European energy company Enovos has been a co-sponsor of the Radioshack-Nissan team, starting with Leopard-Trek last year. But it has just announced it is walking away mid-season from the cycling team, publicly dropping its connections to the team. This is very rare in cycling and sport in general.
Here’s the press release translated into English:
There’s a pause in the Olympic cycling program with the time trial not until Wednesday and then activities start in the velodrome on Thursday. Remember you can download an iCal file for your electronic diary for the dates and timing of all events.
The Olympics are very different from everything else we are used to. A rider who makes a mess of the Tour of Flanders can hope to make amends in Paris-Roubaix. Have a jours sans in the Tour de France and you can hope it’s someone else’s turn the following day. Even if things go wrong in the world’s there’s always next year. But the Olympic road race? It’s not until 2016 and the Rio race promises to be very hilly.
On the back of the Box Hill circuit there was a descent followed by a steep rise that turned into a drag. It’s the kind of road you approach with plenty of momentum from the descent but then it climbs up too much to carry speed, instead riders had to balance momentum with power.
That’s just what happened today, we saw a clever move launched by Olga Zabelinskaya, blasting past Amber Neben and Emma Pooley and the Russian was joined by Lizzie Armitstead, Shelley Olds and Marianne Vos. The four got away and this was the winning move.
With 8km go go both Rigoberto Uran and Alexander Vinokourov attacked at the same time. They came round a ninety degree bend and both jumped out of the saddle, one going on the left and the other on the right of a wide road. It looked like happy coincidence, both riders went clear and found themselves able to cooperate. But this dual effort seemed to confuse the others and gave them the chance to get a small lead and co-operate. It was the moment the race was won.
If Box Hill was supposed to make the men’s course selective yesterday, the UCI have pre-empted this with some odd rules meaning the women’s race has only 66 starters and several of these are mountain bikers and track cyclists. But if the field is reduced, the quality isn’t and we can expect a battle royale to reach the finish outside Buckingham Palace.
The ultimate one day race? If the Tour de France represents the pinnacle of world cycling and the Tour of Flanders is arguably the top one-day classic of the season, the Olympic Games road race is unique because of its rarity and international recognition.
The men’s road race is the longest event of the 2012 Olympic games across all sports, taking an estimated six hours. This matters because the course is all about the distance and time, a small climb will be used and if it is not selective once then it will end the hopes of many by the ninth time after which the race heads back to London for a superb finish on The Mall, the proud avenue in front of Buckingham Palace.
Scan the start list of the men’s road race for the Olympic Games and you’ll spot several sprinters and fast finishers. Mark Cavendish, André Greipel and Peter Sagan for example. Who is the fastest?
The answer is obvious, it’s rider number 42: Mickaël Bourgain of France. He’s four times world champion in the team sprint event. On the track.
Ok, the headline exaggerates wildly but that’s half the point of the story below. TV audiences in France fell for the Tour de France, in part because there was no big battle for the yellow jersey throughout the race. Meanwhile Bradley Wiggins’ Tour triumph is claimed to have boosted bike sales in the UK. Are both stories true?
In the Tour de France podium ceremonies Thomas Voeckler stood out. Bradley Wiggins and Peter Sagan were futuristic riders, one with scientific approach, the other with the future before him. Voeckler by contrast seems a rider from the old school, you can imagine him with goggles and a tub wrapped across his chest like the early days.
But he’s really not so old-fashioned. He’s a rider for the age of television. And everyone who knows him calls him “Francis”, a reference to a violent character from the 1990s film Trainspotting by Danny Boyle. Why? All is revealed below.
The Inner Ring will be looking to the five rings of the Olympics shortly and to start, you can now download a calendar of events for your electronic diary on a phone or computer.