I didn’t think that Cav could win the Primavera now, after today’s display in Limoges, I think that he can do pretty much anything he puts his mind to within the scope of his physical characteristics. He can win the green jersey on the Champs Elysees in Le Tour de France, Paris – Tours and the Worlds too-when the parcours suits him.
Paris – Tours and the Worlds too — when the parcours suits him.
Cav wins Stage 10, before saluting his sunglasses, or something.
That said, stage win number three was no surprise I didn’t see it myself and had to rely on Vik updates… don’t worry, I’ll spare you.
Suffice to say that Samuel Dumoulin may be creeping up to challenge Davide Moncoutie’s status as ‘Vik’s least fave coureur.’
This one’s for Viktor – Samuel Dumoulin.
It’s 9:30 pm and I haven’t done my Pez interview for the day, yet. Tonight is Scott McGrory — ex-Olympic champ and six day star, who now works for the Australian Fox TV sports channel.
Dave and I bumped into him at the Giro and I thought his would be a good view to get as le Tour approaches half way.
Scott McGrory interviews the great Eddy Merckx for Fox TV.
The trouble is, on the Tour normal time frames don’t exist —you do what has to be done, when you need to do it and often end up scraping about for restaurants at ‘dark o’clock.’
It was like that for Scott tonight he had just sat down to dinner at 10:00 CET I have to phone at 11:00 CET — being an 05:30 alarm man, that’s getting late for me.
There was more colour in the Guardian again today, and gossip that Lance will ride next year’s Tour before coming back with team Nike/Livestrong/Trek/SRAM to win in 2011 as DS if he’s not too busy with running Texas by then, that is.
Meanwhile, the gossip from the other side of the Astana Gorge is that Bert is headed for a new outfit in 2010 — Banco Santander (so, that’s where all our dosh went!).
This is surprising news I thought Contador would be with Johan and Lance until it was time to ride his farewell criterium circus around Spain, in about eight years time.
And Nocentini rolls on, serenely, in yellow — respect, Rinaldo.
Nocentini just keeps his head down and lets Astana do the talking.
But Big Brad missed a split and dropped 15 seconds to go seventh, I’m intrigued to see how the big chap will do in the Alps.
Brad must be hoping to stay in touch with the capo’s in the Alps and do something in the Time Trial on?
OK, gotta bell that man en France, au demain!
Tour 09 Stage 10 Map.
Tour 09 Stage 10 Profile.
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Al Hamilton
“Calma tensa” are the headlines above a nice picture of Tour leader Rinaldo Nocentini enjoying his day off with a “capuccino” outside a traditional café in Limoges.
On the same page is a photo of Contador and Armstrong out riding – and again Lance wears his own kit, mmm so I wonder what that tells you of team solidarity?
AS reports that Bert and La are okay with each other.
The talk is of Hollywood and the films that could come out of the Tour. Matt Damon would be the star to play the life of Armstrong and Contador would be Tobey McGuire, well, whatever!
Alberto Contador held a press conference yesterday and said (again) that he has no problem with Armstrong, they all travel in the bus together etc.
Alberto said “I can’t win the Tour solo, I need a team”. Where will the race be decided? Contador – “in the Alps and on Friday to Colmar, also Sunday in Verbier and the day of the Grand Bornard and La Colombiére. The time trial to Annécy and the Mont Ventoux are the keys”. Who are your rivals? “Andy Schleck and Evans, and Sastre has great experience”.
Alonso and Contador hooking up?
On the Formula 1 page there was a photo of Fernando Alonso out on his Colnago with Carlos Sastre and speculation that his present sponsor Banco Santander would be having a ProTour team built around Alberto Contador.
No-one is confirming or denying the rumour, but it is not just a plan but a project in motion, said manager Luis Garcia-Abad. The boss of the bank, Emilio Botin is said to have a good relationship with the bike champion.
Friday’s stage to Colmar seems to be everyone favourite for action. “Va a ser un dia peligroso” confirmed Evans that it will be a dangerous day. Andy Schleck says “nothing has been decided” so he will be looking for action as will Sastre, who has not given up, but said it will be difficult for him to win this Tour.
So a stage without radios has not gone down very well, riders’ president Jens Voigt has suggested a day without helmets or brake cables! The organisers of La Vuelta a Esapña have said there will not be any experiment on their race…
Ed and Martin, our top team! They try to do the local Time Trials, the Grand Tours and the Classics together to get the great stories written, the quality photos taken, the driving done and the wifi wrestled with.
Peter Sagan’s quote of the day? “What is pressure?” As team mate Marcus Burghardt said; “he was such power in his head and that’s what makes the difference.” Despite pulling his foot in the sprint at the top of that nasty finish climb he was just too quick for everyone...
Time trials are always difficult days at races. Firstly, the riders line up knowing their final position in the race depends on their forthcoming hour of solo work, and secondly, the logistics for the staff are super complex here at the TdF Stage 19.
Bonjour! Sorry I haven't drawn a line under my sojourn in France sooner, but the last few days have been a tad hectic getting back into the groove. Here are a few pictures taken on my last day...
We left Fougères this morning and Martin summed it up best; ‘normally you’d have expected Cav to be all but unbeatable in those circumstances.’ I felt the same, especially with Tony Martin winning the chrono, QuickStep morale being sky high and Cav being desperate to make amends after his brush with Veelers the other day.
I walked in to the press room this morning and one of the guys from French radio told me that Ulrich and Sevilla were gone - sent home by T-Mobile due to their involvement in Operacion Puerto, the Spanish drugs bust. Le Tour de France 2006.
Forget stories of barbed wire fences; that’s not what did the damage to our favourite Tour rider, Jack Bauer’s face. We know what really happened on stage 19 but gave our word to Jack that we’d keep schtum – suffice to say that it was a sore one and not his fault.
We spoke to Peter Doyle recently, the man from Wicklow who won just about everything there was to win at home, the Shay Elliott Memorial, the National Championship, the Tour of Ireland, the Rás and a raft of other single day and stage races.
It's always good to wake up at 05:50 to an ear-nipping message on the BlackBerry - but that's life, I'm in Paradise for the Beacon Cycling Festival but life goes on back in the 'real world.' Where, I've just been made aware, all of the airports are closed due to the hazard of ash from the volcanic eruption in Iceland - they're hiring at Burger King down town Port of Spain and I have my application in.
Pat McQuaid, former UCI President; people forget that before he moved into cycling ‘politics’ he was a good bike rider. We thought it was time someone gave him a break, stopped asking about Lance and Hein and took him back to those days when he was pushing the pedals rather than a pen…
Scotland doesn't get too many World Cycling Champions-so when John Paul won the World Junior Sprint Championship, it was something special. 'Juniors?' I hear you say... The team pursuit in the Junior Worlds was won by Australia in a time of 4:02 and the man Paul beat in the sprint semis, Max Niederlag of Germany did 9.899 in qualifying. Those are seriously quick times.
Rotterdam Six Day 2011 - it's approaching midnight, we're in the camper, headed north out of Holland to Bremen in Germany on a pan flat, black motorway. Kris is headed for the Six Days of Bremen to work with Franco Marvulli (fingers crossed that he's well) and Jens-Erik Madsen.
When we heard on Sunday that our blogger Ian Field had won the British Cyclo-Cross Championship on a dry and sunny day in Suffolk, we wanted to celebrate that win with a chat.
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