Tag: The Volta ao Algarve

If we interviewed ‘Jamesie’ McCallum, we couldn’t very well neglect his friend and training partner, Britain’s most northerly professional rider – Wick’s Evan Oliphant. This will be his ninth professional season and his second with Raleigh.

For 2014 Jonny Bellis is with Denmark’s Christina Watches Continental team which this year has a big British involvement with Planet X supplying the Viner (pronounced, ‘veenir’) bikes and the team clothing – and two of the squad. Jonathan is joined by Jake Tanner – son of British legend, John Tanner – at Christina, and we talked to Jonathan recently at his new home near Pisa.

The British Road Race Championships 2010 on the 27th June was a race of attrition, but the riders started leaving via the back door very early in the race, due to the severity of the the seven-mile circuit around the Lancashire town of Barley, which was pretty much either up or down all day.

I felt like one of those football reporters at the racing here in Trinidad & Tobago at the Arima Velodrome, who has the copy all neatly spell checked; then the 2-1 down losing side bangs in two in the last 90 seconds. Roberto Chiappa was going to win the sprint final 2-0 against Home Boy, Sellier.

Dozens of SMS and emails flash up on my BlackBerry each day, most are chaff and get deleted after a quick glance — but when one comes in to tell me that ‘Michael Mørkøv excluded from the Vuelta by WADA’ that makes me take notice.

What was it like being in that break in the Olympic road race? Who better to ask than one of the men who animated the race and did sterling work in the service of his team – United States elite road race champion, Timothy Duggan? The Liquigas, 29 year-old pro has come a long way back from that day in the 2008 Tour of Georgia when he hit the tarmac at 100 km/h and was left with life-threatening injuries.