Time to pick five highlights from the season, typically great sporting moments and revisit the moment and review with the benefit of time and hindsight. Presented in no particular order, first is Stage 11 of the Tour de France, the day the race was turned upside down.
Jan Ullrich, The Best There Never Was by Daniel Friebe
The Tour de France dominates pro cycling, the star around which the sport orbits. Many riders make it the goal of their year, other races struggle for attention. Jan Ullrich’s career was part of this, his first win suggested he’d dominate the Tour, and with it the sport for years to come. Even when he didn’t win, there was always the seasonal targeting of the Tour with his preparation getting more intense the closer the race got.
All teams have to secure sponsorship but the smaller squads have it hard just to get meagre funding relative to their rivals, then face all the challenges of allocating what they’ve got. The B&B-KTM team and its big ambitions for the future have gone, taking with it Mark Cavendish’s plans, and others too including a women’s team that will never turn a pedal. It’s a story about one small team but also a structural issue for pro cycling.
Having picked ten riders to follow in the season for different reasons, it’s time to review how they got on.
Davide Rebellin died on Wednesday, days after retiring as a professional cyclist at the age of 51. His career was so long it spanned the steel, aluminium and carbon ages of bikes, during which time he won over sixty races. He claimed he must have ridden a million kilometres and once said “the bike taught me how to live“, with both highs and lows along the way.
Having tipped ten neo-pros to watch for 2022, time to look back and see how they fared.
Not long ago you’d look for a top-10 here or a best young rider prize there as proof of a promising debut. These days neo-pros are winning races as teenagers, making the podium in a grand tour and finishing in the top-10 on the UCI rankings but they’re still exceptions, but they certainly grab our attention.
What’s in a title? “My Way” wouldn’t be original but it could be deserved. Dan Martin said no to British Cycling and even changed nationality to forge his own path, reinventing himself several times along the way to win two monuments and stages in all three grand tours. He’s had an interesting column over the years with Pro Cycling magazine and recent media appearances, like The Cycling Podcast, are always worth listening. So a whole book is promising…
News isn’t exactly coming thick and fast at the moment but there are some issues to explore. The fate of the B&B team hangs in the balance this week and with it, the team Mark Cavendish will ride for in 2023. Today is one of the deadlines cited by team manager Jérôme Pineau for a sponsor to say yes or no.
Having looked at the WorldTeam victory rankings last week, now to look at pro cycling’s confusingly labelled second tier of teams, the ProTeams*.
Henri Anglade has died aged 89. A champion with a quick turn of phrase, Anglade wore the yellow jersey but never won the Tour de France. Many said he should have won in 1959, except for Anglade who, often too honest for his own good, replied Federico Bahamontes was simply better. The next year Anglade had another good chance only for more rivalries to get in his way.
