The Jersey Project by Bill Humphreys and Jerry Dunn
The cycling jersey has changed so much over the years. From a simple piece of clothing made out of wool, today’s jerseys deploy modern fabrics, reflect corporate sponsors and are cut to suit a racer bent low on the bike. This book traces the evolution of cycling jerseys, cataloguing all the changes via a series of photos.
That’s the prize list for yesterday’s Flèche Wallonne race with a first prize of €16,000 for the men’s race and just €1,128 for the women’s race.
It’s one of the most prestigious one day races on the calendar but many might see the cash prize as rather small. For comparison, last Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race offered €16,000, a sum similar to the prize for making the semi-finals of the Dutch Open tennis tournament, in other words coming fourth in a modest tennis tournament.Win the golf tournament in the Netherlands and you pocket €300,000.
But the value of a bike race probably isn’t reflected in the prize list. Instead there are other ways of judging the value of a win.
Joaquim Rodriguez attacks on the Mur de Huy with 350m to go. Normally riders sprint when they are this close to the finish line. But this isn’t a normal finish and Rodriguez put in a powerful attack to go clear. This was the moment the race was won.
It might be a midweek race but the Flèche Wallonne is big classic thanks its history and its finish. The race heads across the Belgian Ardennes before the finish on the vicious Mur de Huy with a gradient that can reach 26%.
This is the confession of Dennis Galimzyanov. In this handwritten letter dated today the rider admits to his team that he took banned substances and waives his right to the B-sample being tested. He states that he acted alone, even using capital letters to help emphasise nobody from the Katusha team was involved.
The Giro del Trentino starts today. A four day stage race, it is the opening Alpine race of the year and good contest in its own right. But it is a crucial test ahead of the Giro d’Italia. This year’s edition also features some wild climbing. Here’s a quick look.
Katusha’s Denis Galimzyanov has been provisionally suspended following a positive test for EPO. In a press release issued by the UCI, the Russian rider was caught in an out of competition test on 22 March.
Here’s a look at the what happens next and why his team just can’t seem to get any good news.
In March this blog looked at the award of the 2013 track world championships to Belarus, a decision taken with input from a senior UCI official with a significant financial interest in a giant construction project in the capital, Minsk. Whether coincidental or not, the awarding of the worlds served to highlight the significant conflict of interest between the UCI’s sporting interests and the business activities of Igor Makarov, the Russian oligarch behind the Katusha team who now sits at the UCI’s top table, the Management Committee.
Now it’s time to take another look because sadly the overlap between sport and business is not restricted to one case. In another example here is a tale from Turkmenistan.
A thrilling finale with tension all the way to the final metres. Philippe Gilbert has eased up and Oscar Freire has been caught. Now Jelle Vanendert and Peter Sagan sprint for the line but behind them Enrico Gasparotto of Astana starts to accelerate. The Italian tracked the leaders up the final climb and timed his sprint to perfection to surge past in the last 20 metres. This was the moment the race was won.
Giant crowds, 25 different climbs and a brewery as race sponsor, what’s not to like about the Amstel Gold Race?
That said this is a different race to the events we’ve seen in recent weeks. It is the most modern of the spring classics thanks to its relative youth as an event on the calendar but also one defined by suburban roads rather than medieval farm tracks. It also marks a change in the season where grand tour contenders compete alongside one day specialists.