Tag: Marathon

A few weeks ago saw the last of the Spring Classics with ‘La Doyenne’ – Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the oldest and arguably toughest of them all with barely a metre of flat road in it’s 258 kilometres. Before that, the U23 version of the race took place over 166 kilometres but taking in many of its famous big brother’s climbs, such as La Redoute. Our colleague from the Six Days, soigneur Martyn Frank put us in touch with James and here’s what he had to say to VeloVeritas.

Peter Sagan’s quote of the day? “What is pressure?” As team mate Marcus Burghardt said; “he was such power in his head and that’s what makes the difference.” Despite pulling his foot in the sprint at the top of that nasty finish climb he was just too quick for everyone...

On a cold and rainy Saturday afternoon in Gent, Rabobank's Sebastian Langeveld took the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2011 victory by inches from breakaway partner Juan Antonio Flecha (Sky Procycling and the winner last year), with another Sky rider Matt Hayman third.

Today is the first out and out sprint stage. Today we find out if the form Gossy and Greipel showed yesterday relative to Mark Cavendish was true, or if Cav was holding back a little. (For those out of the loop, Greipel showed that his train is beautifully organised and disciplined; and Gossy showed that he can bop a win over the great one when at the Tour.)

Whilst we try to keep abreast of the current race scene, it seems we’ve become a bit of a focal point for 70’s races and racers, and kermis racing. We’re not complaining… Our reader, Graham Robson was another who has shared some of his 70’s memories with us and with his kind permission we have the pleasure of sharing them with you here.

Cannondale, F des J, Giant, Greenedge, Sky, Trek - they all tried to take control in the finale in Belfast in Stage Two on Saturday. But none could. It's not until you see a situation like we did in Belfast that you realise just how good Mario Cipollini's Acqua Sapone and Cav's HTC trains really were. In the event, it was irrelevant; Kittel was in a different league. He was way back and would usually have been out of it but turned left, found clear road, turned on the boosters and left the others scrabbling for the placings.