Sunday Shorts

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It was a close contest for the men and women. Look at the faces of the victorious Omega Pharma-Quickstep team as the picture says plenty although maybe the €100,000 prize pot had something to do with it (the women got a more modest €30,000).

In a brief “the moment the race was won” analysis, when BMC went up the Cauberg we saw gaps start to appear as Tejay van Garderen surged ahead and the others, notably Alessandro Ballan and Taylor Phinney, were in trouble and had to regroup. The extra effort, the briefest confusion and then the acceleration was probably worth more than three seconds, the margin of victory on the day.

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The Spin: Team Time Trial World Championships

Past editions, personal experience and even legends from yesteryear combine to help form your thoughts about a race. But since this is the first time we’ve had a team time trial in the world championships, at least in this format, it is going to be a new experience.

Yet for all the novelty and the 40 teams racing, this will be a race that should be decided between just a few squads.

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Rabobank’s Quiet Revolution

When a team fails to deliver results, the most common outcome sees the manager getting sacked. Yet this very rare in pro cycling as most team managers are also the owners of their team.

Not so at Rabobank. The team isn’t just sponsored by the Dutch bank, it is owned by them. The head of the team is Harold Knebel, a banker and not a cyclist (pictured above). Rabobank has total control of its sports sponsorship.

This week we got news of a management shake-up in the team. But it’s more than a shuffle of people and job titles, it’s part of a plan to make the team more professional. Indeed several teams are moving away from the old model of where the team manager hunts for sponsors, drives the team car, decides on tactics and negotiates new rider contracts.

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The Worlds Team Time Trial Explained

This Sunday sees a new event in the UCI World Championships, the team time trial. It’s new and relatively unknown and also very different from the usual team time trials we might see in a stage race.

Here’s a quick explainer of what is involved and why there’s no rainbow jersey for the winners.

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Vuelta Power Analysis – What the Watts Say

The cheerily-named French website cyclisme-dopage.com has been hosting research by engineer Frédéric Portoleau who estimates the power needed to ride with the leaders over the main mountain passes.

The estimates suggest the Vuelta saw some of the highest power-to-weight numbers of the year. Some will use this to draw conclusions but for me it’s more a tool to analyse the racing.

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Pozzato’s Farce

Che buffonata, what a farce. In two words Filippo Pozzato sums up the last three months and more.

Today saw the hearing of cyclist at the Italian National Olympic Commission (CONI) after he was charged with consulting Michele Ferrari, the infamous sports scientist. The case is both a farce and a serious issue.

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Vuelta Verdict

Vuelta Logo

Having looked at the racing and Alberto Contador’s victory yesterday, time to look at the race itself. It’s been a successful tour with big TV audiences, as you’ll see below. Were 10 summit finishes necessary? Was there a big contest for the points and mountains jersey? What can the Tour de France organisers ASO learn from this race?

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The Moment The Race Was Won: La Vuelta

Contador Fuente De

I had an angel on one shoulder, saying “don’t do this, they’re going to roll you over” and a devil in the other saying “go for it”. On this occasion, I didn’t listen to the angel. It was attack or die.

Alberto Contador attacked 55km from the finish on Stage 17 and rode on to win the stage and claimed the overall lead. If three weeks of racing are reduced to one moment, it was this audacious attack that won the 2012 Vuelta.

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The Spin: Vuelta Stage 21

The final stage of the 2012 Vuelta and like the Tour de France, this is a victory lap style procession into the national capital that’s only 115km and so only the shortest preview is needed. It’s still fast and furious on the finishing circuit but the overall result is not expected to change.

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The Spin: Vuelta Stage 20

Ahead of tomorrow’s procession into Madrid this is the last real day of racing and it’s a giant day with several big mountain passes coming before the steep climb to the highest point of the 2012 Vuelta. If there’s still any uncertainty about the winner of the race, it will all be settled later today.

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