Giro di Sardegna, Rohregger and more:

23rd February 2011, 20.05. An Italian family is watching a cycling race on tv.

'Hey dad, did you hear what has recently happened to Tondo (ndr; whose name means 'circle' in Italian)?', one of the daughters asks the father. 'No, I don't', answers the father. The daughter is going to tell him the news of Tondo's tip to the Spanish police, when her young sister suddenly begins to speak: 'I know what happened to Tondo! He became Square!!'.

After reading these first lines of this post, I think you've finally understood why my mental condition is so bad: simply, it is in the family genes. However, that was just one of the little dialogues that I had with my familiars a hour ago, while we were watching Giro of Sardegna' second stage (one of said dialogues also included my sister screaming: 'Where the hell have the breakaway riders gone?' while Cunego was crossing the finish-line; in fact, in that moment she hadn't realised yet that the breakaway riders had ended their lonely adventure about 6 kms before of the finish-line).

Anyway, the most important thing about this post's beginning is that not only miss Fede's sense of humour could be even worse than it is, but the real great news is that she's finally managed to watch a cycling race on tv at a decent time of the day (allelujah!). Before of tonight in fact I had managed to watch just the first stage of TDU and a stage of Tour of Oman but unfortunately, in order to do so, I had to stay awake until 11.30 pm- not a very clever idea, if the following day you have to get up at 6.25 in order to go to the bus stop, where you'll find that disturbing, logorroic boy who stares at you during your whole journey to school.

By the way. I'm digressing again.

Talking about Giro di Sardegna, yesterday stage was won by Peter Sagan. Today stage, instead, was won by Damiano Cunego, who exulted in a great way after the finish-line. In fact, not only did he raise his arms: he even went towards a tv camera, shouted 'Evvai!' and started to shake it.
I was very happy for Damiano, because during last year Tour de France some people (*cough* journalists *cough*) were really terrible with him. Moreover, journalists had tried to eat him alive after Mendrisio Worlds. So, considering all the critics and pressure that Cunego has had to carry on his shoulder since May 2004 (and that have become even bigger over the last years), I always feel incredibly happy when he wins. When he wins, in fact, I always feel as if it's a deserved victory. I like Damiano, I can't help it.

Second in today's stage (which was very hilly and whose 7 final kms were completely uphill) was Serpa 'Zorro' Perez, whose moustache are much more stylish than Pozzato's ones. If you don't believe me, look at the pic above (by Sirotti). Third in the stage was the little Sella, José's teammate, while 4th was Peter Sagan. Unfortunately for him, Peter couldn't keep the leader jersey, which is now on Cunego's shoulders.

Amongst the riders who did a very good job today there are Hermans (the Radioshack rider was 4th), Capecchi (5th), Scarponi (who did an outstanding job for Cunego), Kiserlovski and Stortoni (Colnago riders are really brave, they always attack as soon as they can). Ballan was 15th (he was second in yesterday stage) and hopefully this means that he's back at the level that he had when he won the Varese Worlds. 25th was 40 year-old Noé, while a special mention must go to the breakaway riders du jour: Mikhail Ignatiev (who kept his knees in a very strange way while riding uphill), David Boily, Alessandro De Marchi, Elia Favilli and Alessandro Malaguti. De Marchi was the best breakawayer (?) du jour, since he abandoned the peloton after just 8 kms (18 if you consider the 10 kms between the start village and the true start of the race) and he was caught with just 6 kms to go. Therefore, chapeau to Alessandro!

RANDOM NEWS:
Talking about breakaways, you'll be happy to know that Andy Schleck was part of a breakaway during today's Ruta del Sol stage, wich was eventually won by Freire. Good to see our boy riding at the front of a race! :D
Still talking about Andy, he now has a new teammate: Thomas Rohregger, born on the 23rd December 1982, former Milram (and Pegasus) rider, winner of 2009 Tour of Austria. A good climber and another German speaker for Leopard Trek. All together now: *Herzlich Willkommen, Thomas*!!

On to another news, Jens Voigt has recently said that the riders should do something 'big', like boycotting this year Worlds, to show their disapproval of UCI's radio ban. Aren't we exaggerating a bit? (http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/voigt-calls-for-worlds-boycott-over-radio-ban ).

Still facing the news du jour, I've just read on Cyclingnews that Amstel Gold Race organisers have given their race's wild cards to the following teams: Topsport Vlaanderen (yay!), Landbouwkrediet (double yay!), Skill Shimano (we want Kenny Van Hummel!) and Verandas Willems.

I also wanted to put the link to a little Cyclingnews article in which Romain Feillu said that, perhaps, Vacansoleil shouldn't have given Riccò a contract, but unfortunately I couldn't find it anywhere. Well, it seems like someone was brave enough to say these things publicly.

Anyway, it is pretty late right now, so here I close this post (which isn't actually that great, but that was written in a big hurry). Have a good evening and a good night sleep!
(pic by Sirotti)

Ruta del Sol,Giro di Sardegna and Omloop Het Nieuwsblad

VUELTA A ANDALUCIA:

The last stage of the Vuelta a Andalucia was won by Ventoso,who outsprinted the climbing sprinter Simon Gerrans and race leader Michael Rogers,who won the overall classification of the race.5th in the stage and 4th in the GC was Jens Voigt,who now will have to answer to questions like "Did you expect it to begin your season so well after your dreadful crash in the Tour 2009?" in every single bloody interview.You have my support,Jens.

19th in the last stage was Frank Schleck,who was also 13th in the GC.Second in the GC was Jurgen Van Den Broeck,whereas 3rd was Sergio Pardilla.

Considering Frank's good results,me is confident that he will get good results also in the Paris-Nice.

THE GIRO DI SARDEGNA:

The Giro di Sardegna overall classification was won by Roman Kreuziger,winner of stage 2.The 1st stage was won by Gavazzi and the 3rd one by Petacchi,who's already looking forward to the Milan-Sanremo.The 4th stage ended in a bunch sprint which wasn't won by Petacchi but by his teammate Hondo.In fact Petacchi fell in the last meters of the race because he hurt the arm of a spectator who was taking a picture of the sprint.Also Gatto,Colli and Sabatini fell.Luckily none of the riders suffered major injuries and they were all able to take part in the last stage of the race.

The "rider hits spectator and goes down" scenery is unfortunately pretty common in cycling (it happened also last yer at the Tour Down Under,if my memory doesn't fail me) and I think I'd go crazy if I caused an accident like that during a race.In fact the idea of hurting a rider without realising it disturbs me so much that every time I go to see a race I always climb a hill/wall/something similar in order to avoid this kind of problems.Unfortunately,not everyone pays attention to these things...

Anyway,the last stage of the race (and the only one that I managed to watch) was won by Loddo, who outsprinted Petacchi and Gatto.The stage was characterised by a solo attack by Bruno Radotic,a Croatian rider from team Mediterrania Kamen,who broke clear from the peloton after few kms and was caught with just 10 kms to go.

The sprint,as already said,saw the victory of Alberto Loddo.This victory was pretty special to Loddo,since he actually comes from Sardinia and because this victory (the 27th in his career) was the first one that he ever achieved in Italy.

OMLOOP HET NIEUWSBALD:

The Omloop Het Nieuwsblad (what does its name mean,me wonders) was won by Juan Antonio Flecha,also known as Van Der Flecha because of his love for Classics held in Holland or Belgium. This race,whose name is impossible to pronounce for me,allowed Flecha to get his first individual victory since October 2008.The Spaniard (who I still considered a Rabobank rider until few minutes ago) attacked with 20 kms to go and got a very nice and important victory.

Haussler came in 2nd,Farrar was 3rd,4th was Paolini,5th was Sieberg and 6th was Boasson Hagen. (Pics by Bettini and AFP)