Saturday, April 20, 2024

Tag: World Road Championships

World Road Race Championships 2012 – Mens Road Race

The ‘best world championships ever’ the organisers are saying – but I guess they would say that? The Mens Road Race was certainly a good race; and if last year’s race in Copenhagen was a model of GB team work for Cav, then this year was all about Belgium and ‘Phil.’

World Road Race Championships 2012 – U23 Men’s & Women’s Road Race for Marianne Vos

It's a nice afternoon in Limburg for bike racing, the sun is out, there's not a lot of wind and The Netherlands' Olympic road race champion Marianne Vos has just bridged up to the break in the Womens Road Race; so the crowd is happy.

Michael Hutchinson – at the World Time Trial Championship 2012

There’s only been one winner of the Cycle Time Trials 50 mile championship in the 21st century – and that’s Ulsterman Michael Hutchinson who has won the event 13 times, straight.

World Road Championships 2012 – Junior Womens’ Road Race

When you write and then put your words out there into the ether, you set yourself up. Whilst there’s nothing better than someone taking the time to say that they like your work...

World Road Championships – Day Five, Mens Time Trial 2012

There are time trials – and then there are time trials. this is the Mens Time Trial 2012. Dual carriageways with high traffic counts on balmy Essex afternoons are one thing; Limburg in the autumn rain with a parcours which includes the Cauberg is another.

World Road Championships 2012 – Day Four, Time Trial Bikes

Did I say that having the camper van here meant that I didn’t have to walk to the press room? We look at the Time Trial Bikes of the World Championships.

World Road Championships 2012 – Day Three; U23 Time Trial World Championship

The party’s over at the U23 Time Trial World Championship, there’s no more nice wee room in Valkenburg and ambling down for breakfast, with the patron asking if you’d like a fried egg to go with your rolls, cheese and ham.

World Road Championships 2012 – Day Two, the Team Time Trial

I resisted the bars of Valkenburg and was in bed not long after 10:00 on Saturday night. The body clock woke me for 06:15 and I was on the Cauberg before 07:00 for the Team Time Trial.

World Road Championships 2012 – Day One, Arrival in Valkenburg

The beer's not cheap on Grotestraat in Valkenburg, at two Euros a pop, but with Dario G's 'Sunchyme' banging out, you can't complain. It takes me to Copenhagen and the 'balustrade sprints' at the Six Days. But that's not 'til next year - and we still have this year to put to bed.

World Road Race Championships 2011 – Cavendish Celebrates

World Road Race Championships 2011 - Cavendish and the whole team were brilliant, full stop. There can be no 'buts' or 'maybes' - his team...

World Road Championships 2011- Roundup

The Danish Press did Cav proud at the World Road Championships 2011; having Peta on his arm doesn't hurt as far as the photo opportunities go. And being the saddo I am, the first thing I did when I got home was to buy the British papers. All of the quality dailies 'done him proud'-The Independent gives him pride of place on their sports section and Alasdair Fotheringham's prose is perfect.

World U23 Road Race Championship 2011 – A Young Braveheart in the Medals

Braveheart rider Andy Fenn took an excellent bronze medal in the World U23 Road Race Championship 2011 on a windy but dry day in the northern suburbs of Copenhagen. The French team proved best motivated and organised with a dazzling one-two. Let's hope that Arnaud Demare doesn't go the way of so many French amateur and U23 champions in the past - big hype, big contract then a gradual slide in to obscurity.

World Road Championships 2011 – Day 4, rest day

No races today, time to catch up with some old friends, the gossip and write up the Worlds Elite rr preview and fit in an interview - I have to justify my existence. We're about 20 K from the city of Copenhagen in Naerum, which is right on the course. It takes two trains to get to central Copenhagen, but they run frequently and bang on time. Our meeting this morning was with Dane, Jimmy Hansen.

World Road Championships 2011 – Day 3; Mens’ TT

'Time trials are boring!' say the road men. But run it through the middle of one of Europe's great cities, with the best 'chrono men' on the planet jousting for a rainbow jersey through dense crowds and it's far from boring - spectacular! We got to the World Road Championships 2011 course early to see what we could see.

World Road Championships 2011 – Day 2

World Road Championships 2011 and it was wearing on for midnight when we pulled in to the truck stop in the north of The Netherlands; hundreds of artics lined up, many with refrigeration units chugging away on the cab roofs - how do the drivers sleep? You have to think it would be more environmentally friendly to haul all that freight by train? Anyway, 'Green Ed' what a thought that is.

World Road Championships 2011 – Day 1

Food poisoning; it's no fun. Vik and I were meant to fly to the Beauvais last Wednesday, take in the Championship of Flanders, the GP Isbergues, a handful of kermises then meet up with Hamish Haynes, Dan Patten, James Spragg - 'our boys,' no chance. I was so weak I couldn't leave the house - on a positive note, my North Face jacket fits me again.

At Random

Peter Murphy – the Kingsnorth Wheelers; Belgian Kermis Kings

The World Tour, the pinnacle; but unless you're a super talent nurtured from your junior years a la Taylor Phinney or Bradley Wiggins, how do you take the first step up the mountain where only the Super Teams can breathe the rarefied air? Well, you could do a lot worse that speak to a certain Peter Murphy - Jack Bauer did and the rest is history. Peter is one of the men behind Kingsnorth Wheelers - the Flandrian team with the English name.

Curtain Raiser: TdF Stage 13 (break or bunchie?)

TdF Stage 13...The big question of the day: will it be a sprint or a break? The Tour has now fallen deep into the second half of the race and the real show to sort out who will finish where in the general classification starts today as we hit the high mountains of the Pyrenees.

The Clutha Vaults Tragedy

It's easy to sigh and shake your head when you read or hear that a drone has yet again 'zapped' the wrong target out there in the Middle East - and easy to carry on with your day. But when it's on your door step, in a place you love, it's altogether different. I heard on the radio, early on the Saturday morning that a helicopter had crashed on to a pub in Glasgow at 10:30 pm on Friday but didn't catch the name of the bar. 'That's horrible' I thought to myself and carried on editing our Yuriy Metlushenko interview.

Scottish National 25 mile Time Trial Championship 2012

On a grey, damp but mild and fast Sunday morning on the roads around Blairdrummond near Stirling, Dooleys' Ian Grant added the '25' title to the '50' with a fine 52:26; besting Sandy Wallace's Silas Goldsworthy - whose fight back over the closing miles hauled back a 17 second deficit on Grant down to six at the line. Last year's '50' champion Alan Thomson, took another medal for Sandy Wallace with bronze in 53:09. The event was not without controversy, however.

La Vuelta a España, Stage 16: Shooting the Breeze in Gijón

Santander airport, the queues are horrible and we'll have another one for the Stansted to Prestwick flight, no doubt. After yesterday's grim weather we're bathed in beautiful sunshine today. The stage start was in Gijón so we rattled up from Cangas de Onis for our last look at the 2010 Vuelta.

Jörg Jaksche – “I decided to tell the whole story, I can look at myself in the mirror”; Interview Part II

As a man who’s incurred the wrath of the UCI and the professional teams for ‘fessing up,’ and is in London this weekend to take part in the "Change cycling Now" meeting, we thought that it would be interesting to get Jörg Jaksche's views on the current situation. If you read the first interview, you’ll remember that at the end of 2010 he was living in Austria, still without a team and wondering about his future – two years later, here’s what he told us...