Back to blogging (aka,new random post!)

To your joy,I'm back to blogging after a week of total break from writing useless things about cycling in an imperfect English on an Internet page lost in the obscure paths of the Blogosphere. The reasons of this break have been many.First of all,last week I spent a lot of time studying and giving philosophy lessons to a classmate.As a consequence of my great lessons,my classmate managed to get 6 (the lowest sufficient mark here in Italy) in her test,although me is convincted that,if she studied a bit more,she would be able to get better results.Then it was my turn to face 2 (2!!) philosophy tests in 7 days,a thing that made me go crazy and made me plan different ways of escaping from school together with my classmates in order to skip that damned test about Locke and Hobbes.Unfortunately at the end we didn't follow any of our plans and had to study a lot for the tests.Third reason of my break,the cycling news of the last week weren't too interesting and the fact that I can't follow the races on tv has a big influence on my will of blogging in those days.

Anyway,after boring you with this list of reasons that kept me away from blogging in the last 8 days,here's a little random post.Enjoy!

RACES RESUME:

Here's a little resume of what happened in the Cycledom races during the last 8 days.

Vuelta a Mallorca: The 3rd stage of the Vuelta a Mallorca was won by Linus Gerdemann,the 4th one was won by Rui Costa and the final one by André Greipel ("I had predicted that!", Logic screams).

Anyway,in these lines I'd like to highlight the performances that some of the Saxo Bank riders showed us during these stages.First of all,during the Trofeo Inca (race finally won by Gerdemann) André Steensen got an excellent 12th placement.On that day,more than 50 riders finished out of limit and lots of other athletes didn't even finish the race.Therefore,I think Saxo Bank supporters can only be happy with André's result.Also Laurent Didier impressed me on that day,since he finally came in 25th.Anders Lund was 55th with 17 minutes of delay from the stage winner and was the last SB rider to make it to the finish line in the right time.In fact Nicki Sorensen,Kasper Klostergaard and Chris Anker Sorensen crossed the finish line one after the other,out of time limit,with 33 minutes of delay from Gerdemann.Fuglsang,Porte,Jorgensen and Marycz didn't finish the race and I believe that this is understandable,if you consider that the weather on that day was really bad and that some of these riders had just had their debut in Cycledom at the time of the race.
The following day the Trofeo Deià was won by Rui Costa,who outsprinted his breakaway companion Joan Horrach.Frank Schleck was 22nd,whereas His Amazingness Jens Voigt came in 25th.Chris Sorensen was 68th,whereas Didier,Lund,Fuglsang,N.Sorensen and Marycz crossed the finish-line out of time limit.Jens Voigt won the sprinter competition.
The last Trofeo of the race,the Magaluf-Palmanova one,was won by Greipel,who outsprinted Koldo Fernandez and Cardoso.Excellent 7th was Jonas Aaen Jorgensen,whereas Voigt was 12th.Didier came in 16th,whereas Frank Schleck was the 37th rider to cross the finish-line,right in front of Steensen.53th was Chris Sorensen,whereas Klostergaard was 56th.Fuglsang was 96th.His Amazingness Jens Voigt won the Mountain and the Combination Competitions.
I must say that I've been positively impressed by the way some Saxo Bank riders raced in the Vuelta a Mallorca.To be more precise,the guys who impressed me the most were Steensen (didn't expect him to ride so strong so early in the season),Jorgensen and Didier.Voigt impressed me as well,but this isn't a big news.Porte and Marycz had some problems in the hardest stages,but I believe that this is due to the fact that they're both neo pro riders and that therefore they can just get better during the season.

Tour of Qatar: The final GC of the race was won by Wouter Mol.The third stage was won by Chicchi,who dedicated his victory to Ballerini.Chicchi also won the last stage of the race and I was very surprised by this since I knew that Chicchi was a good rider,but I didn't expect him to win stages in front of guys like Haussler,Farrar or JJ Haedo (3rd in the last stage).The 5th stage of the race was won by Boonen (someone's surprised?),who outsprinted Danilo Napolitano.

Tour of Oman: the first stage of the race was won by Jimmy Casper in front of Boasson Hagen.Pinotti made an attack,but couldn't resist at the front of the race for a lot of time.The second stage saw a good victory for Daniele Bennati (welcome back to victory!),a sprinter that I really like and that didn't win anything for almost one year.Boasson Hagen,3rd in the stage (4th was Breschel) got the leader jersey (Fangirl had a random thought about how the first 4 guys to cross the finish-line in this stage look like,and I think you can easily guess it...).
The 3rd stage was won by Boasson Hagen in front of Napolitano and Farrar (how many times has Farrar already arrived 2nd or 3rd in this season?).Excellent 5th was Stuart O'Grady.
Today's stage saw 2 surprises.First of all,the winner of the race was Leigh Howard,who got his first pro victory today and managed to outsprint guys like Bennati,Boonen and Farrar.Not bad,as a first victory,The second surprise was the fact that Boasson Hagen lost the leader jersey to Daniele Bennati,who now leads with 6 seconds of advantdge on Farrar.The big change in the GC was caused by wind splits.Anyway,according to Bennati,the riders who attacked Team Sky weren't very nice towards Edvald. “Racing is racing but perhaps it wasn't fair they attacked when Boasson Hagen stopped for a leak",he told Cyclingnews.

WTF? DU JOUR:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/ :the Gazzetta dello Sport already tries making my eyes burn by publishing pics of shirtless Pozzatolocks sunbathing in Qatar without putting any warning about it.Today,I go on Cyclingnews website and what do I see before my eyes start burning and itching? Shirtless Pozzatolocks! And his blog! Me wonders what I have done to deserve this series of surprises...