Yes,Fabian Cancellara proved to be the strongest man in today's Tour of Flanders.The Swiss rider attacked with about 42 kms to go,on the Molenberg,and Tom Boonen was the only one who could follow him.Team Saxo Bank had previously made a great work (together with Team Sky) and Cancellara and Breschel seemed 2 of the strongest riders of the peloton.Of course their main adversary was going to be Tom Boonen,whereas Devolder didn't look as strong as last year.Breschel showed his really good condition by leading the group on the walls before of Molenberg and everything seemed perfect for Saxo Bank.On the Koppenberg Breschel tried a little attack and Boonen followed him,showing he was ready to give battle to Saxo Bank riders.On that climb lots of riders had problems and decided to walk up the wall.In the previous kms there had been some crashes, one of which involved Kuschinsky (he really looked in pain) and Knaven (he fell in a pretty goofy way when he had already stopped his bike,but he didn't have any serious consequence).
With about 55 kms to go Cancellara changed his bike.Saxo Bank car braked in front of him, rather than behind him,and me got pretty worried at that.Anyway the bike change was fast and Cancellara,with a little help from O'Grady,could make his way back to the peloton with ease.
A few minutes after Cancellara's bike change,Breschel went at the back of the main group and started to move his hand in order to call the team car."He looks very nervous",a chronist noticed.And,considering what would have happened a few seconds after,Matti Breschel had all the reasons of the world to be nervous.In fact Saxo Bank's ammiraglia stopped in front of him,a man (who wasn't a mechanic) got off the car,tried to take Breschel's new bike off the car roof but-big big problem-the bike didn't want to come down.After a few long tries the man tried to give Breschel another bike,but he failed again in his attempt to pull the bike from the car roof,causing Matti to take the decision of continuing the race with his original bike.By the time Breschel got on his saddle again,me was simply, completely, terribly horrified.Do you remember when I wrote about the "Ice Age 2 opposum" feeling? Well,I had the same feeling also during today's race (read the post about Gand-Wevegelm if you don't know what I mean when I talk about the Ice Age 2 opposum).I remained in a state of horror for some minutes,screaming lots of things about bad luck,bike changes and Matti Breschel's new contract.My screams obviously became even louder when I realised that, in spite of a teammate's help,Breschel wasn't going to join Cancellara and Boonen's group anymore and that he was therefore forced to say "Farewell" to his chances of winning the 2010 edition of Ronde van Vlaanderen.What an anger.
After a few minutes of screams,me could start to follow the race in a calmer way,although Matti Breschel was now dropped.On the Molenberg,with 42 kms to go,Cancellara attacked and Boonen followed him.At the end of the climb the two riders had 18 seconds of advantage on the other riders-to continue or to stop? That was the question at that point of the race. And the answer that Fabian and Tom gave to said question was a loud "Let's continue!" that made everyone who was expecting a great race happy.
Millar,Gilbert,Leukemans,Hoogerland and other riders tried to make the time gap between them and the two riders at the front become smaller,but they didn't succeed. The time gap in fact started to become bigger and bigger very soon and,with 20 kms to go,at the beginning of the Kappelmuur,the victory fight already regarded just Cancellara and Boonen.But then,my sister (who was following the race with me and who was surprisingly sorry for Matti Breschel's problem with the bike change) said a few magic words: "If you support Cancellara,well,then I'll support Boonen.Allez Tom!" A few seconds after these words were pronounced,Cancellara attacked and Boonen got dropped.That was a really great moment: Boonen knew he had to stick up to Cancellara's wheel,but the Swiss managed to drop him anyway.What a champion.
In a few meters Cancellara managed to get an advantage of a lot of seconds on Boonen and it seemed that nothing could take the victory away from him. Although she was still thinking about Breschel, Fangirl found the energy to support the Swiss rider and to express her delight with a lot of exclamations like "This is one of the greatest rider ever!" and so on.
Cancellara was actually so strong that he even had the time to make his own little show a few meters before of crossing the finish-line.In fact he showed a little golden angel,smiled to the cameras,called Uncle Bjarne and shook his hand and,in the end,he even grabbed a Swiss flag and started to move it over his head while crossing the finish-line.
Tom Boonen eventually came 2nd with a delay of 1'15".About one minute after him the two chasers (a great Bjorn Leukemans and Philippe Gilbert) crossed the finish-line and the last podium place went to Gilbert.Then a group of about 20 riders arrived-and between them there was also Breschel (15th).5th was a surprising Farrar,8th was Maxim Iglinskiy and 33rd was a Geraint Thomas,a very promising young rider.
And now,things aren't over yet.In fact,next week there's a race whose name is "Paris-Roubaix" and that Fabian Cancellara will try winning for the second time in his career although his adversaries (a certain Tom Boonen in primis) will give it all to prevent him from winning.While waiting for Roubaix to arrive,I can't do anything but repeat,once again,that Fabian Cancellara is a champion.Chapeau!
MATTI BRESCHEL'S MECHANICAL PROBLEM:
If you've been reading this blog for some time,you're probably aware of my great ability in starting a post with a happy amazing topic and ending it with a less pleasant theme.And,in today's post,I'll give you once again a demonstration of this skill of mine by talking about Matti Breschel's mechanical problem. In fact with the help of the information that I found on these 2 links (http://www.fyens.dk/article/1571695:Sport--Frustreret-Matti-Breschel-raser-over-cykel and http://sport.fok.nl/nieuws/378928/1/1/100/breschel-mecanicien-verknoeide-het-voor-me.html) and with the help of my Online Translater,I managed to understand what actually happened to Breschel during today's race.
With 45 kms to go,Matti decided to have a bike change because he had problems with his brake and his saddle.At that time Fabian had already had bike problems and the mechanic who had helped Cancellara wasn't in the team car that was following Breschel.Therefore,when the team car stopped to help him,the the man who got off the car to help Matti didn't even know where Breschel' spare bike was.After asking Breschel for information (the poor boy probably had some cold shivers running down his spine at that moment),the man tried to pull Matti's bike from the car roof.After a few long tries,he decided to give Breschel O'Grady' spare bike but he couldn't take it down the roof either.Watching what was happening,Matti decided to continue the race with his own bike,although he had already lost a lot of precious seconds."I've never experienced anything like this before",Breschel said immediately after crossing the finish-line. "They completely fucked my race up",he said."It can happen to have problems with your bike, but things like this shouldn't happen.Luckily Cancellara won,and this is good,because tonight I'm going to drink champagne and forget what happened".
Considering that Breschel is already thinking about a possible team change for next year,I believe that today's problem with his bike was a very serious accident.Luckily for the team Cancellara eventually won the race and Breschel's mechanical problem didn't get a lot of attention,but I'm sure that the Dane won't be in a very happy mood tonight.By the way,I'm confident that he will surely be in super form also during Paris-Roubaix and that therefore he'll be able to do something good also there.
So,that's all for now-Chapeau to Cancellara for his amazing victory and good luck to Matti for his next race (he really needs it!).Allez Saxo Bank!
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento