Tag: Criteriums

From Carcassonne it COULD have been a ‘snooze-fest.’ It SHOULD have been a sprinters stage. Enter, stage left one superb Slovakian in green, Mr. Peter Sagan (Tinkoff). He attacks from the front in the cross winds inside 12 K to go with Polish TT champ team mate Bodnar aka ‘The Bison’ and spreads pure panic among the world’s best riders – but that skinny Sky man Froome is sharp again, as is team mate Thomas.

It’s been a cool experience jumping off of the Garmin-Transitions train and into the Australian team for the past week, for the World Championship 2010 Training Camp.

‘Waiting for Godot’ is a famous play by Samuel Beckett; two characters wait in vain for Godot – the play’s much discussed third character who gives the drama it’s name but never appears. As the others looked at each other and waited for Godot - whether his name in this case was Sep or Bradley or Greg - Boonen drove and drove. It’s not like a champion of Boonen’s stature to give it the; ‘come through for f##k’s sake boys’ routine but his frustration was palpable.

The rain stings past the entrance to the ski lift at 45 degrees and tries its damnedest to puncture the metal sheets on the roof; thunder roars in and echoes around the concrete walls, lightning sparks across the dark sky, the air temperature has dropped from a pleasant Spanish summer's afternoon to January on Porty Prom. Welcome to the Bola del Mundo; they say it's the toughest climb in European cycling - we believe it. We've been up to Covadonga a time or two and the Angliru, plus most of the Giro and Tour 'biggies', but this is evil.

‘Unfinished business’ is how Iain Grant (Dooleys) viewed the 2013 Scottish 100 mile championship; and it has to be said that he ‘did the business’ on the day to win in 3:54:05 giving him a yawning nine minute margin over team mate Gavin Shirley [4:03:02] and Jim Cusick (Glasgow Couriers) [4:03:26]. Here’s what he had to tell VeloVeritas about his completing his hat trick of 2013 Scottish time trial titles...

Just turned 19 years-old, Louise Garbett finished the biggest race in the world on the Champs-Élysées in Paris and was escorted to the podium along with Laurent Fignon and Greg Lemond to receive the overall White Jersey for the first ever Tour de France Feminine.