What’s the secret of Team Sky’s success? One element is money as the squad has one of the highest budgets in the sport.
Sky are the only major pro team to publish their accounts and the latest set have just been filed. So here’s a look at the numbers from the headline budget down items like the spend on travel, rider transfers and equipment.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda
There’s been a lot of post-worlds chat, especially the Spanish tactics and the British vanishing act. It’s part of the fun to review the race but the Worlds has attracted more talk than usual. How come? Is it national pride that makes people more passionate about the performances? Or maybe because the Worlds is just once a year? Bungle the finish in the Ronde van Vlaanderen there’s always Paris-Roubaix; mess up one day in a stage race and you can still have time to come back. No such chance with the Worlds.
Gran Theft Bici – Disc Brakes – Heulot and Goodbye – Cannondale + Tinkov? – McQuaid – Flandrien Award – Giro Mountain TT – Tiernan-Locke case
Every sponsor of this site gets a note of thanks and now it’s time to say thanks to Prendas Ciclismo who have been sponsoring during the Vuelta and the World Championships.
Four ride into Florence. Joaquim Rodriguez attacks on the final bump of the day and Vincenzo Nibali chases with Alejandro Valverde and Rui Costa following. Soon they will round the final bend and Costa will take off and to close in on Rodriguez. The acceleration is enough to isolate Valverde and close the gap to Rodriguez leaving a two man sprint. This was the moment the race was won.
There are few races when we see sprinters line up alongside classics contenders and stage race specialists all with the ambition of winning. This year’s world championships will see 42 of top-50 riders start and then the 272km course will eliminate many contenders.
Who will win? The bookmakers think Fabian Cancellara, I think Peter Sagan but it’s a very open race with a deep field and even the weather promises surprises with thunderstorms forecast for the finish.
The UCI’s Congress met today in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio to pick a President. It chose Brian Cookson by 24 votes to 18.
If attendees wanted a clue to the direction of events, they needed only to check their tourist guides as the palace was once the workplace of Niccolò Machiavelli, author of The Prince and probably the world’s greatest political schemer. However the procedure lacked finesse and with the world watching the meeting turned into a farce.
Famous as the symbol of cycling’s world champion, cycling’s rainbow jersey was first introduced in 1927 when the inaugural world championships were organised in Germany. The winner was Italian Alfredo Binda, one of the sport’s first superstars.
Only look more closely. Since when did a rainbow have a black stripe in the middle?
Four riders in search of three podium places. No, it’s not a Pirandello play, it’s the world championships and Tony Martin, Fabian Cancellara, Bradley Wiggins and Taylor Phinney are all aiming for the rainbow jersey.
It’s always a fine test but Wednesday’s race promises one of the best contests in years with several big names stating this is a major goal, all whilst a cast of outsiders are waiting to take their chance too.
Three teams in one day? Yesterday brought the news that Euskaltel-Euskadi had stopped negotiations with Formula 1 driver Fernando Alonso for the sale of the team licence and there was confirmation in Cycling Weekly that Vacansoleil-DCM was stopping and via Twitter it seems Team Sojasun have no replacement sponsor for 2014.
Cycling teams come and go but there’s something wrong with the way the sport works when decisions concerning the elite of the sport get taken only months away from the new season and so late into the end of the current one.
This Sunday sees the UCI World Championships start with the team time trial. If a team time trial isn’t new, the format is still a novelty at the worlds after it was introduced last year.
Here’s a quick explainer of what is involved, why there’s no rainbow jersey for the winners and how it’s very different from the team time trials we might see in a stage race. Plus a quick look at the contenders for Sunday in the men’s and women’s races.