The start of the season, interview with Frank Schleck, Sorensen's blog and more:

After a busy week in which we reflected more than usual about the pronounciation of the riders' names, miss Fede is back with another super-random post and is glad to announce that, finally, the 2011 cycling season has officially begun! Yayyyyy!
The first race of the year (apart from the Australian Championships) was Cancer Council Helpline Classic in Adelaide. The race ended in a sprint, which was won by the Tasmanian Matthew Goss for HTC Columbia.

2010 is over, but HTC Columbia keeps on getting great results in the sprints! Cavendish didn't have a good day, he eventually came 108th, but his teammates managed to get the Top 2 of the race anyway. Impressive, isn't it?
Talking about Cavendish, however, it must be said that Henderson crashed at the end of the race and his crash probably caused some problems also to other riders.
3rd in the sprint was Robbie McEwen (hope he'll win some races this year!), while 4th was a great Elia Viviani. 5th was Chris Sutton, while 6th was a very good Davide Viganò. Imo that was the best reply he could give to a Gazzetta journalist, who some days ago wrote: 'It's amazing how Viganò can manage to ride for such good teams although he has never got good results'.

Unfortunately I can't add anything new to what has already been said about the race, since I couldn't see it because of the time zone. Anyway, here you have some random randomness collected by me this afternoon.

INTERVIEW WITH FRANK SCHLECK:
http://www.tageblatt.lu/sport/radsport/story/21130532 : First of all, as you probably know, team Leopard Trek is having a training camp in Mallorca in these days. Photos are available almost everywhere and on the link above you can find some nice ones.

A Luxembourgian newspaper, Tageblatt (check link above again), is giving a lot of attention to Leopard Trek's training camp and is reporting the activities of every single day of training on its website.

On http://www.tageblatt.lu/sport/story/30253999 you can also find a great interview with Frank Schleck that was done by Tageblatt's Cristophe Junker. I found it very nice, so here you have a translation of some of its parts (I had to translate it from German, so I already apology for the eventual mistakes):
'Andy and I came here in Mallorca two, three days before of the other riders and I'm very happy about this. In this way we could ride our bikes for three days. You just need to look at the weather in Luxembourg to understand that it's very complicated to train outside in this period. Moreover, in December it snowed a lot in Luxembourg, so we had to catch up a bit with training before of the training camp (...). So far the time here at the camp has passed really fast. Our days are full of training, massages, interviews, photos...'
Journalist: the team has received a lot of attention from the press. Is it because it is the n.1 team of the world? Or is it a normal thing for a new team?
Frank: I think it's a combination of these 2 factors (...). Of course the 'new team' factor has been important. Moreover, in these team there are many strong riders and this creates a lot of interest in the team. We try to present us as very open people, we also try to be always very puntual at the interviews, not like I've done with you today (grins and looks at his wristwatch, ndr)'
(...)
Journalist: In March 2010 the Italian newspaper 'Gazzetta dello Sport' reported the first rumours about the creation of a Luxembourgian team.
'I will not deny that at the time we had heard something about the possible creation of a Luxembourgian team. People talked a lot about it, but these talks weren't interesting for us.
J: Why?
'Because there was nothing of concrete behind them'.
J: When did they become concrete?
'We had lots of talks and contacts going on with other teams, because many people were interested in making us sign a contract with them. What is happening right now, at the time it was just a dream, a dream that now has come true. After the Tour of Luxembourg we received a concrete offer. We were more than happy when we accepted it. 4 days later, we went to a training camp in Switzerland and we informed Bjarne about the offer we had received. We were 100% sincere with him and we informed him as soon as we could. Bjarne couldn't make us any offer, because at the time he didn't have any sponsor for 2011.
J: When did you hear the first rumours about Alberto Contador joining Riis?
'During the Tour de France, like everyone else. However, in the small article that appeared on la Gazzetta in March 2010, not only did they report many things about Luxembourg; they also wrote that Contador would have gone to Riis' team.
J: How is the relationship between you and Bjarne nowadays?
'There isn't any problem between us. Of course Andy and I were disappointed when Riis said that we had lied to him. In the meanwhile, however, we've got over it. (...)

'I still firmly believe that Andy and I are a bit late on our preparation. We miss kilometers. In the team, I actually feel like a captain. If there is a problem, the young guys come to talk to me. People respect me and I feel very well in this situation. This also derives from the fact that I feel very well in this team. I was surprised after today's test, it was very good. Andy and I were a bit afraid of it. However, during the winter I didn't put on weight, although I didn't pay attention to it'. (not: I'm not very sure about the translation of this part, if it's wrong please let me know)
J: What are the team's goals for the first weeks of the season?
A team is already 'down under'. Will Clark, who is a neo pro, won 5 races in 6weeks last year. And to win those races, you really need to be a good rider. I've seen him riding and I'm sure he has a bright future in front of himself. At Paris-Nice, Jakob Fuglsang and I will try to have good results, but we don't want to have pressure on us. If I get a good result there, good. If I don't, it won't be a problem.
J: What about Flavio Becca?
'My father has known him for a lot of time. He had the idea of creating this team. We owe him a lot.
J: How did you come to the team's creation? Did he phone you all of a sudden to tell you that he wanted to create a team?
'Yes, it was something like that. Like his father Aldo, he had always been a great cycling fan. His passion has become bigger and bigger over the years, and now it has brought him at this point. One day he gave us his word and, since he's a 'homme de parole', he respected it. This season we want to pay him back for what he did for us by creating this team'.
(Interview by Cristophe Junker)

NEWS FROM LEOPARD TREK TEAM:
Still talking about team Leopard Trek, the other day our blogmate Leela pointed out on her blog(http://justfuglen.tumblr.com/ ) a letter that Leopard Trek has apparently sent to the people who work in the cycling media. In said letter (read it on:
http://www.cyclesportmag.com/news-and-comment/cs-blog-an-open-letter-to-leopard-trek/ ) Leopard Trek guys pointed out that:
- you should never write Team Leopard Trek, but 'Leopard Trek team';
- you should pronounce 'Leopard' as LAY-oh-pard;
- you should never write Leopard-Trek.
- you should always write Leopard Trek in caps (LEOPARD TREK).
After noticing that I've made every single possible mistake while writing the name of this team, me thinks that I won't be following any of these rules on this blog. After all, I didn't receive any mail from LeOpArD TREK, did I? ;)

CHRIS SORENSEN'S BLOG:
Let's now talk about another team, Saxo Bank Sungard. Or, better, let's talk about one of its riders, Chris Anker Sorensen. Since the beginning of the new year, in fact, Chris updated his blog twice and his first 2011 post was really good. In it Chris talked about his 2010 achievements and here you have a partial translation of of it:
(achievements of the 2010 year):
'Won a stage in the Giro (...). Helped Matti B. to get a silver medal. Rode the Tour for the second year, this time without writing a book. I had 89 days of race and rode 33000 kms. I stayed in 80 different hotels during the year and had 193 travel days'.
'Changed Luxembourg with Lucca and Moyenne with Ciao' (...)
'Speaking of Bangkok, during the year I've often been told this joke by Richie Porte. "What is the capital of Thailand?", he asks. Then he yells "Bang Kok" and hits a certain part of his body (only Richie, who is a gentleman, actually does so)'.
'I broke a collarbone in Barcelona and slid into a wall on a descent towards Como'.
'I was in New York shouting "Deefence" in Madison Square Garden. It was during a basketball match and together with thousands other people, so I didn't do it because I'm mad (...)'
'I became really good at making risotto and got a good knowledge of Italian wine. Found out that I am completely hopeless to make cappuccino after visiting the real king of cappuccinos in Monsummano Terme'.

2011 KITS:
Last link for today, here's an artice by Cyclingnews about the teams' new kits: http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-2011-team-kits . I don't agree with saying that Radioshack's kit is the best one of 2011. Actually, I find it pretty unoriginal. Talking about other teams, I really like Quick Step kit and I'm pretty keen on Katusha's new one too. On the other hand, I think Lampre's jerseys are too flashy and I don't really like Liquigas' new ones. Btw, remember one thing: the day we're all awaiting, aka the presentation of Geox (former Fuji-Servetto), is the 31st of January. Will Geox guys shock the world with their kits for the second year in a row or will they improve? Me (together with Denis Menchov and Carlos Sastre) can't wait to know the answer.

PRONOUNCIATION ISSUE:
As I could see from the waterfall of comments that followed my last post, the pronounciation issue is a topic that interest everyone of us. Perhaps we could really have pronounciation classes, and now I'll explain you how.
Mar has said that she'll kindly do voice posts about the names of Dutch riders on her blog. If you want to ask her what the correct pronounciation of some names is, write her on her Tumblr (see 'my favourite blog' list at your right) and she'll surely help you.
As far as non-Dutch names are concerned, I think we could make a list of the most complicated names to pronounce (in our opinion) and divide those names in categories, according to their nationality. Then it would be great if a person from every country could tell us if the pronounciation of those names on Google Translater is right or not. If it isn't, those people could make us a big favour by posting a YouTube video in which the name of the rider is correctly pronounced. Anyone agrees?

(Pic 1 by AFP, Pic 2 by Jeff Lahr)