Dear VeloVeritas readers, tables have turned in Omega Pharma Lotto: we have had some success already in the season. Three wins is nice for the team at this early stage in the season - two with Phil [Gilbert, the 1st Stage of the Volta ao Algarve and the recent Montepaschi Strade Bianche] and one with André [Greipel, Stage 4 of the Volta ao Algarve]. André also bagged third in Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne last week, and so the team's moral is much better than last year at this time.
Thanks for checking out my Adam Hansen Blog - I'll be updating it with news, what I'm up to, and where I'm doing it throughout the season. First thing to tell you is that I met up my new Omega-Pharma Lotto teammates for the first time here in Australia, for the Tour Down Under.
T-Mobile, Slipstream and HTC stalwart Adam Hansen; a key cog in the 'Cavendish sprint machine,' surprised many when he decided to leave the US team and follow HTC's 'other sprinter,' Andre Greipel to Lotto. But that's not all!
Jacob Vaughan is arguably the most successful of the Rayner Clan, this year with his move to the Lotto-Soudal U23 team. A solid first year U23 in 2017 was capped with an excellent win in the Guido Reybrouck Classic. We caught up with him prior to his first big get together with the team.
It's only metres from the finish in the final stage of the 2006 Vuelta a Cuba and US rider Joe Papp has it in the bag. His wife is in the cheering crowd as he begins to raise his arms in celebration - but an instant before he crosses the line there's a yellow and red haze to his right - Slovenian Borut Božič glides past the American to take his third stage win of the race.
Back in December in our year end rant we mentioned the fact that there seemed to be one law for ‘genial Aussies’ and another for ‘dodgy Spaniards.’ What we said was: "And whilst Contador’s ‘contaminated beef’ defence was largely scorned, the mood surrounding Michael Rogers’ positive for Clenbuterol seems to be; ‘poor old Mick’ – with Matt White telling us that the UCI should sort out the Chinese meat industry."
We’re proud of our record here at VeloVeritas; we’ve interviewed every British 25 mile time trial champion since 2005. Michael Hutchinson, Jason MacIntyre (rest in peace), Joe Perrett, Matt Bottrrill, Ryan Perry - and this year is no exception with Dan Bigham (Brother NRG Wattshop) taking time to chat to us about his seventh British title of the year [adding to CTT ‘50,’ CTT Circuit TT, TTT, kilometre, individual pursuit and team pursuit] and his ambitions for the future.
I'm sitting beside the track, it's nearly 3:00 pm and last night seems like a long time ago. Gianni Meersman and Iljo Keisse are up training, they rattle past every 20 seconds - legs have to be kept loose.
When we spoke to Britain’s Joss Lowden back in July she told us about her intention of attacking the world hour record. She’d already exceeded Bussi’s 48.007 kilometres in a ‘test’ ride. She turned intent into action on the boards of the Grenchen Velodrome in Switzerland with 48.405 kilometres on 30th September, well in excess of her own ‘test’ ride distance and Bussi’s record.