There’s news that the trial of Alexandr Vinokourov and Alexandr Kolobnev over the alleged sale of the win Liège-Bastogne-Liège is going ahead next March. This is an old story or rather a slow story that has yet to reach a conclusion but brings some intriguing angles from how the law will deal with race tactics; to helping us explore how much a race is actually worth rather than the prize list and more.
Having picked five highlights of the year, a scan of some of this year’s lowlights. In no particular order here are a few boos, hisses, gripes and cock-ups…
A collection of Froome and Sky loose ends. First one of this week’s blog topics was going to be how Team Sky could be coming to an end. No, not for the reasons in the news, instead down to corporate activity far away on Wall Street. Disney has announced it is buying 21st Century Fox, the company which ultimately owns Sky. You might have seen the 21st Century Fox logo on the Sky kit. It seems probable the Sky brand lives on, the threat to the team comes from the Murdoch family,nif James Murdoch goes and does something else. He’s been the pro team’s biggest backer and without him the new owners may decided enough is enough… or current management think their sponsorship has had a good run, time to try something less accident-prone.
The UCI has announced that Chris Froome has given an Adverse Analytical Finding for Salbutamol following a test during the Vuelta a España. The announcement alone is curious given two newspapers seem got a scoop to have got hold of the story but add in that it’s Froome, that he could be stripped of the Vuelta title, serve a ban and that the substance in question has particular rules make this a complex topic and Twitter today has seen more speculation than a Bitcoin chatroom. Let’s try to explore the matter at hand…
The Giro’s recent route announcement confirmed the race is returning to Rome, a publicity coup for the mayor Virginia Raggi (pictured). It’s often seemed odd having a national tour that doesn’t visit the nation’s capital, more so given Rome cityscape can provide stunning images. But the ensuing story of the route wasn’t about Rome. As well as the route being presented – more of which soon – one snafu was the use of race graphics mentioning “West Jerusalem” as the start location only for the Israeli government to threaten to pull the funding if this wasn’t promptly changed to “Jerusalem”. And lo it was.
This small spat highlights the ongoing sensitivity over the territorial disputes between Israelis and Palestinians. There are plenty of other places to discuss this and the point is that the Giro’s start is so controversial this blanked out thoughts of the racing on the opening days with more focus on the labels and their political sensitivity than the actual roads.
The last of the five picks is the final stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné, a 115km sprint across several Alpine passes. These short stages are like dessert as they’re best served after other courses have been consumed and this came after a week of good racing and set things up nicely for the Tour de France… possibly too well.
Which stage of the Tour de France to pick? As the dominant event on the calendar it attracts the best riders at the top of their game but this alone doesn’t ensure good racing. What helped was the second weekend of racing as the race reached the Jura mountains where one day of superb racing set up the next.
How was the Giro for you? With hindsight the “fight for pink” to borrow the race’s awkward strapline wasn’t vintage stuff. Tom Dumoulin was climbing so well he kept Nairo Quintana within seconds on the Blockhaus and took minutes from him in the time trials and if it wasn’t for the imbroglio over his bowels on the Umbrailpass then he would have cruised to the win. But circumstances combined to give Quintana a shot on the final mountain stage where he, Pinot and Nibali and others put Dumoulin on the spot.
Switzerland’s Emosson dam has featured sparingly in pro races, more because of its location that its severity but all the more reason to explore this corner of the Alps. The Roads to Ride series here has referenced climbs all over the world but Switzerland has been skipped despite the country’s vast repertoire of stunning climbs, fine scenery and billiard-table tarmac so it’s about time to include one and hopefully more of the classics in the future.
Descent by Thomas Dekker and Thijs Zonneveld, translated by David Doherty
When Paul Kimmage’s Rough Ride was first published he was accused of “spitting in the soup”, of dirtying the very milieu he’d worked hard to join and profit from. Here Thomas Dekker does the same only by now the broth is unpalatable to begin with and if this is a new story it repeats familiar scenes whether bloodbags hanging from hotel room picture hooks or team managers asking as few questions as possible about the training methods of their riders.