Christmas Holiday Quiz Answers

Here are the quiz answers…

1. Dressed in red and white but it’s not Santa. Name the rider pictured above and what team he’s joining in a week’s time. “Zingle bells, Zingle bells, Axel Zingle all the way, oh what fun it is to sign for Visma-LAB“… even if it doesn’t rhyme. Just as Christophe Laporte was a good signing from Cofidis, Zingle should be similar although he’s a different kind of rider, punchier uphill while Laporte you’d quickly select for a team time trial. Both share an MTB background but Zingle began as a downhill skier and is a relative newcomer to road cycling… even if he did the Tour de France last summer.

2. “Veni, veni Emmanuel” is a traditional Christmas carol. Which French team manager might be singing it in anticipation of 2025? Cédric Vasseur because out goes Zingle and he’s signed Emanuel Buchmann on a one year deal. Fourth in the Tour de France, seventh in the Giro, “Buchi” is a big signing but risky too and both sides need the deal to work. It’s part of the points race to avoid relegation next year.

3. It looks like Santa’s Elves get time off in the summer to holiday in France but who knows? Instead can you name a race with an “Elf” in the name? How about the Elfstedenrace although this gets its name as the “eleven village race” in the Netherlands rather than any of Santa’s domestiques. It’s derived from an ice-skating race which rarely takes place any more as the canals, rivers and polders don’t freeze often enough each winter.

That Was The Year That Was
4. Where did Milan-Sanremo start? Pavia, a first and while there were polite excuses about the city marathon at the same time, there seems to be more politics behind it and the race probably won’t be back in the Lombard capital too soon.

5. What happened on the stretch of road pictured above? If you want to work by elimination you can see French road markings, the D77 label from Google and a flat, straight piece of road. Still not obvious though. So here’s the road but with a picture facing in the opposite direction…

It’s notable how the Tour de France can change a location, a strip of road on the edge of a logistics park becomes a stadium for the day, a place in sports history even. Your blogger once had the idea of placing guerilla plaques by the road to mark events in cycling history but the idea was easy to think about, bothersome to do and probably mildly illegal too. Maybe a Google Map listing places where these happened is easier and will live on longer than any small metal badge?

6. Which men’s World Tour races were won by non-WorldTeam riders (one day and GC only, not every stage). The Tour Down Under, the UAE Tour, the Flèche Wallonne, Eschborn-Frankfurt and the Tour of Guangxi… all between IPT and Lotto-Dsnty which are set to rejoin the World Tour in 2026.

7. Who are the youngest and oldest riders respectively in the top-50 UCI men’s rankings for 2024? The cut-off of 50 gives us 37 year old Alexander Kristoff, the youngest is Juan Ayuso, born a few months after fellow 22 year old Arnaud De Lie. The average age in the top-50 is 28.4 years so for all the focus on young talent, “older” riders are bankable.

8. Which men’s WorldTeam did not have a single rider scoring 1,000 UCI points or more this year? Astana, their best scorer was Lorenzo Fortunato on 652 points and only four riders scored 500 or more points. This has put them in a deep hole regarding the promotion-relegation contest which will be decided at the end of 2025 but they’ve gone on a big hiring spree. Can they do it? More analysis will follow in the new year but the short answer is it’s very tough.

Embed from Getty Images

9. Mark Cavendish was knighted, becoming a “Sir” this year. Name a retired cyclist with superior rank of nobility or status. How about the Baron Edouard Merckx?

10. Name two founding managers who stepped down from running or left their teams this year? Patrick Lefevere is stepping down, but not vanishing as he’s got his regular column in Het Nieuwsblad and retains seat on the board of Soudal-Quickstep. Vincent Lavenu though was sacked from Decathlon-Ag2r La Mondiale and the issue may not be finished with litigation. For all the talk of “cycling’s broken business model” we’re seeing teams outlasting managers; but the same managers probably want more compensation and equity which can sometimes explain a few vocal complaints.

11. The Giro d’Italia had a stage start spoilt by bad weather. Name a pro race outside of Italy where racing was altered because of the weather. The O Gran Camino Race comes to mind, it’s a fun early season race but northern Spain in February is cold.

12. Which former rider and team manager died this year at the age of 99? Raphaël Geminiani. A larger-than-life character in several ways. I wanted to write an obituary but researching his career only made it harder, there are conflicting tales, exaggerations, myth and more… all part of the “Gem” story.

The Peloton’s Got Talent

13. Guillaume Martin’s last win was… a literary prize courtesy of the august Académie Française. What’s the title of his latest book? Les Gens Qui Revent or “Those Who Dream” and another semi-autobiographical novel but this time more about the manor house and farm buildings he has renovated. An author, a pro cyclist, he also describes himself as a builder. He’s switched to Groupama-FDJ. The team wanted to sign him years ago out of the amateur ranks but decided to take on others and so Martin went to Wanty.

14. Name a pro cyclist who has been national champion in another sport. Plenty of choice but Florian Lipowitz was a German school champion in biathlon. If cycling in winter didn’t mean the quagmire of cyclo-cross but snow then Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe would be impressive with Lipowitz, skimo champo Toni Palzer… and another rider apparently used to be a ski jumper.

15. Name three pro cyclists who are either medical doctors or trainees hoping to qualify. Doktor Marlen Reusser, doctoresse Elise Chabbey and Max Walscheid is close to completing his studies, using spare time during the season. He has plans to become a sports doctor. There are other examples too.

Cycling translated

16. What’s a literal translation of Poggio in English? Hill. It shares the same Latin root as podium. It’s a plain name for an extraordinary place for one afternoon every March, in cycling it is Il Poggio or The Hill.

17. What’s a literal translation of Taaienberg in English? The Tough-berg. No wonder Tom Boonen used to like doing the damage up there.

18. Which sprinter’s surname translates as “cabbage”? Charlotte Kool sounds cool but it’s pronounced like coal or kohl.

A rider’s best friend

20. What is Lotte Kopecky’s dog called? A Labrador called Olie.

21. Name one of Arnaud De Lie’s cows. De Lie’s father has a farm with a big dairy herd but he’s got four special bovines for himself,  Simone, Wachaute, Sidonie and Noisette. He’s also got a Weimar dog called Oscar. So far so bucolic but it feels like a matter of time until he swaps his tractor for a sportscar.

22. What have Tom Pidcock and Juan Ayuso got in common? They both have Dachshunds, aka sausage dogs.

Trophies

23. Which race is the trophy above from? Paris-Nice, the “Race to the Sun”, obvious when you see it but eclipsed the Tirreno-Adriatico’s giant trident. As ever the preposition “to” is doing a lot of the work because start is chilly and the mountains more than frosty.

24. Who won the Trofeo Bonacossa this year? Tadej Pogačar at the Giro. In the past if you were in doubt about a past race winner then “Eddy Merckx” usually saved the day, now “Pogačar” is a response too. Pogačar won plenty in 2024 including this elective prize which is named to celebrate the former owner of La Gazzetta Dello Sport Alberto Bonacossa. The Bonacossa still own the Giro d’Italia and lease the organisational rights to RCS.

25. Paris-Roubaix awards a cobblestone on a plinth, what accessory comes with it? An allen key.

Retired?
27. Name an ex-rider who is now running a hotel. Aleksandr Kolobnev is one, running the Syncrosfera hotel in Spain which allows guests to stay in hypoxic rooms to simulate altitude. Decades before running a hotel or bar was a regular job for ex-pros but many establishments are part of chains rather than something for an individual to take on; Giro winner Pavel Tonkov used to run the Hospedería del Atalia in Cordoba but sold out to a chain of boutique hotels.

28. Name an ex-rider who is running a wine bar. Clément Chevrier rode with Ag2r La Mondiale and was always interested in wine. He quit the sport to become a sommelier in a Michelin-starred restaurant and now co-owns a wine bar in Geneva, Switzerland.

29. Which ex-rider is making this wine called Kilomètre 0? Axel Domont and his wine is on the menu at the wine bar of his old team mate Chevier.

Business

30. What product features across Shimano’s Ultegra, Tiagra and Stradic lines? Fishing reels. Shimano makes bike components and fishing tackle. Cycling accounts for about three quarters of Shimano’s business and some product lines across both divisions share the same name like Ultegra and Tiagra.

31. Seeing races shown live from start to finish is almost the norm now. Which was the first road stage of the Tour de France to be shown live this way? Stage 19 of the 1989 Tour de France from Villard-de-Lans to Aix-les-Bains, just 125km. Short stages and live TV aren’t necessarily new and the ’89 stage was a great one with the best riders on the attack before sprinting for the win.

32. Of all the teams paying road teams for naming rights, which team has the sponsor with the biggest stockmarket capitalisation? Novo Nordisk ahead of United Healthcare. Two giant corporations… with relatively small teams. But of course states like the UAE are even bigger.

33. Are there more men or women spectators at the roadside for the Tour de France? More women apparently, 53%-47% according to Christian Prudhomme in a recent interview, a first and a sign of the Tour’s changing audience.

As Seen On Screen

34. Sponsors don’t just use pro cycling to reach customers. Can you name the team sponsor from the advert screengrab above? Lidl, the German supermarket with shelves full of lots of produce but little choice, this helps keep the costs down with fewer product lines to ship and big bargaining power for the retailer. Spending on a cycling team might seem lavish by comparison but the sport reaches just the right markets and demographics.

35. Can you name the team sponsor from the advert screengrab above? Jayco, the caravan manufacturer, the notional sponsor that’s the vehicle for benefactor Gerry Ryan’s sports spending.

36. Harder now, can you name the team sponsor from the advert screengrab above? Cofidis, you can see the yellow and red colours of the 2025 kit here and it’s from a series about preconceptions, this is about teenagers being too lazy to work, or even to be caught working. A lot of the company’s marketing is about being on the side of the “little guy” and the team fits with this.

Picture round

37. Name the cyclist from the images above. Maxim Van Gils.

38. Name the cyclist from the images above. Roger Adria. Roger Hammond was one of those Paris-Roubaix specialists. Adria Mobile is a Slovenian manufacturer of camping cars, they’ve backed a Conti team – Primož Roglič started here – and one thing you don’t get on TV is how many people show up to the Tour de France in these vehicles; or how pricey they are.

39. Name the cyclist from the images above. Pello Bilbao (sorry).

40. Name the cyclist from the images above. Aaron Gate, one of Astana’s signings and a crafty rider who they’ll need for points.