2009 cycling awards decided by moi:

Since the current year is ending,me thinks it's time for Fangirl to make a final balance of the 2009 cycling season.After all,it's a matter of "now or never",isn't it?

So,2009 has been a good year for Schleck supporters.12 months ago I wrote a very Fangirlistic post about my dreams for the 2009 cyclistic season and some of them became true.For example,Andy Schleck won the Liége and arrived on the Tour podium.Frank didn't arrive on the podium because of a damned TTT,but he won the Grand Bornard stage.And then Andy won the Luxembourgish RR Championship,the white jersey at the TdF and a stage at the Tour of Luxembourg,while Frank won a stage at the Tour of California,a stage and the overall classification at the Tour of Lux and the already mentioned Grand Bornard stage at the Tour. Considering all these victories,I think that the tifosi of the 2 brothers can be fully satisfacted with the 2009 season.Ok,the Schleck brothers also made us worry a lot sometimes (just think about Frank's crash in the Amstel or Andy's recent crash with a car while out training),but they've also allowed us to live a very good cyclistic season this year.So,I must say a big "thank you" to the Schleck brothers because of all the emotions they gave me during this year.

Of course the Schleck brothers weren't the only riders who gave me emotions during this year. For example,this year I supported Chris Anker Sorensen (this actually isn't a great news,since I've been supporting him since 2007),I felt terribly happy when Nicki Sorensen and Sylvester Szmyd won some races,felt extremely relieved when Menchov won the Giro and I've also felt terribly disappointed when Kreuziger lost the Avila stage of the Vuelta,when Gesink crashed in the Vuelta and in the Tour and also when Kenny Van Hummel had to retire from the Tour.

Unfortunately this year there have been also some bad moments not connected with losing races or seeing some riders crash.Nolf's death at the beginning of the season,Vanderbroucke's one and all the doping cases were some of the worst moments of the year,and hopefully we won't have to go through problems like this also in 2010.

Anyay,since everyone's writing things about the 2009 season,here are my "2009 season awards".The first ones are serious,while some of the last ones have been suggested by Fangirl and,consequently,are pretty stupid.Enjoy.

Best performance: The winner of this award,no doubts about it,is Andy Schleck's performance in Liége-Bastogne-Liége.Also Contador's victories at the Tour,Devolder's victory in Flanders, Guderzo's and Cancellara's victories at the Worlds and Nicki Sorensen's victory in the Tour de France have been great,but Andy's amazing ride towards Liége was simply the most perfect moment of the season,at least in my opinion.

Best Team: Team Columbia.Who else has won so many races with so many different rider this year?

Best sprinter: Cavendish.He's not the nicest guy on Earth,but he's the fastest man in the peloton.
Best TT rider: Cancellara.Take a look at what he did at the Mendrisio TT race and you'll understand why this award has to go to him.

Best young rider: Andy Schleck.Second at the Tour and winner of the Liége,no one else under the age of 25 did better.

Best helper: Sylvester Szmyd.He's always helped Basso,although the Italian rider never paid him (and his other teammates) back.And then,one of the few times he got the chance of doing what he wanted,this Polish rider won the Mont Ventoux stage at the Tour of Dauphiné Libére. Chapeau.

Most emotional moment of the year: the Grand Bornard stage.See what happened in the last km and immediately after the end of the stage and you'll understand what I mean.

Most surprising rider of the year: Heinrich Haussler.He won a great stage at the Tour and did very well at the classics.And I must confess that,until this March,I had no clue about who he was (sorry for the ignorance).

Rider to watch in 2010: I couldn't decide which rider to choose between Chris Anker Sorensen, Matti Breschel and Jakob Fuglsang,but at the end Fangirl forced me to say that the rider to watch in 2010 will be Chris Sorensen.This is due to the fact that,according to Fangirl,Chris in 2010 will win the Zoncolan stage at the Giro and arrive in the overall top 3 of the race causing great surprise and confusion ("Wasn't he called Nicki when he won that stage in France?",people will ask) in Cycledom and in Italy.

Craziest moment of the year: Everything that Menchov did in the month of May.This involves going around Venice in a gondola,attacking on the Alpe di Siusi climb,screaming under the Colosseo,falling during the last stage of the Giro and laughing in post-race interviews.

Best race I saw live this year: The Mendrisio Worlds because on that occasion I could see my favourite riders a lot of times and I could also get very near to Andy Schleck without looking mad or doing something that would have caused me to end up in a psychiatric hospital.

Best brothers du peloton: Like the dear Italian chronist Bulbarelli always reminds us,the 2 Sorensens who ride in the Saxo Bank team aren't related,therefore this award has to go to the Schleck brothers,Andy and Frank,because Fangirl wants so.

Best hair du peloton: The choice is between Thomas Lovkvist and Linus Gerdemann.But since I do know that Lovkvist's hair are perfect also after a race of 250 kms (I got the chance of observing this phenomenon in Mendrisio) and I have no clue about how Gerdemann's hair look like after such a hard proof,I guess I'll go for Lovkvist.

Most supported rider of the year: Kenny Van Hummel.The Tour streets talked clearly.

So,these were,say,the "good awards".Of course there have been also some bad moments during the season.Here are the "worst things of the season" awards:
Biggest doping disappointment of the year: Rebellin.I did not expect his positivity.He really let me down.

Worst crash of the year: It's a battle between Jens Voigt's crash in the Tour,Frank Schleck's one in the Amstel,Impey's one in the Tour of Turkey and Pedro Horrillo's one in the Giro. Considering the consequences of his crash,I'd say that Pedro Horrillo was the protagonist of the worst crash of the yer.

Most unlucky rider of the year: Poor Robert Gesink because of his crash in the Vuelta.And Serge Pauwels because of what happened to him during the Giro stage eventually won by Bertagnolli.

Worst supporters of the year: those stupid guys who booed at Garzelli after the Blockhaus stage.I just hope they felt a bit sorry for what they did when they found out about Di Luca's positivity.

So,these were my very personal 2009 awards.If some of you have other opinions,feel free to tell me.

19/12/08 - 19/12/09: My first year as a blogger (post including a long and unaccurate review of the 2009 cycling season):

Yes,exactly one year ago this blog made its appearance in the Blogosphere.Hopefully after 12 months of blogging my posts have become slightly better and,hopefully,my English skills have improved.The only thing that hasn't got better at all,by the way,is my talent for giving titles to my posts.Will I ever learn to give interesting titles to my works? I'm afraid that the answer to this question is:no,I won't.The problem actually doesn't affect just my blog posts,but also my school essays,and that's certainly much more problematic.
Anyway,I could say lots of things about the 2009 year and about my first year as a blogger.From my egoistic point of view,I can say that 2009 has been a good year-not just from the "cycling" pont of view.But since this blog is mainly focused on cycling,here's my personal review of the 2009 cycling season.

So,let’s start with January.My first month as a blogger was characterised by Saxo Bank’s training camp in Mallorca and by the Tour Down Under.As you may remember,this period was also characterised by the Lancemania spreading around the world like pestilences used to do in Europe in the Middle Ages.I first understood the gravity of the situation when I learned about the existence of the programme “Planet Armstrong” on Eurosport.That really shocked me.Anyway,the Tour Down Under made this fangirl very happy since she managed to get a lot of joy from the fact that His Amazingness Jens Voigt did better than Lance Armstrong in nearly every stage of the race.

February didn't actually start very well.In fact the Valverde doping case exploded in this month. Now,I don't want to be too pessimistic,but I predict that in January/February 2010 some bad news connected with doping will come out again.

Anyway,February finally allowed me to see the first RR of the year on tv.Said race was the Tour of California,whose first stage was greatly won by Fabian Cancellara,who also got the leader jersey after that stage.Unfortunately Fab Fab had to leave the race the day after his victory because he was ill.

Also Andy Schleck was ill in that period,therefore he couldn’t threaten Levi Leipheimer’s overall victory of the race.

The cyclistic highlight of the month however (at least for me) was Frank Schleck’s victory of the last stage of ToC.I remember that I decided to watch the race that evening because the following morning I wouldn’t have had to go to school and also because in that period I couldn’t use my new video recorder in a proper way yet.Therefore I decided to stay awake until 2 am watching the race,getting angry at the Italian chronists,reading a stupid magazine to keep me awake during the commercials and,finally,jumping around the house whispering “Frank has won,Frank has won,Frank has won!” in a very stupid way.Definitely,that was my first "Fangirl attack" of the year.
In March I survived to my sister’s anger (I had forgotten to record the Eroica,race that was won by her hero Tommy Lovkvist) and so I could watch Paris-Nice and the Tirreno-Adriatico.I remember that,since the Schleck brothers were racing in the 2 different races (Frank was in France and Andy was in Italy),I used to get confused about what race I was watching and which Schleck was racing in it every time I turned on my tv and started to change channels.

In Paris-Nice Contador had his only weak moment of the whole year and that allowed L.L.Sanchez to win the race.2nd in the final overall classification was Frank Schleck.
The Tirreno-Adriatico didn’t go very well for Sexy Bankers,since both Andy Schleck and Fabian Cancellara decided to get retired during the race.Few days after the end of the race,Frank Schleck got injured as well during a training and had to skip Milan-Sanremo,a race during which Stuart O’Grady had a very bad crash.Definitely,March wasn’t the luckiest period of the year for SB.
Talking about Milan-Sanremo,the race was won by Cavendish,while Haussler came in 2nd.That was one of the 2 Classics that I couldn't watch on tv this year.In fact on the 21st of March 2009 me was on a bus heding to Germany because of a cultural exchange that allowed me to live one of the nicest week of my life.

During the month April mister Pozzatolocks won some races and was considered one of the possible winners of the Tour of Flanders and of Paris-Roubaix.Luckily,Tour of Flanders was won by Devolder,while the Paris-Roubaix was won by mr.Tom Boonen.Gand-Wevelgem instead was won by Edvald Boasson Hagen,while Kuschinky came in 3rd and had great words for the victims of the Italian earthquake in Abruzzo.

Unfortunately for Fangirls,Spartacus didn’t get any wonderful result during the North Classics because he was still ricovering from that damn training crash that ruined the first part of his season.
The second part of April (the "interlude" here on the blog consisted in that off topic hosting my description of Bob Dylan's concert in Milan) was dedicated to the Ardenne’s Classics.

Amstel was probably the most frightening race of the year (at least for Schleck’s fangirls),since Frank had a horrible crash in it (the race was eventually won by Ivanov).

Andy’s second place in Fleche Wallone and the good news regarding Frank coming from Holland however cheered me up a bit,although I couldn’t see the Fleche because of the second part of my Cultural Exchange (in which I realised that I can't be trusted when I say "Tonight we go home early!").To be more precise,while Andy was struggling on the Huy Wall to win that race,me was sitted in Sirmione,watching a pair of ducks and some friends jumping happily in the lake water.

Luckily the day of the Liége I managed to stay home and so I could watch the race.Of course that race was a great one for this fangirl.Andy Schleck’s victory was simply amazing,I was really praying for him to win the race during the last kms of it and his victory allowed me to stay in a very happy mood for the whole week.

May of course was the Giro’s month.Me started to support Denis Menchov after his victory on Alpe di Siusi (I was really shocked by his attack that day),while sister (after that Lovkvist started to lose placements in the GC after having worn the Maglia Rosa for one day) started to support Di Luca.Of course the fights and arguments we had during the month of May were incredible and it was a bad blow to know that my sister was actually supporting a doped rider.

Btw,there were lots of nice stages in the Giro.The TTs were always very thrilling,the landscapes were often amazing (ok,I can't be impartial when I talk about some things),the post race interviews with Menchov were terribly amusing.

In May then I also had the chance of seeing 2 Giro stages live,the Bergamo one (won by Siutsou) and the Milan one (won by Cavendish).The Milan day was an amazing one,even if the riders striked and the stage didn't turn out to be terribly exciting.By the way that stage gave me the chance of seeing lots of my favourite riders live and I was completely charmed by His Amazingness Jens Voigt (and by a young Silence-Lotto’s rider,but that’s another story).

June began very well,with the Schleck brothers and Matti Breschel winning 1 stage of the Tour of Luxembourg each and Frank winning the final overall classification (during this race I also found out about the existence of the Skoda Yeti man,but that,again,is another story).
The Dauphine Libére ended up with being a very interesting race and me was incredibly happy to see Sylvester Szmyd winning the Mont Ventoux stage.

The Tour of Suisse saw Matti Breschel doing a superwork for Saxo Bank,Fab Fab winning the overall classification,Andy missing the leader jersey for few seconds,Frank getting retired before of the last TT and the Italian chronists confuse Andy Schleck,Frank Schleck and Chris-Anker Sorensen.Then,while me was on holiday and had my birthday,Andy won the Luxembourgish RR championship and Matti won the Danish one.

July involved the Tour de France and my comeback from the holidays.I was expected to stay at sea until the 10th of July,but after failing to see the first 2 stages I made up my mind about going back home,took my bike and rode towards the train station to get the first train home.After an 8 hours travel,I finally arrived home.

The opening TT of the race was won by Fab Fab,who also got the leader jersey and managed to keep it also after the terrible TTT on the 4th day of race.Between the highlights of the race in my opinion there were Haussler's,Nicki Sorensen's and also Feillu's victories.

Then of course there were the 2 stages I saw live in France (the Grand Bornard one and the Bourg-Saint-Maurice one).During the Bourg Saint Maurice stage I was on the Col du Petite Saint Bornard and I probably drove Ilaria mad (on that occasion in fact I managed to meet her,Kimberley and Marleen) when she tried to tell me about His Amazingness Jens Voigt's crash.In fact in that moment I really was under Fangirl's control and I couldn't understand what Ilaria was telling me."Voigt has fallen!",she told me on the phone."It's impossible,he rode in front of me 30 seconds ago!",I replied."But I tell you he's fallen!" "Are you sure? I've just seen him! It can't be him"."He's fallen!" "Well,probably he fell and then he got on his bike again,because I've just seen him and he was on his bike".I really must thank Ilaria for not hanging up the phone in front of my problems in understanding things in that occasion.

Of course then there was the Grand Bornard stage and I remember me hearing the chronicle of the stage on the radio,starting to scream and to show a poster of Frank to all the other car drivers on their way to Milan.And then of course there was the great moment of the TdF podium in Paris.

The most interesting August races were San Sebastian (won by Barredo),the Hamburg Classic (won by Farrar),the Trittico Lombardo (*Santambrogio!*,screams Fangirl) and,of course,the Vuelta.

September saw my comeback from 2 holidays in a row and also made me feel very worried about Frank's knee surgery.

Andy got retired from the Vuelta soon after Big Bro,while Jakob Fuglsang was the most active Saxo Banker of the race.

The Vuelta was finally won by Valverde,but me was extremely disappointed when poor Robert Gesink had his unlucky crash and also when Kreuziger lost the Avila stage to Deignan.

Of course September also meant the Mendrisio Worlds.During the Worlds week I could be extremely happy for Cantele's bronze medal in the TT race,I could be delighted by the TT elite men podium and by Pinotti's 5th place and,of course,I could also be terribly overjoyed for Guderzo's gold and for Cantele's bronze medal in the women RR.

Talking about the elite men RR,that was a great emotion,especially bcause I went to see the race live and so I was there when Evans became World Champion.On that occasion I also managed to see Andy Schleck and lots of other riders very well (although at the end I couldn't find the danish bus,which was a bit disappointing).

October was Gilbert's month,since he won Paris-Tours,Coppa Sabatini,Tour of Lombardy and another race I can't remember right now.Btw this month was nice for Fangirl especially because of Chris Anker Sorensen's victory in Japan Cup.It was high time,really,and that victory made me go round the house in a very delighted mood for almost 2 weeks (ok,I'm exaggerating).

November saw the riders chilling our in Curaçao and Frank proposing to his girlfriend Martine,while December finally saw Andy winning the Luxembourgish Sportive of the Year Award and the Saxo Bank guys facing their traditional boot camp.

So,these were some of the things that happened in 2009.If you've read the whole post,you've been incredibly patient and kind (I'm the first one to know that sometimes my posts are too long and also a bit boring).
In conclusion,I'd like to thank all the people who like this blog,who read it,who help me by giving me new links and who perhaps find my posts entertaining.I hope you liked the work I did in these 12 months and I hope to be able to write posts about other great Schleck's victories in the new year :)

NB: Yes,I know that also Frank Schleck is on Twitter now...