Vuelta, Padania and the Leopard Trek / Radioshack affaire:

Ladies and gentlemen, miss Fede is happy to announce you that she's finally come back from her great holiday in Senigallia, a seaside town located in 'shitty Italy' - as someone called it a few days ago.

My holiday was excellent, although reading the newspapers everyday caused me to get very angry almost daily - and not just because of political / economical reasons. Anyway, let's go in order and talk about cycling.

First of all I must say that, as predictable, I won the virtual bet that I had made with my father: in fact, the tv in our little flat in Senigallia didn't broadcast the Vuelta. As a consequence, no cycling races for me in the last two weeks. However, I did manage to keep myself in touch with the cycling world thanks to 'la Gazzetta dello Sport' and, in this way, I soon realised that my Vuelta predictions were terribly wrong. In fact Antòn was dropped during the first mountain stage, whereas Rodriguez and Menchov couldn't get any good result. Nibali was the most active rider in the first 10 days of race, but then he couldn't keep the pace of Wiggins on the hardest Spanish climbs. Nevertheless, I really loved his racng style in that first week of competition. Vincenzo in fact always manages to make races become exciting and he attacks whenever he has the chance. He probably isn't the best climber out there (nor is he the best time trialist), but the boy has passion and determination. Moreover, when I watch him racing I have the feeling that he wants the race to be exciting and entertaining for the supporters - a thing that I completely approve. So, Vincenzo: don't get angry because of your final GC result because you've made us dream sweet dreams anyway ;)

Unfortunately for us Italians, Nibali wasn't the only 'azzurro' who had problems during the Spanish race: Scarponi in fact abandoned the race after a few stages ('I don't know what's going on, I feel tired', he told la Gazzetta) and Petacchi and Bennati still haven't won anything. The young Gavazzi, on the other hand, shone two days ago, when he won the Nojas stage ahead of Vandewalle.

So far, however, the riders who have had the best results in this Vuelta are Chris Froome and Juan José Cobo: in fact the Kenyan rider won a mountain stage and is now second in the GC, whereas JJ 'Buffalo' Cobo is the race leader with just two stages to go. Wiggins, instead, is 3rd: hadn't he broken his collarbone in July, I believe he would have been on the TdF podium.

Talking about other races: the Tour of Colorado saw some good victories by Viviani and Oss and an interesting breakaway by Schleck the Younger, whereas Gilbert has recently won GP Quebec. That man is a monster, no doubts about that!

Another competition who's receiving a lot of attention in these days is the so-called 'Giro di Padania', which is a stage race organised by the Northern League, an Italian right-winged party which would like to cut Italy in two parts: Padania and the South. The people who are part of this party are a bit, well, odd and they show their peculiarities even during this race: after every stage in fact the daily winner gets a 'golem' which represents a cyclist riding in front of the Cervino, whereas the second rider to cross the finish-line receives a shield which, if necessary, can become a spade (everyone would love to own one, right?); the third rider instead receives a M-shaped pyramid (no, I'm not drunk, it's written on the website of the race) with some runes on. As if this wasn't enough, the race started from the Monviso, where the son of the leader of the party, Renzo 'The Trout' Bossi, took some water from the 'Holy River Po' and put it in a little bottle. Some of you may think that the Northern League is just a little party formed by strange people who read too many medieval books, but unfortunately some Italian ministers belong to it and even make some laws. One of the most important members of the party, the above-mentioned 'Trout' (son of the party lader Umberto), had to take the Matura exam three times before being able to pass it. Nevertheless, he earns 12.000 euros pro month because he's a politician. And guess what? The money of his wage obviously derive from the taxes that we poor stupid people pay. Yes, sometimes I need to quote our beloved first Minister: Italy is a really shitty country. 

Anyway, after explaining what the Northern League is, let's go back to the Giro di Padania: given its political origin, this race has recently been sharply criticised. The Italian Cycling Federation couldn't change its name and many riders decided to take part in it because, all in all, this race offers an interesting parcours and takes place right before the Worlds. Unfortunately for these riders, in the last days they had to bear lots of insults ('Sons of b****es', 'Betrayers' and 'Bastards' were the most popular ones), they had to be careful not to ride over people laid down in the middle of the roads and  a neo pro, Sonny Colbrelli, was even punched on the eye by a 'supporter'. Unfortunately, as usual the ones who take the worst consequences of others' actions are the riders, whereas the politicians simply hide themselves in their big cars with a private chauffeur. Oh, and by the way: so far the race has seen victories by Modolo, Viviani and Basso.

Anyway. After talking about Giro di Padania and Vuelta, let's face a news that really shocked me when I first read it on la Gazzetta. Said news regards the merge between Leopard Trek and Radioshack.

Now, the few people who have been reading this blog since it was created on a cold afternoon back in 2008 may have noticed that, year after year, my attitude towards the Schleck brothers has changed. At first I was the usual Fangirl who just cares about her heroes, but then (luckily!!!) I slowly became a true cycling supporter and I soon learned to criticise even my favourite riders. As I faced these changes, my favourite cyclists grew older and, last year, they changed team. And, as some of you might have noticed it, I never really accepted this change. At first in fact I thought that everything was too secret, then the team PRs started to blow their own trumpets and in the end the ds often seemed unable to make the riders work as a team. Apparently I wasn't the only one who noticed these things, so that the owner of the team, mr. Flavio Becca, recently chose to change things in order to make things better. So, what did our man do? Simple: he had Leopard Trek merged with Team Radioshack.

Now, first question raised by this move: if Becca wanted to improve his team, why merging Leopard with Radioshack when he could have merged it with HTC Columbia? Wait a moment and you'll have a possible answer to this question.

According to la Gazzetta (also known as 'The queen of the rumours which later turn out to be oh so true'), Becca wanted the Shack and Leopard to merge because he was disappointed by the lack of good results that his team had during this season. In particular, at the end of theTdF the disappointed Becca referred to his team by saying: 'I feel like the owner of an excellent airplane with a great crew but without a commander'. Moreover, mr. B was reported to believe that Andy Schleck can't win a Grand Tour without a great ds on his team car. Therefore our man started to look for a great ds who could create a good race strategy for his little Luxembourgian jewel. And whom did he find? Johan Bruyneel, who has always liked Andy and who probably promoted 'Merge-Gate'. In fact, by merging RS and LT los Schlecks got a great ds (a cunning man like Bruyneel) and Becca got the chance of improving his team and sharing the team's costs with an important sponsor.

Unfortunately, there's a little problem in this great economical move: LT in fact has about 25 riders, whereas RS has about 9 riders. And, according to UCI, one single team can have just 28 riders plus 2 neopros pro year. This means that, halfway through September, about 6 former riders from Leopard Trek or Radioshack will find themselves without a contract - and I don't even want to talk about all the bus drivers, soigneurs and so on that will lose their jobs because of this merge (amongst the guys who were fired by LT there is also Brian Nygaard).

Talking about the riders, it is already known that nor Leipheimer nor O'Grady will join this new team (which is called 'Radioshack Nissan Trek' or something like that) because they are heading towards other teams. Apparently, the former Radioshack guys who will be racing for this new team in 2012 may be: the evergreen Chris Horner; ol' Armstrong's helper Kloeden; Janez Brajkovic; Matt Bussche; Markel Irizar; Ben King; Nelson Oliveira; Jesse Sergent; Haimar Zubeldia.

Personally, I would have avoided keeping Horner, Kloden and Brajkovic: can you imagine next year TdF team? Schleck, Schleck, Kloden, Horner, Brajkovic, Kloden, Cancellara, Zubeldia and Voigt. On paper it looks great, but who will sacrifice himself for the others?

Anyway, back to the riders' contracts. The part related to Leopard Trek former athletes looks really tragic: in fact Bruno Pires, Thomas Rohregger and Martin Pedersen are likely to be fired because they all signed a one-year contract. Other riders, instead, found out about the merge just thanks to the media. Amongst those guys there are strong riders like Brice Feillu, Tom Stamsnijder, Joost Posthuma and Jakob Fuglsang. In particular, la Gazzetta claims that the Danish rider may leave Leopard next year. In my opinion, if this happened, it would be a shame: Jakob in fact is one of the best young riders out there, so I think that giving a contract to Horner and not to him would be a very stupid move.

Still talking about Leopard former riders, it is said that even Cancellara might leave los Schlecks. In this way, the Leopards who would end up racing for RNT would be: Daniele Bennati, William Clarke, Stefan Denifl, Linus Gerdemann, Dominik Klemme, Anders Lund, Maxime Monfort, Giacomo Nizzolo, Andy Schleck, Frank Schleck, Davide Viganò, Robert Wagner, Fabian Wegmann, Oliver Zaugg and Jens Voigt. That would leave 3 free spots for some new riders. Given that this summer RS already signed Galoppin, Kruopis and Meersman, and that LT signed Rast and Hermans, now I really wonder who amongst these 5 riders will see his new contract disappear all of a sudden.

As you can understand, this new super team already seems to have lots of problems. Moreover, as if this wasn't enough, I'll add another problem myself. And that problem is: all the team's sponsors are American. Therefore, I think I can already say 'farewell' to the chance of seeing the Schleck brothers racing the Giro or la Vuelta next year. And talking about the Schleck brothers: they often talk about values like friendship and loyalty, but the way they're abandoning the people who last year believed in their new team project (and risked their career because of that) really lets me down. Kim Andersen, Nygaard, Fuglsang, the soigneurs, even the bus driver... They all abandoned their safe jobs in order to start a new adventure, but now they've been let down. I don't know if the brothers are actually involved in this merge but, to be honest, this whole story leaves me angry. Cycling isn't about love, friendship and loyalty, it's about money and success. Too bad that people often pretend to ignore this fact and even manage to take in other people by doing so.

Luckily, there is at least one happy news to cheer us up in this strange month of September: a few days ago in fact An-Sophie De Graeve, girlfriend of the unforgettable Wouter Weylandt, gave birth to the couple's first child. The baby girl was named Alizée, measures 51 centimetres and weighs 3.6 kg . I really wish a lot of strength to her mum and I wish Alizée a long, happy and serene life: little one, your father (and every single cycling supporter on Earh) will always be with you  <3