Contingencies & Champions. The world road champs were held in Australia for the first time ever, and by lucky happenstance we had an Australian defending champion going into the race (Cadel Evans), and an Australian bronze medallist coming out of the race (Allan "Alby" Davis).
‘With the current system we’re shafted’ says BC coach Rod Ellingworth regarding the fact that the world’s best roadman sprinter will have a whole two team mates in Melbourne. The GB and Sky ‘spin machine’ continually tell us how strong British Cycling is; but when it comes down to it, we’re actually joint 22nd in terms of numbers of riders we’re eligible to send to the Elite Worlds. we should 'Stop Messing with Nature'.
John Woodburn passed away quietly in his sleep on Good Friday at 80 years-of-age. His career was a remarkable one; he won the British 25 Mile Time Trial Championship in 1961; the first to do so on a geared bike, before that the championship had been the preserve of high revving, fixed wheel pursuit riders. Woodburn loved riding a bike and racing and at 70 he could still return 21:48 for a 10 mile time trial, and in July 2002, he broke the 50 mile time-trial National Age Record for over 65s with a 1:47:40 ride, breaking the record by nearly three minutes.
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.
What was it like being in that break in the Olympic road race? Who better to ask than one of the men who animated the race and did sterling work in the service of his team – United States elite road race champion, Timothy Duggan? The Liquigas, 29 year-old pro has come a long way back from that day in the 2008 Tour of Georgia when he hit the tarmac at 100 km/h and was left with life-threatening injuries.