The Race to the Sun with the emphasis on the preposition “to” as a cold and wet week lies ahead for the peloton in its traverse from the capital to the Côte d’Azur. In recent years the startlist has been light on stars but has been a great race nonetheless, this time the relatively flat route of Tirreno-Adriatico has encouraged the climbers to do Paris-Nice. Here’s a look at the route and contenders.
With a lull in the racig between the GP Le Samyn and the Strade Bianche this weekend a chance to take stock of the season so far. As ever the quantity and quality of wins are not the same thing, every team manager would happily trade 50 wins for the Tour de France but the chart is a chance to take stock of where teams are at.
The image of Austrian skier Max Hauke sitting with a blood bag connected to his arm during a police raid at the cross-country skiing world championships in Seefeld, Austria was bad enough for any trypanophobes out there. But behind the sordid image came the question: what about the bio passport, how come it took the police rather than testing? Now with the reported confessions of Stefan Denifl and Georg Preidler it raises wider questions about the passport…
Seen as revenge race to correct any mistakes in the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne is perhaps the most sprint-friendly cobbled classic after the Scheldeprijs these days. Who can stop Dylan Gronewegen from a repeat win?
Zdeněk Štybar makes his move in the final approach to Ninove just after Greg Van Avermaet has closed down a big attack from Tim Wellens leaving the pair in the red. It was the final move of a busy race with attacks flying throughout the final two hours.
It’s Friday and here comes the openingsweekend. No more desert(ed) highways, the spring classics season begins with the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, for years a rival to the Tour of Flanders and now more of a partner event, a curtain-raiser to the spring classics season. Here’s a preview of the Omloop, look out for the Kuurne preview later this weekend.
When the Aqua Blue Sport team imploded last year a common response was “I didn’t know what the sponsor did” which partly explains why the Irish team’s attempts to create an online shop didn’t work out. But what of all the others, know your Androni from your Bardiani? Can you buy some Correndon, Wanty or Roompot? Is Cofidis a coffee distribution business? After looking at the sponsors of the World Tour teams, now a quick look at those in the Pro Continental ranks.
La Gazzetta Dello Sport reports that Ecopetrol could be the sponsor to replace Sky, that it could lead a collection of Colombian firms who would take over and turn Team Sky into a Colombian vehicle. It’s an oxymoronic name for a firm but as a Twitter correspondent explains it comes from Empresa COlombiana de PETROLeos or “Colombian Oil Company”.
A professor once joked that the exams for his university course always had the same questions, the difficulty for him and the students alike was that the answers kept changing. The story of the wealthy people in cycling is similar, many of same types remain, it’s just their fortunes vary. Following the team owners in Part I, now let’s look at those who own other assets in the sport…
