Frank retires from Paris-Nice, Andy shows up in Tirreno-Adriatico:

Almost one week after my last post, here I am again. Once again, I've had a very tiring and long week, during which I've booked a holiday for the last week of July (yes, I will miss two Tour de France stages while I'm away, I'm aware of this fact and I already know that I'll regret this decision of mine) and I've got to know that Bob Dylan is going to play in Milan on the 22nd of June 2011. Which, accidentally, is the day before of my final high school exam take 2. Oh anger, oh bad luck.
Anyway, I realise I'm digressing. Therefore, let's talk cycling.
Probably, you've all started reading this post because you're a bit worried about the 'Frank retires from P-N' part of its headline. 'Frank? Retired? Paris-Nice? When? Where? How? And most important: Why?!?' If you're asking yourself these questions in a very hysterical way, I suggest you calming down and relaxing. In fact, Frank didn't finish today stage of the Paris-Nice not because he crashed badly or things like that (you're confusing him with Kiserlovski), but simply because he had a cold and some stomach problems. This morning Frank probably saw that it was raining cats and dogs, that the roads were etremely slippery, that it was terribly cold and so he decided to abandon the race after some kms. Understandable, especially if you consider that his GC placement wasn't actually that good.
However, he wasn't the only one to get retired today. In fact, amongst the riders who didn't finish today's stage there were also Nicolas Roche, Peter Sagan, Eros Capecchi, Francis De Greef (who was on a breakaway few days ago), Sandy Casar, Romain Feillu, Sylvain Chavanel and Daniele Righi (these last 3 riders actually didn't even start racing this morning). Also Fuglsang didn't end today stage as a consequence of the crash that he had a few days ago.
Talking about riders who didn't finish the stage, also Robert Kiserlovski has to be included in this long list. The Astana rider slipped with a few kms to go and he ended up under a truck, that was parked on the road side. Luckily, it seems that Robert didn't break anything. However, he was brought to the hospital immediately after his crash and he was given some stitches on his face.
Also Teejay Van Garderen crashed, just like Siutsou, Haussler (he fell three times), Westra and Tondo. Xavier crashed while crossing the finish-line 9 seconds after the winner, Remy Di Gregorio. The Frenchman was very strong this afternoon and, during the last kms, I often had cold shivers running down my spine because of his riding. Firstly, his way of riding downhill is simply scaring. Secondly, he risked to crash with a few kms to go and I think he hasn't realised yet how he managed not to fall off his bike.

Talking about the previous stages of P-N, I must say that I'm not surprised by Toni Martin's great TT. I think that he's one of the best time trialist of the world and I think he may be a serious GT contender already this year.

Kloden won a stage two days ago and I was happy to see him winning after 2 years spent at the service of His Majesty Lance Armstrong. Radioshack is also counting on Brajkovic, who's one of the most promising guys of the bunch.

Also Taaramae showed us some good attacks, while Leopard Trek tried getting good result with Gerdemann and Monfort. Maxime was really good this afternoon, while Linus ('il tedeschino', the 'little German' as an Italian chronist called him) tried attacking (without succeeding).

As far as young riders are concerned, I'm happy for Mollema and Spilak's rides, while Peraud, Andrew Talansky and Lieuwe Westra (they were 7th and 6th yesterday) have really surprised me so far.

Btw, am I the only one who thinks that Di Gregorio looks a bit like Gilbert?

If the weather was horrible in today stage of P-N ('the race towards the sun', as they call it), it was much better in the Center of Italy. Today stage of Tirreno-Adriatico was 240 kms long and the riders got on their bikes at 9.30 am. That caused them to end the race at 3.40 pm, with 40 minutes of advantage on the official time table (and 20 minutes advantage on my own time table).
The stage was won by Scarponi, while a happy Cunego was 2nd. Third was Cadel Evans, 4th Basso, 5th Di Luca, 6th Gesink, 7th Nocentini,8th Nibali. 9th was Lovkvist, a rider whose traces were lost in the past Tour de France. Fangirl is obviously extremely happy to see him back in the top 10.
Gilbert was 10th (the last climb was too long and steep for him), while the very brave Visconti was 11th.

Amongst the guys who are impressing me in this Tirreno-Adriatico there is Thor Hushovd, who yesterday did an outstanding job for Farrar and that, imo, is going to be the main contender for Milan-Sanremo.
Also Andy Schleck impressed me, since he's already in a good condition (he was 35th this afternoon). Cancellara has ridden very well too today and the guys who attacked with him almost couldn't help him pulling because he was way too fast for them. Also Fabian Wegmann, who was recenly been reported for being the latest crush of a certain cycling blogger, has recently had a similar problem like that: on the TTT day, in fact, poor Fabian had to take his turn at the front right before of the Swiss Engine. Fabian probably forgot about this a few times and, after a few kms, he said 'bye bye' to his teammates. Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one to do so (after all, it takes a lot of time to learn how to TTT together) and Leopard didn't get a good result on that day.
Saxo Bank actually rode better than LT on the first day of race (I can imagine Riis dancing around happily) and JJ Haedo took the first victory for the team yesterday in Perugia. After all these tries, he finally managed to get a well deserved victory, yay!
Talking about guys who often try winning, Oliver Kaisen was in a breakaway also the other day. When he wins a race, I'll open a big imaginary bottle of champagne just for him.
As far as the sprinters are concerned, I'm not worried for Petacchi and Cavendish's lack of victories. Petacchi had health problems, while Cavendish doesn't need to prove his value anymore. Farrar is very strong, while poor Greipel retired after one stage. Marcel Sieberg has replaced him as Omega Pharma-Lotto sprinter and he's getting some good top 10 placements (last year he used to be part of Cavendish' train).

Tomorrow there will be some exciting stages both at Paris-Nice and at Tirreno-Adriatico, so we'd better stay glued to our televisions in order to understand more things about the athletes' condition. And then, from Monday, we'll all be breathing the Sanremo atmosphere. Have a good Sunday everyone and be ready to watch some good cycling in the next few days!

PS: This morning, the Tirreno-Adriatico riders dedicated a minute of silence to all the people who died because of the Japanese earthquake of the other day. I was really shocked to see those images on tv, especially because Japan is the best country in the world as far as earthquake-safety is concerned.
Since I know that I have some readers (and a follower) from Japan, I just wanted to say that I hope they're all fine.

Eroica, Paris-Nice and more random things:

Good evening everyone, dear readers. The serious races have finally started but, unfortunately for me, I haven't managed to watch any of them on real time yet. In fact, first of all, Italian tv didn't broadcast Eroica Strade Bianche until 19.30 of Saturday (at 20.oo of that day Fangirl was cheering happily for the riders, when Logic suddenly told her: 'They stopped racing 4 hours ago, so why the hell are you screaming in such a loud way?'- Fangirl was so shocked that she stopped screaming for good!); then, me had to miss the first stage of Paris-Nice because 'Come on, it is Carnival day! You can't stay the whole day trapped inside your house to watch a cycling race! You'll have plenty of time for that during the year!', Logic told Fangirl; moreover, I had to miss the second stage of P-N because I was 'working'. Therefore, I'm honoured to tell you that, on the 7th of March 2011, my personal cycling situation is the following: zero races seen on real time on television, zero races seen 'live' and a few races seen in the evening. I guess it's useless to add that my cycling withdrawal syntomps are getting worse than even.

Anyway. Let's talk cycling and, more precisely, let's talk Eroica Strade Bianche. First of all, I must say that I made a beginner's mistake when I didn't include Gilbert in my podium prediction. He won Tour of Lombardy in October 2010, he's won Eroica in March 2011. A monster. Ladies, watch out for him in Sanremo! During the race, I was happily surprised to see some riders riding better than expected. For example, Andy Schleck seemed in a good form and he worked hard to help Cancellara. Fabian could keep the pace of riders like Hesjedal and Cunego also on some of the toughest climbs and, of course, this is a very good news. Also O'Grady was very good, just like Fabian Wegmann. Talking about Fab the Blonde, I'm afraid I may a little crush on him. He always looks so sweet and cute! And I can always recognise him by looking at his riding style. Strange.
However, miss Fede didn't pay attention just to Leopard Trek's guys. In fact, me really liked Rocchetti's performance (the boy's got talent, he goes on a breakaway whenever he can!) and I was extremely glad to see Cunego and Ballan up there again. In fact, Alessandro had disappeared from supporter's radars in 2009 and it's great to see that he's finally back at a top level.
Also Gatto rode surprisingly well, considering that he's a sprinter. Also Jure Kocjan, that rides for Team Type 1, got a very good 4th place.
Amongst the best riders, imo, there were also the young Craig Lewis and Przemyslaw Niemiec. The Polish rider was simply great and he worked very hard in order to help his captain Cunego. Moreover, he allowed me to show my familiars my great Polish skills, since I pronounced his name without any problems. 'How can you do that?', they asked. 'Misteri della Fede', I answered.
On to the 'disappointing riders' du day, I expected more from Sagan and Oss. As far as Hesjedal is concerned, I predicted him as likely winner of the race, but he couldn't resist Gilbert's final attack. However, I really liked the way he rode because, although he wasn't in a good condition, Ryder tried hard to make the race harder.

Talking about Paris-Nice, I could watch yesterday's stage at dinner-time. Jens Voigt was part of a great 3 men breakaway and his companions were Thomas De Gendt and Jeremy Roy. These 3 riders are very good when it comes to riding fast on a flat terrain, so they could arrive at the flamme rouge with a few seconds of advantage on the peloton. The escapers were really loyal to each other (none of them skipped his turn to pull and they didn't waste time looking at each other in the final meters of the race) and, in spite of the large, long road that led to the finish, they could cross the finish-line before of the peloton guys. Or, at least, that's what Thomas De Gendt and Jeremy Roy could do. Voigt in fact was outsprinted by Haussler, Sagan and Henderson and came 6th. De Gendt instead could raise his arms to the sky, while Roy got a second place.
However, is this just me, or was De Gendt wearing a Fugl-scarf during the race? On to today's stage of the race (which I'm off to see in 15 minutes time), it was won by Henderson in front of Goss, Galimzyanov (the boy is strong, I've already told you that!), Haussler and Sagan.
The stage was very nervous because there was strong wind and everyone wanted to stay at the front of the race. Vinokourov apparently made a great work at the front with his team (you've gotta love that man), while Frank Schleck and Jakob Fuglsang crashed. They both managed to end the race (Jakob arrived 1 minute after the winner) and they both seem likely to continue the race. Frank's crash was said to be 'without consequences', while Fuglsang's one as a bit more serious. I've found something about it on http://www.fyens.dk/article/1802006:Sport--Leopard-afskriver-Fuglsang-med-snitsaar and I tried to translate it with Google. According to it, Kim Andersen said that Jakob (why does Google keep on calling him 'James'?) 'got hurt seriously in a lot of places. He also had a deep cut in one hand, which bled a lot. However, he seems able to continue the race, although I don't know what his results will be. Jakob had to stop because Frank had crashed and, when he stopped, another rider hit him with his bike. Fuglsang's bike was damaged, so he needed a new one. After changing it, Jakob started to chase the peloton but, when he arrived at a roundabout, he entered it too fast and he fell'. Hopefully our boy will feel better soon.

Talking about other news, in the comment area of the previous post I mentioned Michael Matthews' victory in Vuelta a Murcia. You're not interested in knowing who won the overall title and the last stage, are you? Anyway, 3rd on the last stage (a ITT) was Denis Menchov (yay!!), second was the surprising Coppel, 4th was Dowsett, 5th Kiryenka and 6th was Saxo Banker Manuele Boaro, who is a very promising athlete.
As far as the second stage of the race is concerned, the only thing to know is that Menchov was second and Coppel 3rd.
Here above you have a picture of Menchov who, in spite of the great news he's received today, doesn't look that smiley. 'What great news?, I hear you ask. Simple: his team was invited to the Giro. Yay for Menchov!
The great thing is that Zomegnan managed to get the permission to invite 23 teams, and not 22, to the Italian Grand Tour, so that not only Geox will be riding in the Belpaese in May, but together with it and the other 18 ProTour teams there will be also Acqua&Sapone, Androni Gocattoli, Colnago-CSF and Farnese Vini (as I had predicted ;).

On to other news regarding Paris-Nice, Frank Schleck has said that, in his opinion, the race is likely to be won by Toni Martin. Vinokourov instead has said he'll go for a stage victory. Can't wait for that! In the meanwhile, I'm going to catch up with today's stage, whose broadcast is starting in 30 seconds time ;)

Have a good night everyone and don't forget to take a look at the comment area of my previous post. If you're interested in working at Leela, Mar, Marleen, Susanne and Fede's cycling blog, you're still on time to join us! ;)

(first picture by Bettini, second one by Isabelle Duchesne, third one by Rafa Gomez)