Tag: Hamish Haynes' Letters

The release of the French Senate Report ‘findings’ on the ’98 Tour – why do it now, what do it at all? What’s the point, other than to create a mess and give Brian Cookson a fresh crock of manure to hurl at Pat? Justice is not meant to be a lottery – of course it’s not right that the riders named cheated but what can we do now?

It looked to us like Cav and Goss were out of it anyway. There were a lot of riders round that wild bend in Frosinone before we saw Matt on the deck and Pippo looking a tad sheepish as he stood in the road checking to see how that nice Cipollini had stood up to being dropped.

It was musical jerseys last night, Franco & Alex Aeschbach took over in the lead, Michael & Alex Rasmussen swopped the leader's jerseys for the points leaders maillot vert but Jozi & Martin lost the combine jersey to DeFauw & Van Mechelen of Belgium.

At the Volta ao Alentejo I spent the majority of every single stage on the front of the bunch controlling the race. All four days. Our sprinter was quite well placed to win the race, so I was quite happy to do this.

Stuart Hallam, Ian’s elder brother was there, road and track side for virtually all of his younger brother’s successes and is also a man who has made major contributions to the sport of cycling over the years. We thought we should catch up with, ‘Big Bruv.’

I knew that Ian Whitehead had finally gone native when I received the email to inform me that his mail address no longer ended in "dot uk" but in "dot be"-that was the last link with the 'old country' gone. However, English Christmas pudding was consumed on the 25th-so there are still links to the 'old ways,' despite what he says. Ian is one of the men behind Kingsnorth Wheelers, the Belgian Team with an English name that's been home to so many good Commonwealth riders over the years...