Tag: Race Leadership

Dozens of SMS and emails flash up on my BlackBerry each day, most are chaff and get deleted after a quick glance — but when one comes in to tell me that ‘Michael Mørkøv excluded from the Vuelta by WADA’ that makes me take notice.

The Face Partnership, the guys behind the Revolution Series on the track, brought an evening of exciting, all-category and professional racing to Edinburgh last night, in the shape of their successful Nocturne format.

A Clean La Vuelta? I hope so, but let's look at the facts: The Spanish sports papers quote Oscar Freire; "Rabobank want a stage win in Holland" and I'm sure all the other teams want the same, but the Dutch bank have spent a lot of money bringing La Vuelta a España to Holland for the race start.

It's here. Le Tour de France 2012 Prologue. The endless analysis is finally over, there's rubber on tarmac, folks hanging over barriers and commentators getting their facts wrong, already.

Matt Rendell narrates much of the Pantani, the Accidental Death of a Cyclist film – but I’m a little puzzled by his ‘Marco the martyr and victim’ stance. In his well researched book – upon which the film is based – "The Death of Marco Pantani", Rendell leaves us in little doubt that the Italian rarely raced ‘clean.’ And Greg Lemond’s pronouncements are hard to fathom; ‘even without the drugs Pantani would have been one of the best’ or words to that effect. That’s from the ‘they were all at it, so what’s the difference?’ – school of thought to which I used to subscribe. There’s a ‘but’ or two to that one, though...

Sadly, on 13th November at the age of 83 – he was born on April 15th 1936 – Raymond Poulidor, Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur left us. Rest in peace, Monsieur Raymond Poulidor – second in le Tour but winner in the hearts of the French public.