Tagged: cadel evans
crankpunk, Pez & the Giro, round 2, in which i take a shot at Di Luca and call Wiggo a turtle & simultaneously break the record for the longest ever title for a post on crankpunk
yes, he really did look like that… read all about it on PEZ
or read the whole thing here…
The big news from Stage 4 of the Giro weren’t the boos that arose in the coffee shop where I watch the race when Danilo DiLuca took off up the road, but the look on Wiggo’s face as he crossed the line in Serra San Bruno, where he did a very good impression of a constipated turtle.
(Also love the image of the Lampre rider behind, he’s probably gasping for air in reality, but it looks for all the world that he’s having a good old laugh at the 2012 Tour de France winner – and while I’m on the subject, I will again nominate that Lampre kit for inclusion in the top ten ‘Worst Kits of All Time’ list…).
Well, the big news wasn’t so much the bunged-up reptile look, remarkable though it was, but the reason for that look: yes, Wiggo is misfiring.
Surely he and his DeathStar team have him honed to perfection, as tight as you like and ready to go off on another British Blitzkrieg once again, no?
Well maybe not, but why not? Isn’t it obvious? He really does have a dark and sinister master plan: namely – Le Tour!
Look out gloomy Froomey, your tilt at the stars is about to be given a very definitive jolt. It’ll be Hinault vs. Lemond all over again, but in that peculiarly English way, all handbags at dawn, grand gestures reduced to the rolling of eyes and heavy tut-tuts, breaks for tea and all the painful stoicism.
But yes, no doubt about it: whereas Nibali, that Ryder fella and even – gasp – the aging, Cadel I-thought-he-was-dead? Evans are all chalking their cues and casting Paul Newman-style glances through the fug of the pool hall, Wiggo’s powder looks to be decidedly damp.
And I do think, seriously, that it’s because he is waiting for July. Maybe even he didn’t know it til yesterday. I think that his body may have become a little ‘locked in’, due to the fact that he’s been preparing for the Tour so hard for the past few years.
Whatever it is, he didn’t lose time just because of the crash, but because he got gapped on a pretty tiny hill.
Of course, he’ll probably smash the TT and get Pink and leave me all red-faced.
Now, is it just me or is anyone else tired of seeing this Old Guard still popping up? Yes, Di Luca served out his ban and yes by the laws in place he is allowed back, but I don’t know, seeing him and, if I’m honest, some of the Garmin-Sharp team rolling back in like nothing ever happened, it all leaves me a little nonplussed.
I’ll probably cop it for saying that, but there it is. Perhaps if the UCI were addressing all that has happened in a responsible and thorough manner, one that let the fans feel ‘Heck, they’re really doing something about it this time,’ it would seem a little less like ‘business as usual.’
As it stands it kind of feels like yesterday’s fish still out on the market stalls.
Onto Cadel! Not literally of course, not sure the old man could take it. Now as a journalist it is my job, as we journos are all sworn to do, to react to everything with a massive knee-jerk and to cut people down just as quickly as we build them up.
So yes, I did write recently elsewhere in the Ethernet that I thought the grizzly wee Aussie was done in. Washed up. Ready for the glue factory.
And then faster than an Aussie can down 24 beers whilst sat astride an emu (the record stands at 3.8 seconds), back up he pops and takes second on stage 3 and takes 6th on stage 4.
Evans should have that great Mark Twain quote stitched into his jersey:
‘Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.’
Suits him perfectly. Never write off a good man. Still a long way to go in the Giro, thankfully, because it’s been very good so far, and the wheels may come off for the former World Champ in those high hills, but it is great to see him doing well.
He may not be the most liked character in the peloton but he is one of the most respected. Would be nice to see him in Pink for a bit.
A final note on Battaglin’s win. Great to see an Italian winning, that should keep the tifosi happy for, ooh, 4 minutes?
Could Nibali keep them quiet for a bit longer and grab the win? It would certainly be something to have another, serious rival to the Sky domination in the mix.
We shall see.
is the peloton cleaner than ever before?
in a nutshell, yes.
clean? what do i look like, a McQuaid?
no not clean, but cleaner.
clean?! pull the udder one…
let’s look at the evidence.
that dude from Blanco wins the Tour Down Under. either he’s doped to his lids and snuck in to win when most of the others are shying away from the juice – as might have happened in the past, there have been some curious flashes in the pan the past couple of years – or (and this is more likely given the current climate – he’s just a very good and naturally talented rider.
what else? Gaudin’s win yesterday in the prologue in Paris-Nice. sure it was short but EPO doesn’t care if a race is 300km or 2.5, it still works. so does the rest of it. perhaps Gaudin, whom most of us wouldn’t know if we passed him in the street, is a very decent short course rider with superb bike handling skills. maybe he got lucky. but thing is, you don’t get lucky over any TT course, not at a race like Paris-Nice. you have to be good enough to win it.
Biel Kadri of Ag2r-La Mondiale (who? exakly! drink yer milk!) won the Roma Maxima on Sunday after a 127km solo effort. a huge miscalculation by the peloton? possibly. a stellar ride by a guy we barely noticed because hey, when riders are cleaner things get weird and don’t follow the traditional scheme of things? also – possibly.
going a bit further back, young riders like Peter Sagan (who may, a decade from now, be competing for a position in the top 5 of all time) have burst forth, and older, boring (or so we thought) riders like Cadel Evans suddenly became interesting and, dare i even whisper it, exciting. he suddenly found World Championships and Classic-winning form? no chance. it is far more likely that he rode clean whilst others juiced, then they had to limit their intake, and his class finally shone.
then you have the past couple of Tours, where guys have been crashing all over the place. why? cos their bikes are crap and they can’t handle them? well they’re not all on Pinarellos! [insert cabaret stand up comedy routine high hat noise here]. or cos the roads are bad? more likely that they can’t abuse the dope as they used to, the speeds have come down as a result and no single or two teams can control the peloton (remember Discovery?), so there’s more bunching, more guys chancing their arm near the front, and thus less space and hey bingo! you got it – more crashes.
i’ve been in love with this sport long enough to know that you’d have to be a fool to think that things have changed on any deep and fundamental level, or that riders are cleaner now because they realise doping is bad, but it does seem on the face of it as though less guys are taking less stuff just because they can’t, and that may be why we are seeing more unpredictable racing and, in turn, results.
i could be very wrong. i hope i’m not.
