst the starters along with Ivan Basso (Liquigas), Andy Scleck (Saxo Bank), Philippe Gilbert (Omega), Levi Leipheimer (RadioShack), Luis Leon Sanchez (Caisse d’Epargne), Carlos Sastre (Cervelo), Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin) and Basque hope of the Euskaltel team; Samuel Sanchez. Carlos Barredo (Quick-Step) is hoping for a repeat of last year’s win, but after the Tour it’s difficult to know exactly which riders will turn up and who might have the legs? There will be a Race Report on Pez.
Circuito de Getxo
The day after San Sebastián (Sunday 1st August) is the Circuito de Getxo based just up the road in Bilbao. 185.3 kilometers split into 11 laps of a 16.85 kilometer circuit, participating teams listed in this UCI 1.1 are: Caisse d’Epargne, Euskaltel, Footon, Liquigas, Xacobeo-Galicia, Caja Sur-Andalucia, Ceramica Flaminia, Androni Giocattoli, Carmiooro, Caja Rural, 2016 Burgos, Orbea and Heraklion-Murcia.
Tour of Poland
The Tour of Poland has a new date this year, until now it has been in September and the weather was always a little cold and wet. The race kicks off on Sunday the 1st of August from Sochaczew and finishes on the 7th in Krakow.
There are 23 teams lined up to start: AG2R la Mondiale, Astana, Caisse d’Epargne, Euskaltel Euskadi, Footon-Servetto, Francaise des Jeux, Garmin-Transitions, Lampre-Farnese Vini, Liquigas Doimo, Omega Pharma-Lotto, Quick Step, Rabobank, Sky Professional Cycling Team, Team HTC-Columbia, Team Katusha, Team Milram, Team Radioshack, Team Saxo Bank. These teams will be joined by the following 5 squads invited by the organisers: Vacansoleil Pro Cycling Team, Cervelo Test Team, BMC Racing Team, Skil-Shimano and Polska BGZ.
Alessandro Ballan (BMC Racing) stands out in particular, since he won the last edition of the Tour de Pologne and he’s shown himself to be in excellent shape on the roads of the Grande Boucle this year. Team Astana will feature Spain’s Oscar Pereiro, who already won the Grande Boucle in 2006; for the sprints they’ll have Australian Allan Davis, who’s already familiar with the roads in Poland.
There are a lot of fast riders in the race, with Germany’s Andre Greipel (HTC-Columbia), Italians Danilo Napolitano (Katusha), Daniele Bennati and Jacopo Guarnieri (Liquigas-Doimo), Angelo Furlan and Mirco Lorenzetto (Lampre-Farnese Vini), Belgians Wouter Weylandt (Quick Step) and Geert Steegmans (Radioshak), Brazilian Murilo Fischer (Garmin Transitions), Argentina’s Josè Haedo and Australian Baden Cooke (Saxo Bank), Graeme Brown (Rabobank), from New Zealand Gregory Handerson (Team Sky) and German Robert Forster.
Other stars who’ll be coming out include: Rinaldo Nocentini (AG2R La Mondiale), six days in the yellow jersey in the 2009 Tour de France; Belgian Champion and winner of two Ronde Van Vlaanderen races Stijn Devolder and the American climber Tom Danielson (Garmin Transitions).
There will also be plenty of combative riders ready for attacks and breaks, like Russian Mikhail Ignatiev (Katusha), Italian Dario Cataldo (Quick Step), Pablo Lastras, Vasili Kiryienka and Josè Cobo Acebo (Caisse d’Epargne), Frederic Guesdon and Jussi Veikkanen (Francaise des Jeux), Xavier Tondo Volpini (Cervelo), Joost Posthuma (Rabobank), Leif Hoste (Omega Pharma-Lotto) and Markus Fothen (Milram).
Hometown idols include Liquigas-Doimo’s Sylvester Szmyd, who was essential to Ivan Basso’s victory at the Giro d’Italia, with his team mates Maciej Bodnar and Maciej Paterski, Marcin Sapa (Lampre-Farnese Vini), Jaroslaw Marycz (Saxo Bank), Michal Golas (Vacansoleil) and the young riders from Team Polska BGZ.
Among the interesting young riders there is Italian Fabio Felline (Footon Servetto), fresh off his experience at the Grande Boucle, Slovaks Martin and Peter Velits (HTC-Columbia) and Peter Segan (Liquigas Doimo).
On The Drug Front?
Latest riders to be banned for the usual 2 years are: Ruben Lobato, Nuno Ribeiro, Isidro Nozal and Hector Guerra. Lobato was suspended by the Spanish Federation for a violation of the UCI’s biological passport. The other three cases go back to the Tour of Portugal last year, Ribeiro won and Nozal and Guerra were his team mates in the now defunct Liberty Seguros team, all of them tested positive for EPO-CERA.
Not Talking!
Tour green jersey winner; Alessandro Petacchi was interviewed on Wednesday by Italian police in connection with alleged blood doping. According to his lawyer Virginio Angelini, the Italian sprint Ace decided to say nothing. “He wanted to speak but I preferred that he kept the right to remain silent,” Angelini told La Gazzetta Dello Sport, “The accusations are too general so we exercised the option not to answer.” Angelini told the Italian sports paper: “That’s not unusual, it is a normal defense strategy.”
Tour De Wallonie Goes Sky!
Chris started us off on the Belgian Tour on Monday with Stefan van Dijk (Veranda Willems) leading overall from Danilo Napolitano (Katusha) after stage 2. Since then we had a sprint win for Kristof Goddaert (Ag2r) on stage 3 which put him in the lead. Then on stage 4 Laurent Mangel (Saur-Sojasun) won the stage and he took overall.
The most important last stage, Sky’s Russell Downing was lead out by his team perfectly to take the stage and through the time bonus the overall win. After stage 4, Downing was 8 seconds behind Mangel, but with his bonus it gave him the victory by 2 seconds from Marco Marcato of Vacansoliel.
Tour De Wallonie Final Result:
1. Russell Downing (Sky) in 21:50:07
2. Marco Marcato (Vacansoleil) at 0:02
3. Laurent Mangel (Saur – Sojasun) at 0:03
4. Julien Simon (Saur – Sojasun) at 0:07
5. Maxime Vantomme (Katusha) at 0:09
6. Jan Bakelandts (Omega Pharma-Lotto) at 0:11
7. Kristof Vandewalle (Topsport Vlaanderen) at 0:12
8. Arthur Vichot (Française Des Jeux) at 0:13
9. Steven Van Vooren (Topsport Vlaanderen) same
10. Massimo Codol (Acqua & Sapone)same.
Who’s At The Vuelta a España?
It looks very unlikely that Tour winner; Alberto Contador will ride the 2010 La Vuelta a España which starts on August the 28th in Sevilla with a nocturne team time trial. Contador suggested it was a tall order to ride two Grand Tours in one year at the press conference after the Tour, he said: “The route of this year’s Vuelta is very attractive, and although I’m not saying it is 100% certain I won’t ride it, the likelihood is that I won’t appear. But I certainly will be back in the future.”
The two Schleck brothers will line up for Saxo Bank and Denis Menchov will be there looking for a third victory. The most controversial inclusion could be Mark Cavendish riding for HTC, as this would push out the teams other sprinter Andre Greipel who took the green sprinters jersey in last year’s Vuelta. One thing is for sure, Pez will be there for all the stage race reports and road side.
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