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! ;)
Indeed, Smiley Riis is scary--and it is very scary to wonder what he plots to do next year to make him smile even more.
RispondiEliminahey Fede! I choose Marcel Kittel as sprinter of the year over Cav. 17 wins in his first season! Agree with you on Rolland for best young rider!
RispondiEliminaHappy New Year Fede!
RispondiEliminaI'm sorry for disappearing lately. First there was something wrong with the internet access in my building, there hasn't been any for over three weeks and then I got a new job as the make-up artist at a local TV station. It's way more work than my old job at the spa because I don't have the spare time in between two clients anymore, but more dynamic and fun and pays better and I'm not complaining. :D
Enough about me. Happy late birthday to the blog! It was one of my fist discoveries as I got warmed up to cycling. I enjoy your sense of humor, sharing opinions with the amazing people, and I really hope that you continue for the years to come.
I again wish you, the cycling world and everyone else a happy New Year!
@ Sansen: Smiley Riis is probably plotting to win the Tour against Bruyneel and the North Classics against Cancellara - I think there's a kind of cold war between him and team RaNT :P
RispondiEliminaTalking about Smiley Riis, I'm sorry that Menchov didn't end up racing for Saxo Bank. Smiley Menchov and Smiley Riis - it would have been a superb couple, wouldn't it?
@ Leela: You're completely right about Kittel, he was simply astonishing last year! Also Guardini won many races, just like Sagan - these young guns are incredible!
Rolland's Tour de France was exceptional and hopefully he'll get some good results also this year. His ds has recently said that he's as good as Andy Schleck, but I think we still have to wait a bit before we can say something like that!
@ Cristin: Happy New Year to you and to your little princess too, my dear!
I've spent the last few months appearing and disappearing from my own blog too, so there's no need to apologies or to feel sorry :)
Make-up artist at the local tv station, it efinitely sounds fun and interesting! Well done my dear :)
I think that the best thing about our cycling blogs/tumblrs (and here I'm referring to the tumblrs/blogs we all know and read) is the fun that we have all together. We're people who share a passion and who also share witty jokes, news, feelings and ideas. Blogging wouldn't be so nice without you readers, so I should be the one to thank you all <3 Let's cheer to a happy year, then, and to some other long years of blogging!