Author: Alex
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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…
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Daryl Impey won the Tour Down Under but there was also some bigger news
There’s been an awful lot of high profile off season controversy this year and you’ve probably been wondering what nugget of news would finally trigger another update on this site after an unusually prolonged silence. I managed to ride out all the stuff about the mysterious contents of the Jiffy bag delivered to Bradley Wiggins…
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Vincenzo Nibali stays the right side of the barriers
Vincenzo Nibali won the final Monument of the season on a day defined by descending. The Sicilian is pretty good downhill but also had to be strong enough uphill to be right at the front for the summit a handful of kilometres from the finish. With the gap made, all he needed to do was…
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Peter Sagan isn’t from the Netherlands
Last week’s Road World Championships ended up decidedly Dutch, bar the one rider who dominated all the headlines. A-loving Chantal Blaak won the women’s road race, Annemiek Van Vleuten won the women’s trial and Tom Dumoulin won the men’s time trial – the Giro d’Italia winner is definitely the rider for Chris Froome to watch…