Unstoppable Cavendish takes the rainbow jersey!!

First of all, let's say that I'm not in a very good mood right now. I couldn't see the Worlds 'live' (I've just finished watching the recordings), I didn't sleep enough last night and I must learn how to write every letter of the Cyrillic aphabet in corsive characters before tomorrow. Therefore, I hope you will forgive me for the bitchy moments that I'll have while writing this post.

So, the Copenhagen Worlds 2011 - also known as the only Tour de France flat stage that was raced at the wrong time of the year (today, 25th September 2011) and in the wrong part of Europe. Seriously,in my opinion the only difference between the Copenhagen Worlds and the boring flat stages of the Touris the fact that the winner of a TdF flat stage usually receives a yellow jersey, whereas the cyclist who won today's special stage received a special rainbow jersey.

To prove you that I'm not joking when I say that today's Worlds race was just like a TdF stage, I'll give you 3 proves:

First: HTC ruled the race, just like it usually does at the Tour.

Second: the last 2 kms of race featured 8 traffic islands, one roundabout and a curve with 800 meters to go - just like at the Tour.

Three: Thomas Voeckler attacked.

Anyway, back to 'seriousness'. During the whole race (which lasted 5 hours and 40 minutes) I counted three thrilling moments: the final sprint, the crash that destroyed Hushovd's hopes of winning another edition of the Worlds and the moment when they showed Bjarne Riis next to his super-hot son. Yes, these were the three top moments of the race. Every single breakaway in fact looked hopeless even before it was created, especially because the whole British team worked extremely hard in order to chase every man that managed to break clear from the peloton. The funny thing is that, since Great Britain didn't look strong enough, with 18 kms to go someone (the Irish rider Brammeier) decided to help Wiggo & Co. in their attempt of chasing the brave riders (Voeckler, Lodewyck, N. Sorensen and Hoogerland) who had just managed to create the last, desperate breakaway. Of course, the British/Irish poursuivants succeeded without problems.

The last 5 kms of race were the only exciting things of the day. Great Britain looked perfect, Australia was struggling to find a place in the sun for Goss, Italy and Spain were desperately trying to create a leadout train. Sagan was in the first part of the peloton, Boasson Hagen was invisible, the cameras still hadn't caught a glimpse of Farrar's face.

And in the end, after about 5'39" hours of race, the final sprint began: Cavendish ruled it, Goss arrived second, an amazing Greipel was third. Fourth was a super surprising Cancellara (well done to Barbara who yesterday evening included both him and Cav in his 'top favourites' list!!), 5th was Roelandts, 6th was Romain Feillu. The underestimated Bozic was 7th and he crossed the finish-line right before Boasson Hagen, Freire and Farrar. Sagan was 12th, Bennati was 14th. Frank Schleck didn't finish the race whereas his brother Andy didn't bother taking part in it because of some strange connections between his wisdom teeth problems and a possible heart muscle infection (his words, not mine!).

Anyway. The 2011 Worlds have come and gone and they'll always be remembered as the race with the easiest parcours of the last 10 years. Cipollini, who won the rainbow jersey in Zolder in 2002, said that this year the parcours was even easier than on that occasion. As an Italian chronist said, 'this year the roads of the Worlds Championship didn't choose the World Champion of cycling, they chose the World Champion of sprinters'. Of course we all know that Cavendish is a champion (he won Sanremo in 2009 and everyone knows that La Primavera isn't an easy race at all), but this parcours was simply too easy to be fun/good: not a hill, not a climb, not a slope. Nothing. I personally compared it to a TdF stage, but with a difference (as well as the 'colour of the jersey' one): in the TdF you need also a lot of luck to win a flat stage and, even if you fail winning the first bunch sprint of the race, you can give it another try about 24 hours later. This afternoon, instead, it was a matter of 'do or die': those who weren't lucky enough or who had problems with their leadout trains will never get a second chance.

Talking about 'having problems with your leadout train': Italy made a mess in the last kms of race, but I think everyone expected that. Bennati is a good rider, but not a champion, whereas Modolo and Viviani are still too young to win a World Championship. Criticising the boys is useless, because Bettini created the best possible team for this Worlds. And if you're disappointed because the Azzurri didn't win any medal, then go ask the Italian Cycling Federayion why they didn't allow us to bring Petacchi to Copenhagen.

So, the 2011 Worlds week is over. Now some riders will go on holiday, whereas some will keep on fighting until Tour of Lombardy. In the meanwhile, cycling market and polemics will surely keep us busy: Cancellara and Fuglsang in fact have recently announced that they've signed a contract with team RaNT (chorus of 'Nooooooo!!' coming from the fangirls of the whole world), whereas Teutenberg, Bronzini and Vos reacted openly to Pat McQuaid's words about the creation of a 'minimum wage rule' for women riders. The UCI president in fact has stated that the women's movement 'hasn't developed enough' to deserve a rule like that. Of course, these words are going to create a very hot debate in the next days.

PS: LeopardTrek's information system gave us another special moment this afternoon. In fact, right after the race, on their Facebook page they published an article called 'Cancellara takes the bronze medal also in the Road Race!' Amazing, isn't it?

Tour of Norwegy:

At this year Tour de France there are just two riders from Norway: Edvald Boasson Hagen and Thor Hushovd. And this afternoon Edvald won the 6th stage of the Tour, whereas Thor managed to keep the yellow jersey for the 5th day in a row. Considering how the Norwegian chronists reacted when Arvesen won a Tour stage a few years ago (get ready to hear some histerical screams /laughs and take a look at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgFhiIK7wyk&feature=related), I wonder what they did this afternoon.

Actually, I don't have much to say about today's stage. The day began with two topics of discussions: the crashes of the previous stage and the argument between Petacchi and Rojas. According to the Spaniard, Petacchi was having problems following Cavendish, so he got on the wheel of the British rider by overtaking Alessandro. Ale - Jet didn't enjoy this fact and hurt Rojas with his fist, so that the Spaniard couldn't breathe properly for a few seconds.

However, Petacchi has another version of this story. In fact he said he was on Hondo's wheel when Rojas dangerously overtook him in order to get on Cavendish' wheel. Petacchi reacted by putting his hand on José's hip, but he didn't actually hurt him (that's what Alessandro said).

After crossing the finish-line, the two riders kept on fighting. 'Petacchi is a pig!', Rojas said; 'Rojas is a s***!', Petacchi claimed after getting onto the team's bus. It's always nice to see two riders getting on in a pacific way, isn't it?
Actually, yesterday wasn't a very good day at all for Rojas. Ok, he did end 3rd on the stage, but he lost the green jersey because, according to the jury, he and Boonen had been unloyal towards Cavendish at the intermediate sprint.

Anyway. Back to today. Tom Boonen decided to start the stage in spite of the crash of the previous day, whereas Ivan Velasco didn't start because of a broken collarbone. Sylvain Chavanel, who really looked in pain, managed to finish the stage, whereas Vasil Kiryenka crossed the finish-line 27 minutes after the winner and was forced to abandon the race.

The breakawayers du jour were Lieuwe 'The Beast' Westra, Johnny Hoogerland (again), Anthony Roux, Leonardo Duque and Adriano Malori. With about 50 kms to go, Malori and Westra said 'adieu!' to their breakaway companions and decided to continue the race on their own. Adriano and Lieuwe are both very strong time trialists, but unfortunately this afternoon they were chased by Omega - Pharma Lotto and by Columbia.

With a few kms to go the riders had to face a steep little climb and that's where Malori's chances of victory faded away. With about 15 kms to go, in fact, the Italian rider had abandoned Westra in order to continue his adventure all alone. Unfortunately, good luck wasn't on Adriano's side this afternoon and the Lampre rider was caught with just 3 kms to go. As a little solace, Malori (who was the last rider in the GC of last year's Tour) was awarded with the 'most combative rider du jour' prize. A very good thing, if we consider that Adriano is still very young and is one of the most talented riders of the peloton.

The winner du jour was eventually decided by a sprint. Vinokourov was seen at the head of the race, but he didn't attack. Vanendert, on the other hand, created a little gap between himself and the peloton, but it was just a consequence of the fact that he was pulling too hard for his teammates to follow him. Voeckler ('V' was the magic letter in today's finale) instead attacked intentionally, but couldn't go very far.

When the sprint began, it looked like the favourites were Thor Hshovd (who considered winning today's stage as one of his main goals of the season) and Philippe Gilbert. Also Goss looked in a great form, just like Feillu. And instead, the man who crossed the finish-line first was the young Edvald Boasson Hagen, who was wonderfully helped by Geraint Thomas.

Edvald was very moved after the victory, also because his parents were there to watch him (not a great news, considering that the Boasson Hagen family is always present at the French race ;) and because this victory came after a difficult period for the Norwegian. A few days ago in fact the Sky rider had to deal with herpes zoester and didn't even know whether he would have been able to race the Tour. Not taking part in the French race would have been a bad blow for Edvald who, after an exceptional 2009, had lots of health problems in 2010. Anyway, BH managed to grit his teeth and, today, he was awarded with his first TdF victory. Chapeau!

While Boasson Hagen was already celebrating with his teammates, Levi Leipheimer angrily rode towards the finish-line. The Radioshack rider crashed against a guard-rail with 4 kms to go and lost a minute to the main GC contenders. Luckily, he didn't suffer any injury - just a bruised elbow.

So, this was today's stage of the TdF. As far as the Giro Donne is concerned, the Mortirolo stage was won by Marianne Vos, who's getting 'pinker' day after day. However, the other girls (Pooley, Guderzo, Arndt...) are ready to create her problems in the next stages.

(Pic by AFP)

Heaven and Hell on the way to Cap Fréhel:

Heaven and Hell. Two words that are simply perfect to describe today's stage of the Tour and some other things that have recently happened in Cycledom.

Hell. Perhaps some of you don't know it, but this morning an Australian rider called Carly Hibberd lost her life while she was training near Milan. The 26 year-old from Brisbane died shortly after being hit by a car. For the thousandth time this year, cycling must face a very hard moment.

Heaven. This afternoon Marianne Vos got her fourth victory at the Giro Donne, the most important stage race of the women calendar. The Dutch rider (who is just 24) won in Piacenza by outsprinting pure sprinters like World Champion Giorgia Bronzini and Ina-Yoko Teutenberg. And, to make things even more special, Vos won the stage while wearing the Maglia Rosa.

Hell. Tom Boonen crashed with 60 kms to go in today's stage of the Tour and he crossed the finish-line 12' after the stage winner. He looked in pain and he could count just on one teammate, Addy Engels, who helped him just in the last 50 kms of race.

Heaven. Although the stage finale didn't suit him, and although his team made a disaster in the last km of race, this afternoon Mark Cavendish managed to get one of the best victories of his career in Cap Fréhel, a village located in a spectacular French bay.

Heaven and Hell. Reading about Fabian Wegmann's newborn baby Otto (he was born on the 29th of June and I wish him a very happy, long and serene life!) after discovering what happened to poor Hibberd can make you understand how the limit between these two things is very thin. We had two demonstrations of this fact during the last Giro, we had a demonstration of it also today, at the Giro Donne and (in a less tragic way) at the Tour de France.

Today's stage of the Tour de France looked tricky even on paper. The last kms of race in fact were very close to the sea, in a part of France (Bretagne) which has a very characteristic windswept landscape. Moreover, with 2 kms to go the riders had to face a difficult descent that would lead them to the last km of race, which was 3% steep.

The narrow streets of Bretagne, together with the fear of the echelons and with the nervousness of the peloton, didn't help making the stage easier for the group, which soon had to deal with many crashes.

One of the first riders to fall off his bike was Sylvain Chavanel who, as a consequence of his crash, had his acromion-clavicular joint dislocated as a consequence of his crash. Luckily, the French national champion could soon hop back on his bike and managed to end the stage.

"In the fall I also hit my head and broke my helmet," Chavanel told Cyclingnews. "The consequences could have been much worse. Tomorrow morning I'm lining up for the start as usual, but it’s obvious that tomorrow I can look forward to a day of suffering". Also Wiggins was involved in Sylvain's crash, but didn't suffer any injury. Other riders, unfortunately, weren't that lucky.

Janez Brajkovic and Robert Gesink crashed soon after Chavanel. Also Alberto Contador was involved in their crash, the second one of the day for the unlucky Spaniard, who threw his bike to the ground as a sign of anger. But still, Conti was pretty lucky in getting it away without major injuries: Gesink in fact is reported to have bruises all over his body, whereas Brajkovic had to abandon the race with a broken collarbone and a concussion.

Unfortunately, Janez wasn't the last rider to crash this afternoon. In fact, a few minutes after having helped his captain in chasing the main peloton, it was Nicki Sorensen's turn to end up on the ground. Nicki's crash was a really shocking one, since it was caused by one of the photographers' motorbikes. The motorbike rode so close to Nicki that, apparently, the handlebar of the Danish rider got glued to it. As a consequence, Sorensen found himself on the ground and had to bear the sight of his bike being drawn by the motorbike for 200 meters.

Luckily for the Danish national champion, his crash didn't have any consequence. "I was riding safely in the side of the road and then a motor bike knocked me off the bike", Nicki told Cyclingnews. "He was actually going so close that my bike was drawn after his motor bike for 200 meters and I landed heavily on the ground. Luckily, I'm ok and am able to ride again tomorrow" .

'Wiggins, Chavanel, Brajkovic, Gesink, Contador, Nicki Sorensen... Enough crashes for just one day of race!', some of you may think. And instead no, this afternoon bad luck really wanted to create a lot of problems to the TdF riders. As Kern withdrawned from the race because of a tendonitis, it was Barredo, Boonen and Steegmans' turn to crash.

Tom Boonen remained on the ground for a while, looking worried about the condition of his left shoulder. The Tour doctor immediately tried to help him but, at first, it looked as if Tommeke's Tour had to end on that road in Bretagne. And instead, the Belgian found the strength to get up, hop back on his bike and keep on riding. His leg was bleeding and his collarbone worried everyone of us, but Tom didn't care. He wanted to reach the finish-line of this damned 5th stage and he fought hard to make it.

At first Boonen had to do everything on his own. But then, Addy Engels stopped and waited for his captain. Then, with 50 kms to go, the two Quick Step riders began to ride together to the finish-line, fearing to end up out of time limit and trying to hold on.

In the end, Tommeke crossed the finish-line 12 minutes after Cavendish, thus managing to remain inside the allowed time cut.

'Ok, enough crashes for today?' Oh no, dear readers, not yet. In fact, this afternoon the last rider to fall off his bike was Euskaltel's Ivan Velasco, who broke his right collarbone after hitting the ground with about 20 kms to go.

Luckily, that was the last crash for today. I actually didn't mention everyone who crashed this afternoon, because it would actually be impossible to mention all those riders. However, I've read articles saying that also Leipheimer, Horner, Tjallingi and Popovych crashed. I'm sure about Yaroslav's fall (I saw him going to the doctor' car), but I don't have any details about the other crashes. Was Tjallingi with Gesink when Robert crashed? It may be, but I'm not sure.

Anyway. After talking about the hellish parts of today's stage, let's finally talk about the most beautiful part: Cavendish's victory. Mark may be arrogant and he might have changed too many girlfriends in the last months, but after today it is impossible to deny that the boy has class. Class, strength, power, speed: everything a sprinter needs to be successful. And everything a sprinter needs to offer us such great victories.

Although I've been following Mark pretty carefully since 2008, I must admit I had never seen him winning in such a great way as he did tis afternoon. Ok, his Milan - Sanremo victory had been great too: but today Cav was simply superb. His win was exciting, unexpected, amazing, fantastic: a true masterpiece - and, mind you, this is a word which miss Fede rarely uses in her posts.

Anyway, let's talk about what happened in the last kms of race in a more detailled way.

The last breakawayers du jour, Voeckler and Roy (again!!), were caught with a few kms to go. The previous beakaway had included Gutierrez (the friend of the French camera men) and Delaplace, the Tour's youngest rider (he's going to be 22 in September).

With 2 kms to go, HTC Columbia was at the head of the peloton. Velits, Goss, Martin, Eisel, Renshaw, Cavendish: the yellow and white train was ready to roll into Cap Fréhel. But then, with about 1 km to go, something happened: the little train had a problem and Goss found himself at the head of the peloton, with some meters of advantage on everyone else. Therefore, he tried to go for the victory.

Too bad that it was still too early for him and that Boasson Hagen rode past him at amazing speed. It looked as if the Norwegian rider had almost made it, but then a cartel told us that there were still 450 meters to go: too much for the Sky rider to hold on.

As Edvald's speed seemed to vanish, a colourful jersey appeared on the screen: Philippe Gilbert, trying to get his second victory in this Tour. Bonnet, FDJ's rider, looked like a true threat for the Belgian, whereas Hushovd's figure was scarcely visible behind the first line of riders. Then, from the left of the screen, a lightning - or, to say it better, a Cannonball - arrived. Mark Cavendish gave it all in the last meters of race and managed to win the race in front of PhilGil, Rojas and Toni Gallopin.

As Cavendish was dedicating his victory to his pet golden retriever Amber, who passed away a few hours ago, Tom Boonen slowly made it to the finish-line. Hell and heaven, once again. One rider cheering, the other one suffering, One rider happy, the other one disappointed and in pain. That's the Tour de France baby, and that's cycling - and, actually, that's also life.

Phil Gil takes also Fleche:

Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable. I have no other words to describe Philippe Gilbert's latest victory (and the fact that I'm writing a new post just 3 days after the last one) :P
Fleche Wallonne is the strangest of the Ardennes Classics. The riders race for 5 hours and face the mur de Huy three times during it, but in the end the winner is always decided by the last 800 meters, the steepest ones that you can find in a Classic.
Marco Pastonesi from 'La Gazzetta dello Sport' once wrote a great description of the mur de Huy, saying that pilgrims used to climb it by foot during the Middle Ages. In fact, there are 7 little chapels on the road to the top of the mur and each of them is a different station of the via crucis. Talking about this fact, Pastonesi said: 'The pilgrims saw images of the Virgin Mary at every chapel. By the time the riders arrive on the top of the climb during FW, they see Virgin Mary in person'. I've never faced mur de Huy (I'm not fit enough :P), but I think that said climb can definitely help you if you want to have a deep, religious experience. In fact, here in Italy we usually say that someone 'has seen the Madonna' when that someone has done something very painful or very tiring. Painful and tiring like climbing the Mur de Huy, for example.

Talking about the race, nothing important happened before the beginning of the final km. The first breakaway du jour was formed by Paterski, Vantomme, Van Hecke and Helminen (and not 'Eminem', as someone said yesterday).
In the last 30 kms of race there was the second breakaway du jour, which was formed by Thomas Lovkvist (he's alive!!!), Alexandr Kolobnev, Enrico Gasparotto and Teejay Van Garderen. Also Kiryenka, Gorka Verdugo and Michal Golas joined the breakaway and eventually Kiryenka and Lolo (Lovely Lovkvist) said 'adieu!' to their fellows. Unfortunately, the couple was caught with 8 kms to go, as a consequence of the work made at the front by Omega-Pharma Lotto, Rabobank and Leopard Trek. At that point of the race, Pineau and Marcato attacked, but they arrived at the bottom of the mur with just 20 seconds of advantage. And to win on the mur, you need to arrive at its bottom with at least a minute of advantage on the peloton.
Before the beginning of the climb, Andy Schleck took a turn at the front before vanishing in the bottom of the peloton. He didn't feel well, but apparently his brother Frankie was doing fine. Also Rodriguez, Contador and Gilbert seemed to feel fine, since their men pulled hardly at the front.
During the first part of the climb, Wegmann pulled for some time, followed by Albasini and Le Mevel. Fabian kept on turning his head to see where Frank was, since it was very hard to spot him in the peloton chaos. Then, with about 300 meters, Gilbert launched a terrible attack and no one could follow him. Phil Gil started celebrating with about 15 meters to go and, in spite of this, he managed to finish the race 3 seconds before of Joaquim Rodriguez. Amazing.I was so amazed by Gilbert's strong attack that, when I saw the gap that Rodriguez had from him, my mouth fell open and remained so until the end of the race, when I whispered: 'How can he have done such a thing even today?' in a very allucinated way. I would have never bet on a victory by Gilbert yesterday and that's why I was so shocked. That boy has been winnng Classics since October 2010, isn't that amazing?

Talking about another Cannibal, the women race was won for the fourth (fourth!) time by the Wonder Woman of cycling, the 23 year-old Marianne Vos. Second was Emma Johansson, while 3rd was Judith Arndt and 4th a very good Elena Berlato.
Emma Pooley didn't take part in the race because she broke her collarbone last Tuesday, on a training ride in Switzerland. Hopefully she'll be back in good shape for the Giro Donne.

Back to the male FW, Omega Pharma-Lotto was, once again, the best team. Gilbert told the journalists that he thought that mur de Huy was too long for him and that he decided to try winning yesterday race just because his teammates suggested him doing so. As we could see, the guys were right.
Jelle Vanendert was amazing once again, since he helped Phil and he also managed to come in 6th. Also Van Den Broeck (17th) was really good, just like De Greef.
Second in the race was Joaquim Rodriguez. He was the main favourite, but for the second year in a row someone rode up the mur de Huy faster than him. Katiusha did a great work to help him and Kolobnev and Di Luca really did their best. Moreover, Moreno was a good 8th.
Third instead was Samuel Sanchez. Euskaltel, who was invisible in the North Classics and didn't shine in Amstel, worked really well yesterday and Samu was a surprising 3rd. In fact, I would have expected Igor Anton (5th) to ride better than the Olympic Champion, instead Sanchez managed to end up on the podium. Wow!
4th was Vinokourov (*chorus of joy coming from the AAVL sector*), whose team, Astana, worked well. Especially Iglinskiy and Gasparotto were good, while Vino was surprisingly faster than guys like Gesink, Contador and Hesjedal.

Giving a judgement about the teams in a race like FW is very hard, because in the end the team work doesn't count that much on the mur de Huy. In fact, in the last 300 meters of it (where the hardest part begins) the only things that count are the team leader's legs and his sense of timing. Therefore, the work that the team has done to help the leader until that point of the race doesn't always lead to a good result.
Leopard Trek, for example, did a great work yesterday, but Frank Schleck eventually ended up just 7th. He didn't sound very satisfied with his performance in an interview with Cyclingnews and he said that yesterday he made a mistake with timing. But still, I think that a 7th place in this race (which doesn't suit 'regular' climbers like him or his brother) isn't a very bad result.
As far as the rest of the team is concerned, Wegmann worked well on the climb, whereas Andy had a bad day at the office. "On the next to last climb I didn’t feel very good", Our Glorious Leader told Cyclingnews. "I'm not sure if it was due to the weather, but I had red eyes and some breathing problems. So I decided to work for the team and I did the best I could for Frank in the final kilometre". Hopefully our boy isn't experiencing 'allergy problems', since me perfectly knows that they're extremely disturbing and they can really limit someone's physical performances.
Another team who did well, although its team leader wasn't that strong, was Saxo Bank. Nicki Sorensen worked hard at the front, but Contador was just 11th, whereas Chris Sorensen was 24th. Allergy problems also for the Spaniard? I don't know.
Also Rabobank worked hard, although the best team rider, Martens, was 10th, whereas Gesink was 14th. However, I don't think FW suits Gesink, since he isn't a very explosive climber and mur de Huy is a bit different from the San Luca climb at Giro dell'Emilia (a race that Gesink loves and has already won twice).
Talking about other teams, HTC Highroad tried to do something with Van Garderen. The team leader, Toni Martin, was just 89th, whereas Albasini was 12th. This makes me wonder: why was the team pulling so hard at the beginning of the mur? Mistery.
Landbouwkrediet entered a breakaway too and Bert De Waele was a good 15th.
The climb was too steep for Simon Gerrans, whereas Ryder Hesjedal probably hasn't recovered properly from his stomach problems (he was 13th). Best Garmin rider however was Le Mevel, excellent 9th.
Talking about Italian riders, Cunego was just 61st, but he crashed with about 3 kms to go. Basso instead wasn't in a great form (moreover, the mur de Huy doesn't suit him), while Di Luca worked to help Rodriguez.
A disappointing rider, imo, was John Gadret, who should feel comfortable on climbs like mur de Huy. Still, he was invisible yesterday.
The same worths for the whole BMC team, who couldn't have Evans in the line-up. In spite of this, I think they could have showed themselves during the race, whereas me actually found out that this team was racing when I casually opened a 'start list' page on Cyclingnews a few seconds ago.

Before closing this entry, here's the link to Chris Anker Sorensen's latest blog entry: http://blog.tv2.dk/chris.anker.ol/entry401212.html . In it Chris says that he's asked himself whether Father Christmas has a holiday house in Italy. In fact one day Chris, while training, saw a man working in a field. Said man, according to CA, had the same belly, the same beard and the same face as father Christmas, although he obviously wasn't wearing the same clothes. That made him ask whether Father Christmas has a house where he can spend the summer and whether said house is in Italy.
Moreover, Chris wrote something about Jens Voigt in his blog. Unfortunately, Google Translater doesn't want to let me understand that part, so I beg one of you, dear Danish readers, to help me understand what Chris says in it. Every LT supporter out there would be very happy if you could me this favour!

So, that's all from me for the moment. Have a good time during the Easter holidays and let's hope that one Schleck will cross the finish-line before everyone else on Sunday!
(Pic by Bettini)

Worrying news about Frank Schleck, a look back on the last few races and the start list of Tour of Flanders:

Welcome back on my blog, dear readers! Here's the usual random post, my last one before the Ronde van Vlaanderen (*chorus of 'yays' coming from every direction*).

Before talking about Ronde, however, let me tell you about the news that appears on 'Gazzetta Cycling''s homepage right now. The title is very simple: 'Schleck, this is a trick!' and it is right above a big pic of Frankie riding the TT stage of Criterium International. In fact, it seems that on that stage Frank hid something in his jersey in order to be more aerodynamic.

Unfortunately, as you can see in the pic below, that aerodynamical something was clearly visible during the stage (take a look at the unnatural shape of Frank's chest): Well, what to say about this news? Shall we hope that it's a 1st of April joke? Unfortunately for us, I don't think this is a possible explanation. In fact, this awful news was reported not just by La Gazzetta's (online and paper) edition, but also by Marca and by a Luxembourgish online newspaper. They wouldn't have talked about this news if it was a big joke by Gazzetta, right?
Talking about Gazzetta, the journalist who wrote the article says that Frank's 'secret' device could have made him gain about 2" pro km during Sunday TT. No wonder he rode faster than Vinokourov on that day...
Frank hasn't commented on this news yet, but imo he'll be surely given a fine - or something worse- by the UCI, whose rules clearly don't allow to hide aerodinamycal device under a rider's jersey .
I don't think that Frank will be able to find a decent excuse for the unnatural shape that his chest had on Sunday but well, hope dies last. In fact, right now I'm still backing my 'First of April Joke' theory.
However, if I could talk with Frankie right now, my only comment would be: couldn't you use a comfortable, invisible bike engine rather than a thing like that? It would have spared you a big damage to your image, believe me.

Anyway. I had already prepared today post on yesterday evening and I'm not going to change my programmes just because of this news. Over the last years in fact I've realised that, more than being a Schleck supporter, I'm a cycling lover. And this has saved me a lot of times in the past. So, let's talk bikes.

First of all, however, I remind you taking a look at our new post on 'Bananas About Bikes'! It is a very nice one, with lots of pictures of cool riders who ride/used to ride with the Schleck brothers. And of course there is also a pic of Andy (without things hidden in his jersey), how cool! (*allows you a break to go checking the new post*)

So, did you go checking the new post? Really? I'll know it if you haven't done it, so be careful with your answer to this question. And if you're thinking about visiting the blog later, no way, dear: by the time you arrive at the end of this awful post, you'll have surely forgotten about it. So go checking the new post now! It's worth reading, really! Don't worry, we won't be going anywhere else while we wait for your return. Listen, I give a two minutes break, ok? It's enough to go there, read the post, watch the pics, leave a comment and come back. Nice programme, isn't it?
...2 minutes later...
So, did you read the new post? Did you like it? Yes, really? I had tod you about that!
Ok, now we can continue.

GAND-WEVELGEM: So, let's talk a bit about Gand-Wevelgem. Imo the race was pretty exciting, although I couldn't enjoy it completely because I was studying for an exam. However, I was very happy for Boonen's victory: Quick Step needed UCI points and Tom's victory was the best way to get them.
Second (for the thousandth time this year) was Daniele Bennati. A bit more of good luck and Daniele could have already won some great races! However, I think it's good to see him getting good placements so often. It means that Daniele's got very good legs and this is good for the whole Leopard Trek team and also for the Italian team. After all, Copenhagen's Worlds are approaching... Btw, have you read about the Giro starting from Denmark in 2012? That's a nice news, isn't it? I just hope the Danish roads are wider than the Dutch ones!
Back to G-W, the third rider to cross the finish-line was Tyler Farrar, who showed his good condition once again.
Still talking about G-W, I must say that I was a bit disappointed by the way the final breakaway (starring Sagan, Bodnar, Stannard and Chavanel) ended up. It was a very good one, but then Chavanel and Stannard stopped pulling and the breakawayers lost all their victory hopes. Well, you can't always have an Arashiro in your breakaway...
Another thing to notice about this year GW was the reaction that Cavendish had after his second crash. The guy is short, but he knows how to look angry!
Talking about being angry, I was both shocked and furious after Offredo and Duque's post finish-line crash. How can a professional photographer cause such a dangerous crash? And the thing is that he didn't even look sorry - he actually disappeared right after the incident. And because of that, Offredo will now have to skip Flanders. Oh, anger!

INTERVALLO: Here I had written a very nice post section about Frank's victory at CI (including the *Eisen Andy* song turned into *Eisen Frankie*), but I've deleted it immediately after getting the infamous news above. And to think that I had spent about 25 minutes writing it yesterday evening, how stupid of me...

TROFEO BINDA: Rather than talking about such a topic, here I go with a littleparagraph about Trofeo Binda, a women race that was held in Cittiglio on Sunday. 'Oh no, women cycling!', I can hear some of you think, 'I don't care at about it!' Well, if you had that thought, let me explain you why I'm dedicating some space on this blog to women cycling.
First of all, it's because I'm a girl and I'm tired of seeing the female cyclists being treated as strange creatures with nice legs but who can't cycle. In fact, girls' races are just like the ones of the boy, with a little difference: girls have much more difficulties than man.
Firstly, a female cyclist has to fight prejudices against female cycling ('they're just a bunch of cute girls pretending to ride a bike'). Secondly, she must be very brave to take up a career like that. Just think about the fact that, at the end of a cycling career, for a girl it's much harder to become a ds than for a male rider. Moreover, the salary isn't exactly as high as the one of Cavendish or Schleck or Gilbert. In addition, male riders can become parents without interrupting their careers, whereas female riders can't. Last but not least, women have a certain problem every month; men don't.
Then of course there are also agonistic reasons behind my interest for women cycling. In case you didn't know, at last year Giro the girls had to climb Passo Stelvio (yes, the one that also the boys usually climb during the Corsa Rosa). Stunning, isn't it?
Anyway, hoping that I convinced you about the fact that women races are worth watching too, let's go back to Trofeo Binda. Bad weather, long race and an amazing Emma Pooley: this was the race.
The 28 year-old rider from London attacked with 80 kms to go and won with a minute and a half of advantage on Emma Johansson and Annemiek Van Vleuten. 4th was Martine Bras, 5th Shelley Olds, 6th Chantal Blaak,7th Judith Arndt and 8th Grace Verbeke. The peloton sprint was won by Pauline Prevot,whereas the first Italian rider was Elena Berlato, 12th.
Talking about Emma Pooley, she's the perfect example for explaining you what I meant when I talked about the sacrifices of female cyclists. In fact, being a woman cyclist provides you a job for 10, 15 years, but what can the girls do after their retirement from the sport world? Well, Pooley has found the answer: she has a degree in Engineering, which she got at Trinity College in Cambridge (wow!), and right now she lives in Zurich, where she's studying in order to get a PdH in Geotechnical Engineering. Amazing, isn't it?
3 DAYS OF LA PANNE: After this pink stroke, let's talk about another race: Three Days of La Panne. Read the following Top 3 very carefully:
1. Denis Galimzyanov, 2. John Degenkolb, 3. Peter Sagan. It is the top 3 of the second stage of 3 Days of La Panne and it is also a short list of the greatest Cycledom talents. Denis Galimzyanov is 24 year-old, has had a tough childhood (he has 5 brothers and they were all grown up by their mother) and, according to Cipollini, 'he still has to discover what his limits are. Moreover, he can still improve'.
John Degenkolb instead is 22 and this year he's already won a stage at Volta ao Algarve and the first stage of Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen. Last year instead he was 2nd at the U23 World Championships, behind a certain Michael Matthews.
As far as Sagan is concerned, I think we all know about this boy. As I said, look out for these guys. And since you're here, add to the list Andrew Talansky: he's 22 and he's a very good time trialist.
Back to 3 Days of La Panne, a rider who's done well in it is Lieuwe Westra, 28. He's not that young, but I hadn't heard anything about him in the last few years. However, it is always nice to discover some talents here and there ;) Unfortunately Westra lost the chance of winning the overall GC of the race during the last TT, which was won by an amazing Sebastien Rosseler.
The penultimate stage of the race instead was won by Jacopo Guarnieri, yay!
However, what can we understand from Westra's defeat in the TT, which cost him the overall prestigious victory in 3 Days of La Panne? Simple: he should have hidden something in his jersey(ok, sorry for that, but that's how I react to certain news)!

TOUR OF FLANDERS START LIST: Talking about some of the last races, now it's time to look ahead, to the Tour of Flanders that we'll be able to enjoy on Sunday. Since this is my last post before Sunday, here I go with the provisional start list of the race, my personal opinion about the teams and some latest news regarding injuries and things like that. Enjoy!
LEOPARD TREK: Cancellara, Klemme, O'Grady, Posthuma, Stamsnijder, Viganò, Nizzolo, Weylandt. Banana boy facing the cobblestones, yay! And Viganò, the latest crush of miss Mar! And look, there is also Nizzolo! What a fangirl-friendly team! Unfortunately, Robert (and not Richard) Wagner won't ride on Sunday because he broke his shinbone during GP Harelbeke. Poor Robert was knocked off his bike by a commitee car (!!) after he gave his rear wheel to Cancellara (the Swiss rider had just punctured). Wagner won't be operated, but he won't be able to race for 4/6 weeks now.
Torsten Schmidt called Nizzolo to replace the German unlucky rider and I totally believe Giacomo when he says he's very happy to ride Flanders. "I was in Milan when Luca Guercilena called me", Giacomo told Cyclingnews. 'At first, I thought he was joking. I couldn’t believe it. This is my first year as a pro and this might be the highlight of my maiden season. Still, it’s unfortunate that I get this chance at the cost of my teammate, Robert Wagner. I feel sorry for him, because he has been working for months toward this goal'. Good luck to Giacomo then!
Another rider who's not taking part in Flanders is Daniele Bennati, who's afraid that the cobblestones may damage his Achilles heels, which has been giving him huge problems in the last few years. A pity, since Daniele is in a very good condition. However, health always comes first!
Looking at the riders who are racing, Cancellara is my favourite number one for the race, although the whole group will be following him across Flanders on Sunday. Btw I'm sure that we can expect a Top 3 placement from him or from O'Grady, whose condition is really good right now. Stamsnijder, Posthuma, Klemme and Weylandt are very solid cobble-riders too, so I'm expecting a good race from the guys. Allez boys!
GARMIN-CERVELO: Hushovd, Farrar, Hammond, Haussler, Klier, Millar, Van Summeren, Maaskant. A very good team for Garmin, no doubts about that. Hushovd and Van Summeren have recently got good results at Paris-Roubaix (the Norwegian rider was 2nd last year, Johan was 5th in 2009) and this year Thor looks better than ever. Farrar was 5th in Flanders last year, while Hammond was 4th in Roubaix. Maaskant instead was 4th in Flanders in 2009 (hopefully he's fully recovered from his terrible crash at Paris-Nice: he broke 7 ribs that day!). Also Klier and Millar are very good riders, while Haussler was 2nd in the 2009 edition of De Ronde. I think the captain will be Thor, but I'm sure the team will have some etra cards to play in the finale.
BMC: Van Avermaet, Ballan, Burghardt, Hincapie, Kroon, Phinney, Quinziato, Schaer. Talking about strong teams... Ballan is one of my favourites for Sunday race, he's determined and he's in a good condition. His team is full of talented guys who know how to ride on the cobbles. Burghardt won Gand-Wevelgem a few years ago, Hincapie has been fighting for a victory in the North campaign for years, Kroon is experienced, Van Avermaet is fast and resistant and Quinziato, as well as having a great musical taste, knows how to rock the cobbles. Schaer is young (24), but he's got talent, just like Phinney. The boy amazed everyone in his years as young rider, now it's time to see what he can do in the professional peloton. I wish him a lot of luck!
KATUSHA: Hoste, Pozzato, Gusev, Isaichev, Ivanov, Kuschinsky, Paolini, Vandenbergh.

Hoste and Pozzato will be the captains, with Kuschinski ready to help them and Ivanov and Gusev who showed their faces during Gand-Wevegelm. Poor Hoste had a bad crash the other day: he actually wasn't mr. Peloton, now he's also got a bad cut over his eye and he's lost a tooth. Poor boy! On to Pozzato, he is the eternal promise of Italian cycling. Will he win his first Classic since 2006 on Sunday? We're all waiting for the answer.
COFIDIS: Keukeleire, Sijmens, Ista, Duque, Labbe, Petit, Saramotins, Valentin. The young Keukeleire (23) is one of the most talented Belgian riders and this year he'll have his debut in the North campaign. Together with him there will be the experienced Nico Sijmens.
SAXO BANK SUNGARD: Nuyens, Cooke, Klostergaard, Larsson, Marycz, Morkov, Tanner, Tosatto. A good mix of experienced and young guys for Uncle Bjarne's team. Nuyens is in a great condition, while Cooke and Tosatto are tough guys who know how to ride on cobblestones. Larsson has looked good in the last few races, while I'm curious to see what the young guns will do. Klostergaard isn't actually that young anymore and is a solid rider. Morkov had good results in the U23 Tour of Flanders some years ago and I think he'll help Nuyens in a great way. Marycz is a very brave rider, who's not afraid of attacking and I think he may have a very good race on Sunday. Tanner is a neo-pro, I wish him (and the other 'Flanders-virgins') a lot of good luck!
LAMPRE: Petacchi, Bole, Buts, Hondo, Kondrut, Krivtsov, Spilak, Szeghalmi. Look out for Simon Spilak, ladies and gentlemen: the boy was 8th in 2008 and is in a great form now. Petacchi has had some health problems recently, so he probably won't be at his best.
FDJ: Bonnaire, Bonnet, Chainel, Delage, Geslin, Guesdon, Rollin. Offredo should have been the team captain, but he's had a heel injury after his collision with a photographer on last Sunday. Poor Yoann! However, the team has good some good cards like Chainel (great form) and Guesdon (39 year old, he won Paris-Roubaix in 1997).
QUICK STEP: Boonen, Steegmans, Devenyns, De Weert, Van Impe, Maes, Chavanel. Terpstra broke his collarbone during 3 Days of La Panne, so the very unlucky boy (he who broke both arms in Beijing 2008) will have to take a period of forced rest. Heal soon, Nicki! Unfortunately, Boonen loses a very good helper, although I'm sure that Steegmans and the others will help him in a great way on Sunday. Look out also for Chavanel, he likes attacking!
VACANSOLEIL: Devolder, De Gendt, Leukemans, Veuchelen, Marcato, Mouris, Selvaggi, Westra. Devolder won 2 Tour of Flanders in 3 years and he's as determined as usual. Moreover, this year he has a new team formed by very strong guys. Marcato is in a very good form, just like Westra. De Gendt surprised me a lot in Paris-Nice, while Leukemans is one of my favourite riders as far as cobblestones are concerned. Add Westra and you have one of the best line-ups of the race.
SKY: Flecha, Boasson Hagen, Arvesen, Barry, Hayman, Hunt, Stannard, Thomas. Boasson Hagen has hopefully recovered from his health problems. Flecha is an expert of North races, although imo he's more keen on Roubaix than on Flanders. Arvesen is a very experienced and fast rider too (how would the Norwegian chronists react if he won?), while Thomas is young, brave and strong. Allez Geraint!
MOVISTAR: Amador, Erviti, Herrada, Konovalovas, Lastras, Madrazo, Rojas, Ventoso. Allez Konovalovas, one of the best time trialists of Cycledom!
SKIL SHIMANO: De Backer, Curvers, De Kort, Docker, Kluge, Reimer, Van Zandbeek, Veelers. 'Where's Kenny?', everyone's asking right now. Unfortunately, Kenny isn't in the start list of the race. Poor thing. However, Skil has some very good riders like De Kort, the former track rider Roger Kluge (who's very fast), Tom Veelers (who knows how to ride on cobblestones) and De Backer.
LIQUIGAS: Bodnar, Dall'Antonia, Guarnieri, King, Koren, Marangoni, Oss, Sagan. 'Young is cool' could probably be the new motto of Liquigas. Bodnar, a strong (and quite good-looking) Polish helper, is 26. Dall'Antonia and Edward Carrington 'Ted' King are 28 and carry the shame of being the oldest ones in the line-up. Marangoni is 26, Koren is 25, Guarnieri and Oss are 24 and Sagan, the team puppy, is almost 21. Amazing. And very competitive, since Sagan and Oss (the latter compared Flanders to 'Smell like Teen Spirits' by Nirvana) can fight for a top 5 placement, while Koren and Guarnieri are very promising too. Moreover, Oss said to look out for Bodnar and Dall'Antonia, very strong riders too.
EUSKALTEL: Aramendia, Castroviejo, Cazaux, Fernandez K, Izagirre, Perez Lezaun, Minguez, Sesma. Lo siento mucho, pero no hay 'cobblestones riders' en el Paìs Vasco. EUROPCAR: Chavanel, Claude, Gaudin, Gene, Haddou, Jerome, Pichot, Turgot. Decent team, but I don't think they have good chances of ending up in the top 20. Where's Voeckler?
OMEGA: Gilbert, Kaisen, Roelandts, Van de Walle, Hansen, Lang, Reynes, Sieberg. Yay, Sieberg is racing! Ok, sorry for that. Gilbert wants to win Flanders and he's in a good form. He also has a very strong team, in which there are some experienced guys like Kaisen and Van de Walle.
RADIOSHACK: Rosseler, Cardoso, Hunter, Kwiatowski, Lequatre, McEwen, Murayev, Rast. Good riders, but not exactly cobblestones specialists.
LANDBOUWKREDIET: Amorison, Barbe, De Waele, Dockx, Helminen, Scheirlincx, Traskel, Verheyen. Good team, with De Waele, Traksel and Scheirlincx as best ones of the line-up. Look out also for Amorison!
RABOBANK: Boom, Flens, Langeveld, Leezer, Matthews, Tjallingii, Van Emden, Wynants. In spite of the absence of the poor Matti Breschel, Rabobank has a very good line-up. Langeveld is very strong and is in a good condition, Matthews is at his 'cobblestones baptism' and Boom knows how to face extreme race conditions. Also Leezer is young but talented, while Flens, Tjallingii and Van Emden add their experience to the talent of the young guns.
HTC: Bak, Cavendish, Eisel, Ghyselinck, Goss, Roulston, Smukulis, M.Velits. Goss has won Sanremo, will he do the 'doppietta' with Flanders? I don't think so, although this boy from Tasmania never ceases to amaze me. Roulston is good on the cobblestones, while Cavendish didn't get any great result in the last races. Imo Eisel will be the team leader, although we may expect something also from Gatis 'Smuki' Smukulis, who won U23 edition of Flanders in 2008.
AG2R: Elmiger, Goddaert, Hinault, Houanard, Lemarchand, Minard, Mondory, Ravard. The captains should be the experienced Elmiger and Hinault.
ASTANA: Bazayev, Davis, Gourov, Grivko, Maxim and Valentin Iglinskiy, Lorenzetto, Vaitkus. Astana has one of the guys who could surprise us on Sunday and that guy is Maxim Iglinskiy. He's in a good form and was 8th in last year Flanders. Davis is a resistant guy, but I don't know how he can cope with cobblestones. Vaitkus is a good cobble rider too, while I'm curious about seeing Grivko in such an important race.
TOPSPORT: Coenen, Cornu, De Vresse, Jacobs, Neyrink, Van Hecke, Van Vooren, Vanspeybrouck. Ah, Topsport: every year they have a guy who gets a surprising result in the races they are invited to. The team is very young, but I expect something good from Cornu and also from Van Hecke.
VERANDA'S WILLEMS: Caethoven, De Vocht, Drucker, Goris, Van Groen, Scheirlincx, Schmitz, Van Dijk. Oh, Drucker! He's a Luxembourgish rider, so some of us will surely cheer for him ;)The team leader might be Scheirlincx, hopefully this team will offer us some good surprises.

So, this is the start list for Flanders. My picks? Cancellara, Boonen and Ballan (and Gilbert). Outsiders: Langeveld, Iglinskiy.

Waiting for Frank's comments on the Gazzetta news and for an amazing Tour of Flanders on Sunday, I wish you all a good weekend.

Totally random Thursday post about a few different things:

Good day everyone, dear blogmates! Unfortunately miss Fede (or FeeDee, or Féd or however else you call her ;) has been very busy over the last days, so she didn't find the time to update her blog. Sorry for that, dear readers.
Between the things I had to do over the last days there was a lot of studying, especially for my philosophy test about Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard (again!). To my shock, when I first read it this morning, I didn't even understand what I had to do in the first exercise. If I couldn't understand that part, just imagine how well I could understand the extracts from 'Aut-Aut' and 'The world as will and representation' (I'm making up the English names of the books, I wouldn't swear they're correct!). Moreover, over the last days I've been preparing myself to the approaching end of my favourite tv series by watching many times the second episode of it. 'What is your favourite tv series?', I hear you ask. 'Whitechapel!', I reply proudly while thinking about the main character. 'What?', I imagine you asking. 'Whitechapel! Come on, you've never heard of Whitechapel? Think about it more carefully, I'm sure you've heard about it somewhere...Come on, Whitechapel! Whitechapel I say! What? You don't know what it is? No? Well, you're not the only one', I answer you. In fact, over the last 2 weeks I've found just one (one!) person in my class who watches that series and likes it. However, she doesn't find it as exciting as me and this morning she told me that my favourite character is very likely to end up in a mental hospital in the next (and last) episode of the series. And to say that this is the only police-series that has ever managed to thrill me in the last 18 years... What a sad possible end for it :(

However, let's talk cycling. First of all, congratulations to Jack Bobridge on the new world record in the individual pursuit. The former record had been made by Chris Boardman 15 years ago and to do it Boardman rode a very strange bike which was later prohibited by the UCI. Now, Bobridge has broken that record with a 'normal' bike. Chapeau to him then!

On to another news, the Ladies Tour of Qatar began yesterday with Rochelle Gilmore's victory. The Australian rider outsprinted world champion Giorgia Bronzini and Chloe Hosking.
This year I'm going to talk about women cycling more often than usual, because I think that becoming a professional cyclist and making a living out of it is much more difficult for a woman than for a man. Therefore, here there's a video with the highlights of stage 1: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/video-stage-1-highlights-of-the-ladies-tour-of-qatar . You can't see the finish very well in it, but it's always better than nothing. Bronzini complained about another rider creating her problems in the sprint, but the video doesn't allow me to tell whether she's right or not. By THE way, the funny thing is that, when Giorgia won the Worlds in Geelong, Gilmore was working for Australian tv and she was the first one to interview the Italian rider. Yesterday, instead, the interviewed one was her.

On to another news, Menchov has recently declared that he's not going to leave Geox for Saxo Bank (I've always said that Denis is a great person ;)
Talking about Geox, the team presentation should have been held 4 days ago, but it was postponed to the 12th of February. However, UCI has published the list of Geox riders on its website (or at least, that's what I understood from an Italian unclear article I've just read) and it has accompanied the list with a picture of how the new team's jersey should look like: http://tribunatreviso.gelocal.it/sport/2011/01/27/news/geox-il-giallo-della-maglia-svelata-3291209 . Someone has already said that it isn't the true official jersey and I hope that those people are right. Geox' kit is better than Footon-Servetto's one, but what about the 'breathing shoe' on the front of it? Dreadful, isn't it?

Talking about another team, Saxo Bank has put the pictures of the riders wearing their new kits on http://www.riis-cycling.com/person_profiles.asp . Watcing those pics, I must admit it, my eye always fell on the eagle. I did try to fight that instict, but I couldn't: that animal is a real eye catcher (better if I stop here, otherwise someone may take this blog as a naughty one!). Anyway, has anyone else noticed David Tanner? ;)

Penultimate thing to say for today, I've recently got the news of the opening of Leopard Trek official website. I must admit I was pretty confused when I typed its name in Google and saw a picture of Giacomo Leopardi appear on my computer screen as I was writing, but luckily it soon disappeared and left me free of wandering around http://www.leopardtrek.lu/ . I must say I pretty like this website, although I find its design too classy. Moeover, the black and white style doesn't appeal too much to me. But hey, it is a good website anyway.

BTw, am I the only one who has confused Brian Nygaard with Bjarne Riis as I entered the 'Riders' section of the website? :S

RANDOM LINK OF THE DAY:

http://blog.tv2.dk/chris.anker.ol/entry395538.html : as you can imagine, this is the link to Chris Sorensen's latest blog entry, in which he talks about his first approach to track riding by saying that he stayed at the bottom of the steep track, 'looking like Bambi walking on the thin ice'. What a poetic similry!

Menchov not invited at Tour de France:

As you probably know, today ASO has published the list of teams invited to this year edition of Tour de France. To my horror, the name of Geox team didn't appear on said list. The teams that were invited to the prestigious French race in fact were Cofidis, FDJ, Team Europcar and, dulcis in fundo, the super famous Saur-Sojasun team. After all, why should ASO have invited Menchov and Sastre's team when they knew they could have Casper and Coppel's equipe? It would have been a non-sense choice! Moreover, Saur-Sojasun team kits perfectly match the colour of Movistar's ones and this fact may cause some confusion between supporters. What a joy! And, perhaps, after being invited to the Tour this team will assume such a 'grandeuristic' attitude that they'll start to send mails to the journalists and tell them to write the team's name in capitals. That would be great for French cycling, wouldn't it? And then, Saur-Sojasun is a French team, so its riders will surely enter a breakaway on the Bastille Day, won't dope during the race and they won't force French journalists to speak English. And then, in this team there are so many unknown riders! I mean, Geox has Sastre and Menchov, ok, but none of them is a great beauty, right? And then, those guys have been racing for about 10 years now, we supporters are fed up with them! So, let's give space to French teams, they deserve it so much! And then, let's not forget that Geox kit may look like Footon-Servetto's old one and ASO guys don't want naked-looking guys riding on the French roads in July, right? It would damage tourism!!
I'm trying to be funny while writing this post but, believe me, I am scandalised, I mean, 's-c-a-n-d-a-l-i-s-e-d-', by ASO's decision. Ok, Carlos Sastre was pretty disappointing in the last 2 seasons, but you can't decide not to invite Menchov at the Tour! How can a person without mental problems consciounsly decide not to invite him there? Denis is the most complete Grand Tour rider of the world (Andy Schleck is better than him on the climbs, but the Russian is better in time trials) and was 3rd in the last Tour; moreover, in the last years he won two Vueltas and a Giro. Why not inviting him then? What kind of illegal substance damaged the brain of ASO's guys so much to make them take this decision? Did they sniff clenbuterol?
'Contador has damaged cycling', McQuaid has recently said in an interview. Well, in my opinion ASO organisers have just joined the Spaniard in his attempt of trying to disgust cycling supporters once again.
As a supporter, every time I watch a Grand Tour I hope that, in the end, its winner will be a rider that has deserved that victory. A rider that isn't doped, a rider that has made me feel strong emotions, a rider that has beated all the other strongest riders of the world. This happens to be particularly true for the Tour de France, the most important cycling Grand Tour of the world. All the best riders of the world should be able to take part in it, no matter the Pro Tour systems or b******** like that. Then it's true that it's almost impossible to have all the best riders of the world in the same race, because unfortunately there is always someone who is injured or has had health problems or so on. But still, I think that the best riders of the world shouldn't be excluded by the most important race of the world because of the organisers' stupidity. Because, when a team as Geox is excluded from a race like the Tour, then it means that we're not talking cycling anymore. It means that we're talking politics, patriotism, revenge or things like that. But we're not talking sport. And sport, when I watch cycling races, is the only thing I actually care about.
Talking about cycling races, the Tour is considered the best Grand Tour of the world. Therefore, from the theoric point of view, the rider who wins it should be the best Grand Tour rider of the world. Now, me wonders: how can we know if 2011 TdF winner would have beaten Menchov if he had had the chance to race? Personally, if right now I were a Tour de France's possible contender, I wouldn't be happy to know about Denis' exclusion from the race. In my opinion, in fact, a Tour without all the best riders of the world is a Tour without value.
Talking about Menchov, I really don't know how he must be feeling right now and I wouldn't like to be in his shoes tonight. I mean, Denis was born in 1978 (on the 25th of January), isn't a 'young gun' anymore and, perhaps, he won't have many other years at this level in front of him. If I were him, I would be terribly angry at ASO right now. Perhaps they didn't realise it, but with their decision the ASO guys might have just destroyed Menchov's sportive dream. It's easy for us to say 'He can always try to win the race next year', but there are many things that can change in 365 days time- everything can change in 365 days time.
Now of course Menchov and Sastre hope that their team will be invited to Giro and the Corsa Rosa will become their main goal of the season. Hopefully mr. Zomegnan cares about cycling more than his colleagues at ASO and so he will invite Geox to his race.
It will surely take me some time to get used to the idea that Menchov won't race the Tour, but perhaps the most disgusting thing about this story is that supporters can't do nothing about it. Riders are said to count nothing in the cycling world, but supporters count even less than them. 'It's another defeat for cycling, it's another delusion for the tifosi, it's another blow for cycling's credibility!', that's what Very Important People say every time a rider is caught positive at the anti-doping. Too bad that, imo, also not inviting the best riders to the most important race of the world is a loss of credibility for cycling, another defeat for the sport and, most important, another delusion for the tifosi. Personally, I've rarely felt so disappointed because of cycling. People always believe there's justice in this world, too bad that it's not true... Btw, I realise that I'm slipping into cliché, moralism and all those kind of things, so it's better if I stop this post here. The lack of solutions for this situation leaves me disappointed and disgusted, powerless and worried.
Unfortunately there is nothing we can do about it, apart from thinking that, of course, there are more important things in the world (and I'm perfectly aware of this, don't worry). For example, HTC Columbia rider Carla Swart, 23 year-old, died the other day while training. My deepest condolences go to her familiars and friends.

PS1: I wrote this post as soon as I got the news of ASO's decision, when I was even angrier than now at the Tour organisers, therefore anger might have caused me to make more mistakes than usual int. If so, I apology.

PS2: in the first part of this post I wrote about Saur-Sojasun. I want to make it clear that I don't have nothing against that team and that I perfectly know that it's not their fault if Menchov's team was excluded from the Tour.

Grande Giorgia!

And for the third time in 4 years, an Italian girl is World Champion (2007 Bastianelli, 2009 Guderzo, 2010 Bronzini) :D :DLast year, after Guderzo's great victory, Michele Scarponi came up with the sentence: 'Altro che Guderzo,dovevano chiamarla Guprimo!!' which, translated in a not very precise way, sounds a bit like : 'she shouldn't have been called Guderzo ('Guthird'), she should have been called Gufirst'.
This year, after Bronzini's equally great victory, I'm sure that someone else tomorrow on the newspaper will come up with the 'Altro che Bronzini, dovevano chiamarla Orini!' sentence(translation: "she shouldn't have been called 'Little bronzes', she should have been called 'little golds!'"). Luckily Giorgia Bronzini is used to this kind of not-so-funny jokes, since in 2009 she won the points race at the World Track Championships. And now, Giorgia has become World Champion on the Road. What a champion!

For those of you who, like me, couldn't see the race live, here's a Youtube video about the last km (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-s8G-SMi64 ).
Cooke and Arndt attacked during the last lap and they managed to stay clear of the peloton until they reached the 200 meters to go. At that point Vos started her sprint and rode past the two tired riders. Behind the Dutch rider there were the Swedish Emma Johansson and the Italian Giorgia Bronzini,who eventually managed to raise her arms in triumph and cross the finish-line first. Poor Marianne Vos got her 4th silver medal in a row, while Emma Johansson was third although she hit the arm of a supporter during the very last meters of race.

The Italian team was as good as usual, with all the girls giving it all not just for themselves but also for their teammates. In particular, Guderzo and Cantele were very good in understanding that the other girls wouldn't have let them free of escaping from the peloton and so they put themselves to Giorgia's service. The other exceptional riders on La Squadra were Elena Berlato, Elena Berlato, Giorgia Bronzini, Rossella Callovi, Noemi Cantele, Valentina Carretta, Eleonora Patuzzo e Luisa Tamanini (Baccaille was the reserve). Congratulations to all of them-and to Giorgia in particular :)

Here's the top 10 of the race:
1 Giorgia Bronzini (Italy) 3:32:01
2 Marianne Vos (Netherlands)
3 Emma Johansson (Sweden)
4 Nicole Cooke (Great Britain)
5 Judith Arndt (Germany) 0:00:01
6 Grace Verbeke (Belgium) 0:00:03
7 Trixi Worrack (Germany)
8 Rasa Leleivyte (Lithuania)
9 Elizabeth Armitstead (Great Britain)
10 Carla Swart (South Africa) “It was the most beautiful sprint of my life. The girls believed in me right to the end even though I suffered a lot on the climb, and I repaid them. We’re great group. We are the best", Bronzini told the journalists after her victory, which she dedicated to Franco Ballerini and to Marina Romoli. Well done girl!!

(Pictures by Riccardo Scanferla)

Chavanel gets the yellow jersey while Andy gets the white one (and Mara Abbott is winning the Giro):

Yes,it's time of changes in the Tour de France's general classification.

Waiting for Morzine stage to create a bigger selection,today we supporters could enjoy an amusing stage in the Jura mountains. In fact,although none of the GC contenders (Schleck, Contador, Arnmstrong) attacked, watching Sylvain Chavanel winning his second stage victory at this year Tour was really nice.

At its beginning,today stage saw some men (Knees,Pineau,Hondo,Ruben Perez and the little Dumoulin) breaking free from the peloton.At a certain point the attackers du jour had a time gap of 8 minutes on the peloton,but then on the penultimate climb Boygues Telecom Team started to pull hard and the advantage of the breakaway guys soon started to decrease.

Boygues' move was (and still is) a mistery to me.I mean,are you trying to tell me that Boygues guys really believed that Voeckler could have won today's stage without problems? Ok, Voeckler is a good rider, but it was predictable that some strong guys would have jumped on his wheel as soon as he had attacked.Some even said that,perhaps,the Boygues guys were being punished by their ds for not entering a breakaway.Logic doesn't believe this explanation, since she's always been told that the only way to survive a Tour is trying to recover as much as possible.So,if she was a ds and had to punish her riders because they didn't enter a breakaway,she would never make them pull at the head of a Tour stage for so many kms,with the risk of making them become too tired or the risk of causing herself enemies inside the peloton.

Anyway,leaving my personal opinion apart and getting back to the race,the first guy to get dropped after Boygues' move was McEwen,who yesterday crashed against a man after crossing the finish-line.

Talking about yesterday (victory by Cav),the most interesting part of the day probably began after the finish-line.In fact,behind the white finish-line of Gueugnon,not just a man made McEwen crash,but Barredo and Rui Costa even started a fist fight.And,after this episode,I think we can officialy declare that 'fist fighting' is the latest Cycledom fashion ('Break you collarbone!' instead is an 'evergreen').In fact,Righi and Evans had a fight in the Giro, Hunter and Fuglsang had a little argument on the road to Arenberg the other day, Barredo and Rui Costa fought yesterday...Me wonders,who will be the next fighters?

Anyway,as soon as McEwen got dropped I thought that he wasn't going to make it to the finish-line in the time-limit and so I thought that,probably,his Tour was over.Luckily Robbie proved I was wrong by coming 175th,in the middle of the gruppetto and on perfect time.Chapeau!

Back to the race,the most important victim of Boygues' move was the yellow jersey,Fabian Cancellara.In fact he got dropped on the penultimate climb,but luckily managed to join the main group again after a few kms.

Towards the top of the penultimate climb then the attack of the Boygues captain Voeckler arrived.T-Blanc and Gauthier ('Where is Fedrigo?',Fangirl went) in fact abandoned the main group of riders together with other riders like Perget (who was in a breakaway also yesterday),Valls Ferri, Lloyd, Garate, Chavanel and Cunego.Also Gerdemann,Nocentini and Gutierrez tried to escape from the peloton,but they didn't succeed.

On the last climb of the day Chavanel attacked,dropped all the other attackers of the day,reached his teammate Pineau (who had been at the head of the race with Hondo since the penultimate climb and who had dropped the German rider on the last climb) and started his lonely race towards success.

In the meanwhile Cancellara had got dropped again and it soon became clear that his yellow jersey was going to end up on Chavanel's shoulders again.With a few kms to the end of the climb also Geraint Thomas gave in and so the white jersey went to Andy Schleck (yay!!).
As mentioned,Chavanel soloed to victory for the second time in 5 days and also got the yellow jersey.Second was 23 year old Valls Ferri,3rd was Garate,4th was Voeckler,5th was Perget,6th was Moreno.Then,all the GC men arrived.

As said,there were no attacks between the GC contenders today,but Kloden lost 4 minutes and Toni Martin crossed the finish-line 19 minutes after a super happy Sylvain Chavanel. Btw,talking about Kloden: on http://sport.rsi.ch/home/channels/sport/%20sport_on_line/2010/07/10-Signori-si-nasce-ed-io-lo-nacqui it is written that the other night he had to sleep in a 'castle bed'.Personally I think you have to be very brave to sleep in a castle bed at the tender age of 35,so chapeau to Kloden for that.

Back to the 'GC group',together with the strongest climbers in it there were also Hesjedal, Nicolas Roche, Eros Capecchi and Chris Sorensen.Hopefully the Dane hasn't spent too much energy today,since Logic believes that he and Jakob Fuglsang will be key helpers for Andy Schleck in the next days.
Cancellara instead crossed the finish line with a 14 minutes delay,together with Breschel and Voigt.

Me wasn't surprised by the lack of attacks in the GC group,although at a certain point,on the penultimate climb,Vinokourov went at the head of the peloton and a chronist said: "Attention to Vinokourov,he's stretching his legs in a very threatening way! Perhaps he's going to attack!".Eventually,Vino didn't attack,but those words gave me occasion of reflecting about the fact that,imo,Vino would look threatening even if he should go to buy an ice cream while on holiday. "Give me the chocolate flavour or I call the Kazakhistani goverment". Gosh,what a frightening vision.
On to a nicer vision,I remind you that Andy Schleck is the new white jersey.To say it with O'Grady,"The white knight is back" (source: Chris Sorensen's last blog entry). And,obviously,Fangirl is very happy about that.

According to http://www.ideal.es/agencias/20100710/deportes/mas-deportes/anadido-declaraciones-protagonistas-septima-etapa_201007101920.html ,after the stage Andy said: "It's been a very hot and hard day.I hadn't seen this stage before of the Tour and its difficulty surprised me.I'm very happy for the white jersey,but my target is a jersey of another colour.Fabian Cancellara didn't have a good day and so now it's up to me.I'm fine".

Here's the new top 10 of the race:
1 Sylvain Chavanel (Fra) Quick Step
2 Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team 0:01:25
3 Ryder Hesjedal (Can) Garmin - Transitions 0:01:32
4 Andy Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank 0:01:55
5 Alexander Vinokourov (Kaz) Astana 0:02:17
6 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana 0:02:26
7 Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel) Omega Pharma-Lotto 0:02:28
8 Nicolas Roche (Irl) AG2R La Mondiale

9 Johan Van Summeren (Bel) Garmin - Transitions 0:02:33
10 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank 0:02:35
Waiting for tomorrow's hard stage to Morzine,let's hope that Andy Schleck will leave all the other riders behind and get the first maillot jaune of his career.

GIRO DONNE:

The Giro Donne over the last 3 days faced its hardest stages,the one with the Ghisallo,the one with the trio Maloja/Bernina/Forcola and,dulcis in fundo,the one with the Stelvio.This is a very long (21 kms and 36 hairpin turns) and hard (7,1% is the average steep,9,5%is the maximum) climb and its top is about 2700 meters high.

As mentioned in the last post,the Ghisallo stage was won by Evelyn Stevens after a long breakaway.The queen of the 2 last mountain stages of the race instead was Mara Abbott. Yesterday she attacked on Maloja (the first climb of the day) and was followed just by Emma Pooley,who however got dropped before of the Bernina.The young American eventually won the stage with 1'07" of advantage on Pooley,while 3rd was Arndt and 4th was Guderzo. Marianne Vos crossed the finish-line 3 minutes after the winner and so the maglia rosa went to Abbott.Second in the GC was Arndt,with just 19" of delay.

Today,however,Abbott proved (once again) to be the strongest climber of this Giro.At the base of Stelvio in fact she attacked and only Pooley could follow her.Then,with 2 kms to go,Mara dropped the British champion and soloed to victory for the second stage in a row.3rd was Arndt,4th was Guderzo.

Tomorrow's stage will be flat and will be the last day of race for the girls.Here's the top 10 of the race:

1 Mara Abbot (USA) US National Team
2 Judith Arndt (Ger) HTC Columbia Women 0:02:08
3 Tatiana Guderzo (Ita) Team Valdarno 0:03:05
4 Claudia Häusler (Ger) Cervelo TestTeam 0:05:29
5 Emma Pooley (GBr) Cervelo TestTeam 0:06:53
6 Eivgenia Vysotska (Ukr) Team Valdarno 0:08:26
7 Marianne Vos (Ned) Netherlands National Team 0:09:32
8 Tatiana Antoshina (Rus) Team Valdarno 0:12:05
9 Olga Zabelinskaya (Rus) Safi - Pasta Zara 0:23:03
10 Elena Berlato (Ita) Top Girls Fassa Bortolo - Ghezzi 0:25:47

Little news about Frank Schleck,TdF,Giro Donne and Random Link:

Before of beginning this post,let me say that Paul the Octopus is a myth,having predicted every single result of Germany Soccer Team in a flawless way during this edition of the World Championships.
Now that I've said this,we can begin.

SCHLECK NEWS:

First of all,I've pulled myself together after Frank's crash.Good old Televideo (the magic universe that every Italian can open by pushing a mysterious button on their tv control) yesterday highlighted Frank's crash and wrote at p.299 that Frank told Riis that he's already thinking of racing la Vuelta at the end of August.

Imo this is a very good information,since it shows that the morale of our boy hasn't been totally shattered by those fucking cobblestones and by his operation.The good thing about Frank's crash,at least,is that now he can spend a lot of time with Martine and Leea.

And about his chances to run la Vuelta: don't forget that Chris Sorensen broke his collarbone at the end of March and won a Giro stage at the beginning of May,without taking part in any race in the period of time that went from his crash to the Giro.Therefore me believes that there are good chances for Frank to find a good form during (if not before) the Spanish Grand Tour.Allez Frank!

TOUR DE FRANCE:

After this little Schleck news,let's now talk about how things went in the last 2 stages of the Tour.

Yesterday stage saw a group of brave riders (which included also De Greef) trying to break away from the peloton.As usual,their dreams of glory were shattered by the sprinters' teams,Columbia in particular.

Every best sprinter of the Tour could take part in the final sprint,which was very interesting.Farrar couldn't give his best because of a broken wrist,Cavendish was launched by Renshaw but then suddenly disappeared,Garmin did a very good job for Dean,Boasson Hagen tried to win,Turgot went to look for another placement,Hushovd did his best to get his second victory in a row,but the eventual stage winner was Petacchi.

Obviously this has caused a big euphoria here in Italy since Petacchi has already won 2 stages in 5 days and so everyone now is dreaming of watching Ale-Jet in green on the Champs Elysées,while Bettini is already thinking about bringing him to Melbourne this Autumn. Btw,didn't you have a deja-vu moment as well,when McEwen started his sprint right behind Petacchi? Me did.

On to today's stage,the victory was decided in a bunch sprint once again.The breakawayers du jour were Gutierrez,Van De Walle and El Fares and the last of them,Gutierrez,gave in with just 4 kms to go.Columbia really did a great job today and Cavendish eventually managed to win an important race this year.He's not the nicest person on Earth,but I have to admit that it was pretty moving to see him crying as a baby on the podium.Or,perhaps,I was moved by the delighted screams of the other women of the family ("Oh,he's crying! How cute!!").

Second was Ciolek,third was Boasson Hagen (Geraint Thomas helped him in a great way during the last meters of the race).Petacchi was out of Top 5 and complained (in a very kind way) that both Farrar and Dean had created him problems during the sprint.Watching the video of the sprint,I can't do nothing but agree with him.

The great shiver of the day was offered by Sylwester Szmyd,who during an interview with an Italian journalist finally revealed that the pronounciation of his name used by everyone here in Italy is wrong.Obviously the news shocked every single cycling supporter of this country.

Tomorrow's stage,anyway,is going to be hilly and may offer a great occasion to all the 'wanna go on a breakaway!" guys of the Tour.Oh,and still talking about tomorrow: perhaps you have heard something about a new law that the Italian Parliament is discussing in these days.Said law will restrict the press freedom here in Italy (at least,that's my opinion; if you have another one,tell me and we'll begin a polite debate) and so tomorrow there's going to be a big strike between the journalists. And because of this strike the Gazzetta journalists (also the ones who write on the website) won't work tomorrow.So if you check the website and don't notice any change,don't worry: it will be a consequence of this strike.

GIRO DONNE:

The 4th stage of Giro Donne was totally flat,so I think you can guess who won without my help. If you need some clues,well,I can tell you that the winner races for HTC Columbia,is German and,at the time,wore the pink jersey.Last clue: her surname begins with T and ends with 'eutenberg'.Understood?

After 4 stage wins in a row (3 sprints and a TT),we finally passed from Teutenberg's tiranny to Marianne Vos' reign (well,kind of).

The 5th stage of the race was very hilly and had an uphill finish after a 2.5 kms long climb (15% of difficulty in some points).Abbott set the pace at the beginning of the climb and just the best riders (Arndt,Guderzo,Pooley,Hausler,Vos and Zabelinskaya) could stay with her.With about 500 meters to go Guderzo attacked and was immediately followed by Vos,who outsprinted her and got the stage victory and the Maglia Rosa.

The following day,after a breakaway in which,once again,there was Silvia Valsecchi,the fight for the victory was still a question between the strongest riders of the race.On a hill Pooley seemed to have some problems,but then she quickly reached the group of the best riders and she even attacked.In the finale of the stage the strongest riders were divided in 2 groups.The first of them was formed by Vos,Arndt and Zabelinskaya,while the other one was pulled by Guderzo and included all the other GC contenders.In the sprint,Marianne Vos got her second victory in a row.

And here we arrive to today's stage,that ended in Albese con Cassano,the hometown of Fabio Casartelli.The stage began in Como,near to the village of Marina Romoli,a rider that had a very bad crash some weeks ago.Therefore,lots of riders and tifosi had some thoughts for her this afternoon.

This stage was pretty hard (it included the Ghisallo climb and a 13 kms long climb) and was won by Evelyn Stevens,American of team Columbia (they won 5 stages out of 7),who abandoned her race companions with a lot of kms to go and soloed to victory in Albese con Cassano.Second,with 42" of delay,was Marianne Vos,who outsprinted Arndt, Guderzo, Hausler,Abbott,Vysotska and Neben.Emma Pooley,just like Olga Zabelinskaya,arrived 5 minutes after the winner.Vos kept her Maglia Rosa.Here's the new GC top 10 :

1 Marianne Vos (Ned) Netherlands National Team
2 Judith Arndt (Ger) HTC Columbia Women 0:00:27
3 Tatiana Guderzo (Ita) Team Valdarno 0:01:09
4 Evelyn Stevens (USA) HTC Columbia Women 0:01:14
5 Claudia Häusler (Ger) Cervelo TestTeam 0:01:29
6 Mara Abbot (USA) US National Team 0:01:54
7 Amber Neben (USA) US National Team 0:03:02

8 Eivgenia Vysotska (Ukr) Team Valdarno 0:03:11
9 Olga Zabelinskaya (Rus) Safi - Pasta Zara 0:06:34
10 Emma Pooley (GBr) Cervelo TestTeam 0:06:45

RANDOM LINK:

http://blog.tv2.dk/chris.anker.ol/entry376054.html :this time Chris Anker Sorensen tells us that his roomie at the Tour is Jens Voigt and this seriously makes me think that,after Frank's crash,the title of 'Best TdF room' could go to this couple of riders.

As well as that,Chris also tells us how things are going for the TdF riders who love football.In the previous entry he wrote that Karsten Kroon watched Holland-Uruguay dressed in orange and wearing a pair of big orange sunglasses.As well as that,Kroon sweared that,if Holland becomes World Champion,he'll run a mountain stage with those glasses on.

In the last entry,instead,Chris talks about the disappointment of Jens Voigt and the other Germans on the team after that Germany went out from the Worlds (like Paul the Octopus had predicted).And he also informs us that,obviously,the Spanish mechanics of the team have already started to tease the Germans.

Ale Jet gets his win:

Yes,Petacchi got a stunning victory in today's TdF stage that ended in Brussels.
The stage,however,was characterised by many crashes,especially during its last part.With about 1,5 km to go,in fact,Mark Cavendish (and not Jeremy Hunt,as I first thought) didn't see a curve (that's the only possible explanation for what he did) and crashed.Cavendish involved in his crash also 3 other riders and between them there was also Oscar Freire,who at the moment of the crash was in a perfect position (right behind Petacchi,my personal favourite of the day).Also Lorenzetto (he's an important man for Petacchi's sprints) crashed. Cavendish however soon hopped on his bike again and tried to chase the peloton alone.At a certain point he made a sign to a cameraman,that someone kindly intertpreted as 'What a pity!' but that I personally interpreted as 'An asshole ruined my race!!! Grrrrr!!".Considering Cavendish' personality,and considering that he blamed Lorenzetto for the crash,I think I can declare that my interpretation was probably better than the other one.
With 700 meters to go,everything was ready for the sprint but,suddenly,the peloton broke into 2 parts because of a crash.A bike flew,someone (Rogers?) crawled on the asphalt,while someone else was trying to take his bike away from the other ones.Morale of the crash: just 20 riders (more or less) could take part in the sprint.Amongst them however there were still some fast guys like Petacchi, Farrar, McEwen and Lancaster. But then,after an attack by Lancaster,also Farrar was involved in a crash.Or,better,his bicycle was.In fact Mondory fell and his bike found itself attached to Farrar's rear wheel.The Frenchman kindly sent Farrar to that land,and the American did the same with the Frenchman.In fact,since none of them could take part in the sprint,the boys probably prefered to demonstrate their love for each other in this way. After all,men have particular ways of showing their love for other men.
Eventually Petacchi finally emerged as a winner from this waterfall of crashes.He was really strong today and his sprint was very long.Therefore,chapeau to him.After all,we Italians may not be the best footballers of the world (South Africa tragically demonstrated it),but we do know how to sprint.Or,at least,some of us (not me) do.Therefore,look out for us also in Melbourne this September (I've warned you...).
Back to the race,second came Mark Renshaw (the best sprinting helper of the world),third was Hushovd,4th McEwen (who lives in Belgium and wanted to win this stage),5th was Ladagnous and 6th was the great Daniel Oss.7th was Rojas,8th Knees,9th Perez Moreno,10th Roelandts.
As said,the stage was characterised by a lot of crashes.Those crashes however occurred not just in the finale,but also in the first part of the stage.Poor and brave Adam Hansen was very unlucky,since he broke his collarbone in an early crash.In spite of this he managed to finish the race anyway and,in a moment of great braveness,he even smiled at the camera.What a hero.
Another crash instead was the one starring David Millar,Ivan Basso and a dog.Yes,a dog.It ran happily through the peloton for a while,but then it met Basso and Millar.Anyway don't worry: both Ivan and David didn't have any problems after the crash,while I have no news about the dog.The thing that had the worst consequence after the crash was one of Basso's shoes.Ivan was in fact forced to change it while riding and,believe me,that really scared me.So I'm asking a little favour to Frank Schleck: if you ever have to change a shoe during a race,could you please change it after you've stopped your bike? We'd be really thankful for that.
As far as the GC is concerned,things have remained the same.Aka,Fabian is still in yellow.The green jersey instead is now on Petacchi's shoulders and,hopefully,it will remain there for a lot of time.
The first attackers of this year Tour (I think it's correct to mention them) were Lars Boom,Perez Lezaun and Wynants.In the last kms of their brekaway they were also joined by the promising young champion of Moldovia,Alexander Pliuschin.Talking about him,his white plastic watch caused me to nickname him 'mr.Plastic chic' (yes,that's how those watches are called in Italy; and yes,I'm very childish as far as nicknames are concerned).
Talking about the Schleck brothers,I saw them riding quietly to the finish-line with the other team guys,so I guess that everything's okay for them.I don't know whether some of them crashed,but Chris Sorensen has told TV2 reporters that 'today was a fine,although stressful,day',so I suppose that no one in the team got injured this afternoon (if you have more news,free to tell me).Oh,and talking about Saxo Bank team: am I the only one who has noticed (and approves) Matti Breschel's new glasses?

GIRO D'ITALIA FEMMINILE:
Today's stage,a 16.9 kms long TT,was won by-guess who?-Ina-Yoko Teutenberg (19 victories this year).And,considering that tomorrow's stage is flat,Ina could win her 4th stage in a row.Impressive,isn't it?
Here's the top 12 of the stage:
1 Ina Yoko Teutenberg (Ger) HTC Columbia Women 0:21:50
2 Kirsten Wild (Ned) Cervelo TestTeam 0:00:21
3 Judith Arndt (Ger) HTC Columbia Women 0:00:22
4 Linda Villumsen (NZl) HTC Columbia Women 0:00:23
5 Marianne Vos (Ned) Netherlands National Team 0:00:24
6 Shelley Evans (USA) US National Team 0:00:43
7 Annemiek Van Vleuten (Ned) Netherlands National Team 0:00:51
8 Amber Neben (USA) US National Team 0:00:52
9 Alison Starnes (USA) US National Team 0:00:54
10 Iris Slappendel (Ned) Cervelo TestTeam
11 Evelyn Stevens (USA) HTC Columbia Women 0:00:55
12 Tatiana Guderzo (Ita) Team Valdarno

Unfortunately I just have the top 12 because that's what cyclingnews offers me right now.And,since they don't appear in the top 12,unfortunately I don't have any news about the results of important riders like Hausler,Cantele and Pooley.So,I suggest you taking a look at cyclingnews later in order to know more.