Tag: KW Heist Zuidenkempen

Danilo Di Luca rewarded his hard-working teammates in the best way yesterday (Sunday) by racing a tactically perfect Liege-Bastogne-Liege and taking the win in front a first-class field. "I've been dreaming of winning this race for nine years. This is the most beautiful and most difficult race that I have won" exclaimed Di Luca post-race.

We learnt with sadness yesterday that Scottish rider Ian Steel had passed away, at the age of 86. Ian became national champion in 1952 and rode and won the famous Peace Race by taking the lead on stage eight of twelve as his British team won both the individual and team titles. We thought readers would appreciate revisiting out interview with Ian from a few years ago.

At the Rotterdam Six Day Gent winners Moreno De Pauw and Kenny De Ketele carried on where they left off – but instead of winning by two laps, they made it four... dominant for sure but no spectacle. We drove north for a couple of hours then parked up in a truck stop for what passes as sleep on the Six Day carousel... Bremen is the next stop, an industrial city of more than two millions souls in Northern Germany.

Oscar Onley recently caught the attention of many, including Team Sunweb, with his win at Tour de Savoie Mont Blanc cycle sportive, a mountain time trial that took place on the same course as the final stage of the elite men’s race of the same name. For season 2021 Oscar will be riding with the World Tour Team’s u23 development squad.

One good thing to come out of the washed-out British Madison championship at Meadowbank over the weekend was that there was plenty of time for VeloVeritas to talk to one of Britain's best roadmen, Dean Downing. The 32 year-old from Rotherham had originally intended to kill two birds with one stone; ride the champs and show his fiancee the sights of Edinburgh. The way it worked out, his fiancee had a wedding dress fitting and the race was rained-off. Never mind, he got to talk to us instead.

Although my season started over a month ago in Argentina, the Portuguese season opened on Sunday the 12th February with the "2nd Trofeu Cidade de Luís", followed by the Volta ao Algarve.