Many riders have surnames that are also nouns with a range of meanings. I apologise if this ruins your TV viewing, those once exotic Euro names can actually prove more ordinary but here are some more of the peloton’s names translated from their home language into English.
Gregor Gazvoda (Ag2r La Mondiale) – Gregor Fizzywater
Michał Gołaś (Omega Pharma -Quickstep) – Michał Naked
Dominic Klemme (Project 1t4i ) – Dominic Clothespeg
Tiago Machado (Radioshack-Nissan) – Tiago Axe
Wouter Mol (Vacansoleil DCM) – Wouter Mole
Amir Zagari (Ag2r La Mondiale) – Amir Goldsmith
As ever sometimes the words are twisted a touch. For example goły is naked in Polish, not Gołas but the significance or derivation is the same.
What’s in a name – Part I
What’s in a name – Part II
What’s in a name – Part III
What’s in a name – Part IV
What’s in a name – Part V
What’s in a name – Part VI
What’s in a name – Part VII
Czech pink jersey from a few years back Jan Hruska – John Pear (as in the fruit.)
Some of the Basques…
Amets Txurruka (EUS) – Amets=Dream, Txurruka=Spurt of Water
Mikel Astarloza (EUS) – Michael Oats in the Rocks
Haimar Zubeldia (RNT) – Haimar Oak Plantation
Pablo Urtasun (EUS) – Paul Extremely Moist
Miguel Indurain – Michael Hillpath
Joseba Beloki – Joseph Caves
As I Polish native I can state that is it actually quite far from Gołaś to naked, only when we replace typically Polish letters in Gołaś and internationalize it into Golas, then we have a nude man
At the same time another Pole Przemysław Niemiec is simply Przemysław German
@Bob Summers, are you telling me Amets Txurruka translates roughly into Wet Dream? This couldn’t be made up.
Slightly off-topic: @Inner Ring, I’m curious what do you make of AS recent reports about Euskaltel-Euskadi abandoning it’s Basque-only policy? More importantly the team ‘s budget is reportedly going to rise to 9 million euro starting from next season, significantly higher than in the past couple of years.
Here’s the link: http://www.as.com/ciclismo/articulo/euskaltel-dejara-fundacion-podra-fichar/20120113dasdaicic_1/Tes
No cyclist has a better name than the de Vlaeminck brothers. Translated it actually says the Flandrian. Needless to say they knew every teeth of their 53t big ring in person. 🙂
You have to translate the first names as well- Jimmy Axe sounds like a hitman, possibly one employed to take out Walter Mole.
Samuel Dumoulin : Samuel Of The Mill
David Boucher : David Butcher
Jeremy Roy : Jeremy King (Old spelling of Roi)
Geoffrey Soupe : Geoffrey Soup
Hubert Dupont : Hubert Of The Bridge
Romain Lemarchand : Romain The Merchant
Nicolas Roche : Nicolas Stone
A few of the French ones.