Road cycling. We think about cycling all the time but when was the last time you ever considered the road? It is just there. Perhaps you know where the rough sections appear on your riding routes, but what makes one road smooth and another rough? What makes a road?
We’ve had plenty of courtroom reports from Alberto Contador and Jeannie Longo. Riccardo Ricco got a criminal record and a prison sentence. Operation Puerto is being reheated too. All in one week and it’s not yet Friday.
Don’t forget the tale of a breakaway league where some of the big teams in the sport are thinking of setting up on a new version of pro cycling. But it goes without saying the sport is about a lot more than lawyers and bankers. There’s no better example than the Tour of Rwanda.
The British Olympic Association (BOA) is locked in a fight with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). I wanted to cover this story earlier in the week but there’s been too much other news to fit it in.
In case you’ve missed it, the BOA has a rule saying anyone banned for doping forfeits the right to represent Great Britain in the Olympic Games. But WADA say the ban for a doping offence is two years and that the BOA, in adding an effective life ban, goes beyond this. Consequently WADA has declared Britain a “non-compliant nation”. An embarrassment given the country is set to host the Olympics in 2012.
The risk though is that in seeking to punish British dopers WADA and international efforts to tackle doping are underminded .
Going on the leaked plans received by cyclingnews.com it seems the mooted breakaway league is struggling to get an advantage. As you probably know, anyone can launch an attack, the hard part is making a breakaway last. It’s the same in business, launching a venture is easy but making it work is the hard part.
On Monday the UCI announced several teams had obtained Pro Tour licences for 2012, meaning they will be in the top division of cycling for the coming year. The full list and the press release is on the UCI website.
If there was plenty of satisfaction from the teams named, two squads were left looking less pleased:
The decisions concerning the GreenEDGE Cycling and RadioShack-Nissan teams will be announced later – the Commission is currently waiting for the teams to provide additional documents.
Jeannie Longo has been acquitted of doping by the Fédération Française de Cyclisme (FFC). Her case relates to three missed out of competition doping controls which you might know by now equates to a doping violation.
Several people have been asking how missing three tests means an athlete can escape a ban. Here’s the explanation…
French team FDJ will rejoin the UCI ProTour in 2012. The team received confirmation from the UCI via email this afternoon and the official announcement is expected tomorrow. It matters for a team that has ambitions to grow and to nurture French talent.
Last Friday I put the questions from the IG Markets Pro Cycling pub quiz online and I think everyone found them hard. When IG Markets hosted the quiz Cycle Sport magazine won with 79 points from 112 but that was a very impressive haul. Here are the answers.
Oh Noah
Polls in France regular say Yannick Noah is “the most popular Frenchman”. An odd choice perhaps given the semi-retired tennis player is more famous in France for patronising rip-offs of West African music and tax evasion but he comes across as the cheerful sort, an eternal teenager enjoying life doing some good with charity work.
Go to Spain and the polling is all about the general election today. But if anyone tried asking I suspect Noah would win “most unpopular Frenchman” in Spain by some margin. He’s just managed to upset an entire nation with an article in French daily Le Monde:
IG Markets, the financial company that sponsors Team Sky also has a useful ranking system for riders, the IG Markets Pro Cycling Index.
On Wednesday IG Markets organised a quiz between several teams taken from the British world of cycle sport, media and trade and hosted it in a very British setting, a pub.
With reputations to protect and the shield above to win the competition was fierce. But the questions were even harder. Set by staff from Opta, the sports data behind the index, the people at IG Markets were kind enough to send over the questions so you can have a go.