Tag: Football

Today heralds the start of a new chapter for Team Ineos. Ineos are now the sole owners of Tour Racing Limited (the Team’s holding company), signifying a fresh start following the conclusion of Team Sky’s decade-long ownership by Sky and 21st Century Fox. Team Ineos officially launched at a press conference, held at The Fountaine Inn in Linton with Sir Dave Brailsford, Team Ineos team principal, and Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder and Chairman of Ineos, in attendance.

Up at 04:30, the plan was to get the bus from Porty at 09:00 - however, and to cut a long story short, the van is abandoned in a western suburb of Edinburgh and a cab was flagged down to get me to the airport on time. The flight was undramatic - thank God - and there was Kris in the airport bus park, with the camper. It's seems to be an unwritten law that you have to arrive in a different country from where the race is; so the rendez-vous was in Geneva, Switzerland.

And so the warm weather (excluding Tour of the Med) precursors to the bike season proper have concluded. Down Under, Qatar, Oman, Algarve, etc have all had their brief moments in the spotlight, Langkawi has kicked off with a win to Zab in the time trial (no surprises that Zab is nowhere near the Classics! Not a sketchy conditions type of rider is the great DZ.) Now we head to the heartland of the sport and the portion of the season where the hardmen have their moments to shine.

Le Tour de France Stage 4 from Cambrai and Dean was good, very good, team mate Hunter finished fastest, swooshing clear of them all - but after the line. Garmin sprinter patron Tyler Farrar sat up to peer over the sea of heaving numbers to see how his boys had done.

The current flag bearer for black track cycling Nolan Hoffman, hails from South Africa - and there's irony in that, given the vile apartheid regime which ruled the country for so long.

Righteous indignation - we’re all good at it. The Astana situation gives us the opportunity to use words like ‘scandal,’ ‘disgrace,’ ‘joke,’ ‘appalling’ and all the rest. Here’s the ‘but’: whilst here at VeloVeritas we’re not card carrying members of the UCI and Brian Cookson Fan Clubs we do understand that that the organisation has to work within a framework called ‘rules.’