Author: Alex
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Tom Dumoulin and Elia Viviani set the standards – the 2018 Giro d’Italia first rest day wrap
2018 Giro d’Italia contenders The first rest day wrap The second rest day wrap The third rest day wrap Final week wrap The first rest day has come disconcertingly early in this year’s Giro d’Italia, in large part because the organisers saw fit to begin with a long weekend outside Europe. The three stages in…
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Will Chris Froome win the 2018 Giro d’Italia?
2018 Giro d’Italia contenders The first rest day wrap The second rest day wrap The third rest day wrap Final week wrap Let’s first deal with the three big questions. Can anyone beat Chris Froome? Yes. Will anyone beat Chris Froome? Don’t know. If no-one beats Chris Froome could he still end up with a…
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Why I didn’t write about Bob Jungels winning Liege-Bastogne-Liege
This is not a race report. You can’t report on a race that took place over a week ago. This is more of an explanation tied up with a bit of record-keeping for when I need to check who won this year’s race at some distant point in the future. A day or so after…
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Paris-Roubaix Peter Sagan or Amstel Gold Peter Sagan? Which Peter Sagan did the better sprint?
Peter Sagan is the central figure in pretty much every race he rides, so let’s just write about Peter Sagan today. Sagan has appeared in two one-day classics in the last fortnight – Paris-Roubaix (which is also a Monument, so technically a bit bigger than your standard classic) and Amstel Gold (which is named after…
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All hail Niki Terpstra, the most Belgian man ever to have failed to be from Belgium
Niki Terpstra’s top result in a Grand Tour is 94th in the 2014 Tour de France. He also finished 95th in the 2010 Vuelta a Espana. Here are all of Niki Terpstra’s other Grand Tour results, in ascending order: 152nd in the 2009 Tour de France 149th in the 2013 Tour de France 142nd in…
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Vincenzo Nibali is slowly winning all of the things
Milan-Sanremo really is one of the finest races of the year. At 291km, it is very long, which is a very important quality as it means people can deploy the word ‘epic’ which is a thing that people very much like to do these days. It is also probably the most balanced race of the…
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A trident for Michal Kwiatkowski thanks to Team Sky’s most prosaic advantage – its finances
Considering the ongoing furore about his allegedly excessive, possibly ban-earning use of his inhaler and the much larger controversies blighting Team Sky, Chris Froome took the wise decision to be woefully out of form at Tirreno Adriatico, finishing 34th. The story of Spring Stage Race Week was however the other, oft-overlooked factor influencing Team Sky’s…
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A fans’ guide to knowing where to draw ‘the line’ when it comes to Bradley Wiggins and Team Sky doping allegations
It would be good to write about Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico this week, but unfortunately that’ll have to wait. Right now we need to talk about Bradley Wiggins, Team Sky, British Cycling and the latest wave of doping allegations. What’s happened? This week saw the release of a report by the digital, culture, media and sport…
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Tiesj Benoot was the most Belgian Belgian at Strade Bianche
Strade Bianche is named after the white roads it uses. Presumably it should have been called Strade Bruno or Strade Merda or something this year. I have no idea. I don’t speak Italian. This is what it looked like. Springtime shit weather racing does of course mean only one thing – Belgians. The race was…
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Michael Valgren is incredibly blond
The absolute state of Michael Valgren’s barnet. Just look at it. The colour’s so far beyond comprehension I genuinely can’t work out whether a feathered side parting is brave or a cop-out. Valgren won Omloop het Nieuwsblad, the first ‘proper’ race of 2018 and a first reveal of who might win the bigger one-day classics…