2011 Cycling Awards decided by moi:

Ladies and gentlemen, 2011 is ending and all the important cycling awards have already found a winner. Still, it's time to relive some moments of this last cycling season through the usual 'Cycling Awards of the year decided by moi' post. Have fun readers!

Best performance: Deciding this year's best performance is pretty difficult, isn't it? Btw,here's my top 3: 1. Andy Schleck's victory on the Galibier: that was a true masterpiece, which brought Little Bro a great victory on a historic climb and which was achieved at the end of a very stressing Tour de France. Simply amazing.

2. Gilbert's victory in Fleche Wallonne: it's hard to pick one of Gilbert's 2011 victories and saying that it was his best one. Still I must admit that, until he won Fleche Wallonne, I didn't think Philippe could win the three Ardennes Classics in the same year. Then that victory came and I realised that yes, Philippe could make it.

3. Contador's victory on Etna: on that day Alberto rode so fast that I even thought he was a doper. Like him or not, one can't deny that Alberto is probably the greatest rider of his generation.

Best team: Just like every year, deciding the winner of the Best Team Award is very difficult. Leopard Trek got a lot of podiums and won Tour of Lombardy, Saxo Bank won the Giro d'Italia and the Tour of Flanders, BMC won Paris-Roubaix and the Tour de France, Omega-Pharma Lotto won the three Ardennes Classics. The glorious HTC team instead won Milan-Sanremo, the road race and the TT at the Worlds. Talking about the Worlds, how can we forget about Monia Baccaille's great leadout work for Giorgia Bronzini? And what about the surprising Tour de France raced by the Europcar guys? As you can see, it's hard to decide the winner of this award. Therefore, let's transform it into a 'Best Team: in memoriam' award and let's choose HTC as winner.

Best sprinter: just like last year, the best sprinter award goes to Mark Cavendish for winning the Worlds. Still, a very special mention goes to Thor Hushovd and to his amazing Tour de France - apropos, can we still consider him a sprinter after what he did in the Pyrenées?

Best TT riders: Hear ye, hear ye, this year this award goes to Toni Martin, the new World champion!

Best young rider: After what he did on Alpe d'Huez this summer, I think this award absolutely has to go to Pierre Rolland. Look out for this boy in 2012!

Most exciting moment of the year: 2011 was a very exciting year and it's hard, if not impossible, to choose just one exciting moment. I personally go for Andy Schleck's victory on Le Galibier, whereas the second place in this category goes to Bart De Clerq's victory in the Giro d'Italia. Seriously, the OPL rider almost caused me a heart attack on that day! Last but not least, I think other exciting moments were Goss' victory in Sanremo and Van Summeren's one in Roubaix.

Craziest moment of the year: Nuyens winning Tour of Flanders with Riis laughing like a mad scientist inside the team car and hugging people at random.

Most exciting Grand Tour of the year: Probably Vuelta a Espana. Unfortunately I couldn't watch it and, if I had to make a choice between Tour de France and Giro d'Italia, this year I'd go for Tour de France. Contador's strength in fact 'killed' the Corsa Rosa, whereas the Schleck-Evans battle and Voeckler's toughness made the 2011 Tour de France very exciting to watch.

Worst moment of the year: Unfortunately, this is an easy choice. Wouter Weylandt's death during the Giro is still in everyone's minds, just like Tondo's tragic loss. We miss you guys! <3

Worst cycling-related moment of the year for Fangirl: Vinokourov breaking his femur at the Tour and Johnny Hoogerland being hit by that Tour de France car.

Worst polemic of the year: I go for the Crostis polemics: after all this time, thinking about it can still break my day. Although, now that I think about it, I must admit that even Riccò's last doping case has the ability of upsetting me after all this time. And don't get me started about Geox betraying all its riders or UCI sponsoring Tour of Beijing!

Most surprising rider of the year: Thomas Voeckler, JJ Cobo and Chris Froome. Who expected the Frenchman to keep the yellow jersey after the Galibier stage? And who expected those other two guys to end up on la Vuelta's podium?

Most moving moment of the year: I pick two moments, without giving them a rank: Kiryenka's victory on Colle delle Finestre and Farrar's victory in Tour de France. So moving!

Most unlucky rider of the year: Mauricio Soler, no doubts about that. Although now he's fine, his crash during Tour de Suisse was simply shocking and it probably put an end to the career of this strong Colombian climber. Second in this classification is Matti Breschel: not only did the poor thing miss the Classics this year, but he also missed the Worlds in his home-country! The third place instead goes to Marco Pinotti and Craig Lewis, who both ended their season in May because of a terrible crash during the Macugnaga stage of the Giro. 4th instead is Johnny Hoogerland (protagonist of the famous barbed wire crash), whereas 5th are all the guys (Van Den Broeck, Gesink, Wiggins, Vinokourov) who crashed hard during the Tour.

Best race I saw live this year: The San Pellegrino stage of the Giro (apropos, shall I remind you my catastrophic encounter with Denis Menchov? :P)

Best woman of the year: Marianne Vos. Although she was second in the Worlds for the 4th (or was is the 5th?) time in a row, she simply ruled the Giro d'Italia femminile. Chapeau!

Most breathtaking Classic of the year: Oh gosh, that's a difficult choice. I go for Tour of Flanders, followed by Milan-Sanremo and Tour of Lombardy (Nibali's attack during it was great). Fourth place goes to Paris-Roubaix, whereas the 5th place goes to Fleche Wallonne and Amstel Gold Race ('Go Andy, gooooooo!').

Ok, these are my awards. Of course everyone is free to disagree and toinvent new prizes! ;)

It was three years ago today...

...miss Fede taught her blog to play / they've been going in and out of style / but they're guaranteed to raise a smile/ So may I introduce to you / the act you've known for all these years/ The Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Baaaand!

Ok dear readers, sorry for that. After all this time you've probably got to know me quite well, so you'll probably forgive me this moment of craziness. After all, this is a happy day, isn't it? I mean, it's 'My Blog''s third birthday, isn't that quite a thing? It's time to party-party-party-party girls!! Come on, let's have some (virtual) champagne and lets put on some good music (ok, perhaps 'good' isn't the best word to define David Guetta and Lady Gaga's songs, but I think you've understood what I meant...)!

Geez, three years. Oh God, has it really been so long since I started this blog? I feel old! Well, ok, perhaps 'old' is a bit exaggerated. Still, I must admit I feel 'changed'. On paper, 3 years look like a very short period of time. But in life, 3 years are a huge amount of days, some of which have been bad, some of which have been good. In the last 3 years of my life everything has changed for me, even if perhaps it doesn't really show. Even if I'm still a curly girl with a strange pair of looking glasses, even if I still love Bob Dylan, even if I still spend the whole month of July cheering on some unknown readers while eating lots of ice-cream, I've changed. And also this blog, which is a kind of 'image' of me, has changed.

My first few posts on this blog were awful and they're likely to enter the history of the Blogosphere as 'the worst written Christmas posts ever'. During that cold month of December 2008 I had reflected very carefully about the chance of creating a blog (I was afraid it would have taken me too much time to keep it updated :P), but in the end I decided to set off on this adventure. And now, three years later, I don't regret that choice at all, because that adventure has allowed me to 'meet' some amazing people who I would have never met otherwise. People with whom I don't simply share a passion, but with whom I also share part of my time, of my worries (who doesn't remember my famous Maturità rants? ;)) and of my joys. People with whom I have the chance to laugh about things that my friends would never understand and people with whom this year I've had the chance of grieving with on some very sad occasions. Cycling is a family and my blog is a little window on this amazing world, with all its amazing people and followers. 

2011 hasn't been a good year for me, nor has it been a good year for cycling. A few days before Milan-Sanremo a relative of mine passed away, two days before Flanders one of my parents had a heart attack (don't worry, now they're fine). Then, on a sunny day of May, Wouter Weylandt's life came to an end and I found myself in front of this very same computer screen, crying my eyes out, mourning the same loss as you all. The same happened a few days later, when we all mourned the loss of Xavier Tondo. In the haze of unanswered questions following these two deaths, there was one little thing that cheered me up: the way in which we, people of Cycledom, gathered together as a family in order to get through those hard moments. In those days, we showed everyone that we're a big, colourful family formed by many different people with many different backgrounds, many different problems, but just one passion: cycling.

During the last three years I've grown up, just like my blog and just like you all, my dear readers. In that quiet, cold winter evening in 2008 I was a nervous high school student who was afraid that her blog would have never been read by anyone and whose biggest problem was 'what am I going to do on  New Years' Eve now that my best friends are off to Berlin?' . Now, even if the New Year's Eve problem has remained (with a difference: this year my friends are off to Madrid :P), I'm a much more mature girl and this probably (hopefully) emerges also from my posts. Even if sometimes I write silly things (see the song above for further confirmation of this), at least in these days I don't write just about my favourite cyclist, but I write about cycling in general - and, in my opinion, that's an improvement.

Unfortunately, also as a consequence of events concerning my off-line life, me was unable to blog as much as usual this year. I had lots of great blogging projects in my mind, but I simply couldn't find the time to write them down on this web pages lost in the Blogosphere. This autumn for example I would have liked to write a few posts about some famous athletes (not just cyclists) of the past, I would have liked to write another pronounciation post, I would have liked to organise a poll about the 2011 cycling season. I would have liked to write a joyful post when Menchov signed with Katiusha (it was high time baby!) and I would have liked to write a post about the Bergamo stage of the Giro. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time for all those things. 

Hopefully next year I'll be able to offer you (and myself) more posts in comparison to this year. Luckily, the start of the new cycling season is right behind the corner and Milan-Sanremo, Tour of Flanders, Gand-Wevelgem and all the others races are ready to accompany us once again through another year, full of problems, laughs and bittersweet moments.

While waiting for 2012, therefore, let's raise a glass of (virtual) champagne to cycling, to the riders and to all the amazing people who are part of the cycling family. Thank you for this year, my dear readers, and all of the best for the upcoming one. Have a lovely evening everyone! (*turns off the computer while singing 'Happy Birthday to my blog'*) Cheers! ;)

2012 Teams, 2010 Liége and more random news:

Ok, I know. My previous post was written almost a month ago and me hasn't replied the comments of my readers for more than three weeks,  a thing for which I deeply apologise. Still, I must admit that in the last few days I have been very busy and that, perhaps, in these last few months my 'blogging motivation' isn't the same as before. However, in the last few days there have been lots of interesting news going around Cycledom and in this post I'd like to talk briefly about them.

First of all, the team RAnT training camp has started. La Gazzetta keeps on writing articles about Andy Schleck's possible participation in the 2012 Giro d'Italia, but it seems that Bruyneel and his clan don't want the Luxembourgian to waste time in Italy next May. However, cyclists usually anounce their schedules at this time of the year, so we'll have to wait just a few weeks to solve the Giro-enigma that surrounds Andy and his team.

Talking about the 'waiting' topic, in January we'll discover if Contador really did dope during the 2010 Tour or not. Personally, I don't care anymore about the TAS decision, but I just want to lave this horrible story behind. Come on, it can't take a jury more than a year to decide whether a person is guilty or not!

On to another topic, here's the final roster of the Radioshack Nissan Trek Something Else Team. We had to wait 3 months, but at least now we're ably to read it (*chorus of 'it was high time' coming from all over the world):

Jan Bakelants (Bel)
Daniele Bennati (Ita)
George Bennett (NZl)
Matthew Busche (USA)
Fabian Cancellara (Swi)
Laurent Didier (Lux)
Jakob Fuglsang (Den)
Tony Gallopin (Fra)
Linus Gerdemann (Ger)
Ben Hermans (Bel)
Chris Horner (USA)
Markel Irizar (Spa)
Ben King (USA)
Andreas Klöden (Ger)
Tiago Machado (Por)
Maxime Monfort (Bel)
Giacomo Nizzolo (Ita)
Nelson Oliveira (Por)
Yaroslav Popovych (Ukr)
Joost Posthuma (Ned)
Gregory Rast (Swi)
Thomas Rohregger (Aut)
Hayden Roulston (NZl)
Andy Schleck (Lux)
Fränk Schleck (Lux)
Jesse Sergent (NZl)
Jens Voigt (Ger)
Robert Wagner (Ger)
Oliver Zaugg (Swi)
Haimar Zubeldia (Spa)

A good team, no doubts about it, even if it'll be hard for Bruyneel to find just one GT leader for next year Tour. Horner, Fuglsang, Kloeden, los Schlecks... Who's the best? I don't know. And I don't even know who will help Cancellara during the Spring Classics, since Leopard Trek fired its few good Cobbleriders in order to get itself 2 other GT men :P Oh, and talking about Fuglsang, did you know that he's the rider who raced the most this year? Amazing Jakob!

On to another topic, Quick Step has recently unveiled its 2012 kit. I don't really like the jerseys, whereas I love the shorts, which slightly remind me Saxo Bank's ones. By the way, what's the thing with light blue this year? Leopard Trek had it in its kits, Saxo Bank had it too, and now Quick Step has chosen it as new colour for their jerseys. It's good to be original, isn't it?

Talking about good old Saxo Bank, the boys right now are in Israel, having fun at the beach, building schools, promoting peace in the Middle East and covering their bodies with a horrible-looking black substance (pictures at:  http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/photos/gallery-contador-and-saxo-bank-train-in-israel - beware, it features pics of shirtless Uncle Bjarne!!!).

Talking about another team, Rabobank has recently presented its 3 teams (the men, the women and the Continental one). The team has chosen to keep its 2011 kit, which next year will be worn by the following riders: Bauke Mollema (Ned), Bram Tankink (Ned), Coen Vermeltfoort (Ned), Dennis van Winden (Ned), Jetse Bol (Ned), Jos van Emden (Ned), Lars Boom (Ned), Laurens ten Dam (Ned), Maarten Tjallingii (Ned), Rick Flens (Ned), Robert Gesink (Ned), Stef Clement (Ned), Steven Kruijswijk (Ned), Theo Bos (Ned), Tom-Jelte Slager (Ned), Tom Leezer (Ned), Wilco Kelderman (Ned), Carlos Barredo (Spa), Graeme Brown (Aus), Grischa Niermann (Ger), Juan Manuel Garate (Spa), Luis Leon Sanchez (Spa), Maarten Wynants (Bel), Mark Renshaw (Aus), Matti Breschel (Den), Michael Matthews (Aus) and Paul Martens (Ger). Maarten Wynants couldn't attend the team presentation because of the birth of his second son, whereas Gesink became father of a baby girl a few hours ago. Congratulations to those two riders, to their families and to the little 'new entries': may they have a long, happy and serene life! :D

Talking about the 2012 Rabobank team, I'm curious to see what Kelderman will do next year. Moreover I hope that bad luck will stop haunting Breschel and Gesink and I hope that Matthews and Renshaw will get some good victories. In addition, I can't wait to see what Kruijswijk and Mollema will do during the upcoming Grand Tours - they're so talented!

Rabobank women's team instead is formed by Marianne Vos (Ned), Thalita de Jong (Ned), Roxane Knetemann (Ned), Iris Slappendel (Ned), Rebecca Talen (Ned), Annemiek van Vleuten (Ned), Monique van der Vorst (Ned), Liesbet de Vocht (Ned), Sarah Düster (Ger), Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Fra), Lauren Kitchen (Aus) and Tatiana Antosjina (Rus). A very strong team, which features Her Majesty Marianne Vos, the great Classic rider Van Vleuten, the young Ferrand-Prévot and the miracle-athlete Monique van der Vorst, who has recently recovered the use of her legs after spending more than  10 years on a wheelchair (read more about her amazing story on: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/rabobank-womens-team-signs-miracle-athlete-monique-van-der-vorst). Seriously, look out for this team next year!

Talking about another team, Geox has recently given up hope of finding a new sponsor. This means that guys like Cobo and Menchov now are officially unemployed and that the same worths for less famous guys who will surely have a tough time finding themselves a new equipe at this time of the year. So far the riders who've already managed to find a new contract are the following ones: Mauricio Ardila and Fabio Duarte (Colombia-Coldeportes), Fabio Felline (Androni Giocattoli), Matteo Pelucchi (Europcar), Daniele Ratto (Liquigas), Xavier Florencio (Katusha), Daniele Colli (Team Type 1), and Matthias Brändle (Team NetApp).  Let's hope everyone else will manage to find a decent team too!

After talking about the 2012 cycling teams (or, at least, after talking about few of them), let's now talk about 2010 Liége - Bastogne - Liége, the one that was won by Vinokourov in front of Kolobnev. Apparently, UCI thinks that Vino paid Alexander Kolobnev 100 000 euros to let him win the race and, in order to demonstrate their point, the UCI guys published parts of e-mails that the two riders wrote to each other ( http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/emails-between-vinokourov-and-kolobnev-published ). Imo these e-mails are rather creepy because of many reasons. First of all, it seems that Kolobnev almost considers Vinokourov as some kind of divinity. Moreover, Kolo seems to dislike the Belgian riders ("Even my wife was not too uneasy by the fact that I was second, because you were the first"; "My only comfort is that you won and not one of the natives"). Moreover, Vino's passage about God ("You have done everything properly, do not worry. As you say, the Earth is round and God sees everything ... So, again thank you. You, this year you will win the championship finally, I believe. Do not worry about the agreement, I will do it”) slightly reminds me of the mafia, whereas Vino's words to justify his payment reminds me a lot of mr. Berlusconi (“I often make payments left and right, sometimes I lend money, but I never offered to buy the win from Kolobnev" - Vino, would you please lend me 100 000 euros? Come on, I'm the founder of the AAVL, aren't I?). Scary, isn't it?

I remember that in the last kms of 2010 Liége Kolobnev did behave in a petty strange way and that at the time some chronists stated that he made big mistakes that cost him the victory. After reading these e-mails, I think we can understand why he made them :P

So, that's all from me for the moment. University is keeping me busy but, as I wrote in my reply to Auntie Coug's comment, I'm really having a good time in these days. So, don't worry for me if you don't see new posts coming up - it just means that I'm too busy to write. Have a good evening everyone and have a great weekend! (and sorry for this far-fetched post - I just needed to check whether I was still able to write something decent about cycling :P)