It’s been a great season so far with plenty of lively races supplying action, sport and drama. But what makes the perfect race for viewers? There seem to be several ingredients ranging from a tight contest to a satisfactory winner.
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Dauphiné Stage 5 Preview
The stage we’ve all been waiting for. The race heads for the mountains and the Col d’Allos before the Pra Loup summit finish, a copy of Stage 17 of next month’s Tour de France. A hard day but an introduction to the mountains as Saturday stage is harder.
Giro iCal
10 days to go. Just as there’s a season-long calendar of all the major men’s and women’s races to download, here’s the stage by stage Giro ical for your phone or electronic diary ahead of this Saturday’s grande partenza in Sanremo.
The calendar file has proved surprisingly popular for each grand tour. It lists each stage along with the distance and a stellar rating. The Giro awards stars to each stage to indicate the difficulty or importance, from one to five stars for the biggest days.
The Moment The Race Was Won: Liège-Bastogne-Liège
Alejandro Valverde sprints for the line ahead of Julian Alaphilippe and Joaquim Rodriguez. The Movistar rider won the sprint after controlling the final kilometre and outwitting Katusha’s numerical superiority.
Wednesday Shorts
Mondory Update – UCI tribunal – Verbruggen on Mars – Disc brakes – Nibali to Giro? – Lost
The 1980 edition of Liège-Bastogne-Liège is infamous for the snow. Reports say half the field abandoned within the first hour, some so desperate they entered roadside houses for shelter. Bernard Hinault ploughed on to win, cementing his reputation as a hard man and ensuring the day entered the sport’s mythology. But there’s the untold tale of Rayban sunglasses…
Rider Safety
Monday’s crash in the finish of the Tour of the Basque Country was horrific, the bunch was speeding inside the final kilometre, rounded a bend into the finishing straight to find two narrow iron bollards topped with traffic cones in the way. The first riders came around the corner just tight enough to avoid trouble, behind others could not see the obstacle. Some swerved at the last minute prompting the first falls before others hit the metal poles at full speed.
Racing is dangerous enough and there are safety rules and guidelines to protect riders. Only they’re vague because it’s too hard to set down firm rules for events that exploit open roads.
New Fan Lobby Group Being Formed
Cycling fans are grouping together to form a lobby group called Association de Vélo de Route Internationale. AVRI will campaign on behalf of fans to ensure their voices are heard and stake a claim to share in the spoils of professional cycling and lobby for improvements to help fans such as better race websites and sharper TV production.
Volta a Catalunya Preview
After a mini-Tour de France and a mini-Giro in Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico, the Volta a Catalunya sees a week of stage racing but it’s not a mini-Vuelta. There’s only one summit finish and no time trialling at all.
The field is packed with stage race specialists with Alberto Contador and Chris Froome as the obvious stars yet the outcome is far from predictable. With a series of tricky stages, variable weather and the hard final stage in Barcelona the winner will need to play their tactical cards carefully. It’s live on TV all week.
The Moment The Race Was Won: Tirreno-Adriatico
Nairo Quintana rides solo on the way to the Monte Terminillo, the “fantastic four” reduced to one. This was the moment the race was won.
Chris Froome vs. Alberto Contador
Bratwurst and black forest cake. It wasn’t that long ago that riders showed up overweight and unfit for the early season races in southern Europe. Jan Ullrich got mocked for burying his face in a Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte rather than chewing the handlebars over winter. The German had plenty of company as he huffed and puffed his way around the likes of Andalucia and Murcia.
These days Chris Froome and Alberto Contador turn up lean and mean for their very first race of the season, a fierce battle that picked up from last year and promises more for the coming weeks and months.
It’s not just the story of the riders, the recent Vuelta a Andalucia included two summit finishes that would have been unheard of a decade ago, marking the evolution of early season races as they compete for attention.