Time trials on TV

time trial TV

Today sees the elite men’s time trial. A lone rider against the clock, surely you don’t get a purer athletic contest in cycling. But as impressive as the contest may be, often it makes for poor TV viewing. 95% of the time you are watching a rider pedalling like a metronome and little else. I find myself reduced to analysing different hand positions, observing if shoulders are rocking or looking at the line they take around a corner. It’s a bit like studying a painting, you have to search for the details.

TV matters. Big audiences are key to attracting sponsors and the opinions of TV producers sway the UCI. So making a time trial more appealing for TV audiences matters a great deal. Sporting purists might regret this but always remember that if you’re reading The Inner Ring, you are not an average viewer of the sport but someone who has gone out of their way to read a niche blog.

Read more

That’s what he didn’t say

A number of microphones

Mark Cavendish has signed a deal for sports agents the Wasserman Group to represent him and to mark the moment there’s been a press release to announce the deal. Here’s an excerpt:

“I’m really excited to be joining Wasserman,” said the sprint cyclist who currently rides for HTC-Highroad. “Their client list is the best in the world and being part of a company who has a history of successfully managing top athletes can only be beneficial in what is a big few years for me. It’s extremely important to have the right management behind me now to allow me to focus all of my energies into riding my bike as fast as I can.“

Only he probably never said these words. Welcome to the phenomenon known as the “attributed quote”. It’s widespread. The use of the attributed quote is systemic, a worldwide phenomenon that goes well beyond sport and into news, politics and more.

Read more

Radioshack, Nissan, Trek: pick any two

As announced earlier today, CSE Pro Cycling LLC is proud to announce that RadioShack and Nissan are joining the Leopard-Trek World Tour Team as sponsors for the 2012 and 2013 seasons. The team will hold a license in Luxembourg and be named the RadioShack Nissan Trek Professional Cycling Team.

That’s the press release from 5 September announcing the team resulting in the “merger” of the Radioshack and Leopard teams. Note the long name of Radioshack Nissan Trek, a mouthful already.

In fact it’s undigestable. It’s been pointed out that the proposed team name w0n’t fly because UCI rules only allow for two sponsor names. Here’s the relevant bit:

Read more

Who is Andrei Tchmil?

Tchmil

Last week La Gazzetta Dello Sport said Andrei Tchmil is going to run for the top job at cycling’s governing body the UCI. But where is he from, what has he done and where is he going?

Born in Khabarovsk, a town so far to the east of Russia it is within sight of China and just 1400km from Tokyo. With the iron curtain falling away, he joined the Russo-Italian Alfa Lum team and became a successful rider in the mid-1990s. His style was forceful, he often seemed to sit awkwardly on the bike but he took wins in Paris-Roubaix, Milan-Sanremo and the Tour of Flanders amongst others.

Read more

No more Muur

The finish of the 2012 Tour of Flanders will change from Meerbeke to Oudenaarde. If you’re not familiar with these places, Meerbeke isn’t famous for much whilst Oudenaarde is more at the heart of Flanders and is home the museum of the Ronde Van Vlaanderen too.

Top of the muur
See the image, hear the sound

The race itself is arguably the king of one day races thanks to a combination of distance, the climbing and emotional and knowledgeable roadside crowds. For many years the epicentre of action has been the Kapelmuur. It’s so good they named it twice as others call it the Muur van Geraardsbergen. The locals say “the Muur choses the winner” and like many sayings, this isn’t always the case but it makes sense.

But the story of the 2012 race isn’t so much the change of the finish town but the new route. Next year the race will not visit the Muur and nor the Bosberg too.

Read more

What happened next?

The Tour of Britain is riding through Wales. A fan stands by the roadside with a smartphone to record the moment and HTC-Highroad’s Bernhard Eisel rides past. Then something happens. The clip has been doing the rounds on twitter but social media can be a bit of closed loop with everyone following each other so … Read more

Rasmussen and the rules (is he free to ride?)

Rasmussen

My first thought is that Alex Rasmussen looks like a lazy idiot, he could throw away a career and a decent contract with a top team simply because he didn’t think about updating his Whereabouts. It’s annoying but it is the duty of a pro .

But as ever, there are rules and after taking a look at them, my thoughts are a bit more confused. You see, there’s a chance that Rasmussen is free to ride.

Read more

Rasmussen “terminated” by HTC-Highroad

Here’s the press release issued by the HTC-Highroad team. I don’t normally copy n’paste press releases but many were asking what is happening via twitter and so here’s the press release and some thoughts from myself tacked on below.

Read more

Longo and French bias

Jalabert + Lappartient

Yesterday Jeannie Longo’s husband Patrice Ciprelli was buried alive under newsprint allegations from L’Equipe but strictly speaking, Jeannie Longo is not named. For the time being, I’ll put that aside and want to revisit the first allegation, of three no shows for anti-doping controls. I’m concerned about favouritism.

Read more

Leopard boss Becca’s merger history

FC Dudelange

If the “merger” between Radioshack and Leopard took people by surprise, perhaps it shouldn’t be too much of a revelation. Because Leopard team boss Flavio Becca has already made a name for himself in the world of sports thanks to combining teams.

Read more

+ More