Category: Stage races
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Diego Ulissi might be worth watching this season
Stage two didn’t thin out as I’d expected – 97 riders finished in the front group. In the grand scheme of things, they were racing for bonus seconds really. Simon Gerrans got a handful for finishing second. Diego Ulissi, however, jumped into second place overall after taking the win. Who’s Diego Ulissi? He doesn’t have…
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Simon Gerrans wins a wearied sprint to take the lead in the Tour Down Under
Simon Gerrans leads the Tour Down Under after stage one. I said he was a contender and he’ll be looking to hold the ochre jersey right the way to the finish now. That’s right – ochre. More races should consult the Dulux charts before settling on a leader’s jersey. The Tour of Britain should go…
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Tour Down Under – what’s that all about then?
Sunday sees the first UCI World Tour race of the season, the Tour Down Under. You could consider it the Tour of Australia, except that it doesn’t really venture far from Adelaide. That’s fair though. Le Tour d’Australie would be pretty bloody time consuming, what with it being 5,000-and-odd kilometres from Perth to Cairns by…
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Benat Intxausti wins the race that no-one’s all that bothered about winning really
The hotly-contested Tour of Beijing is over. Benat Intxausti won. There was a hilltop finish on stage four and the results of that pretty much equate to the final general classification. Dan Martin came second. Sky’s David Lopez came third. There wasn’t much in it. The defending champion, Tony Martin, came sixth. He reckons he’s…
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Richie Porte is well up for the Tour of Beijing
Well up for it. WELL up for it. “It’s been a long season and the legs are tired. I’m here because the team want me here, because the points are tight.” That’s a rabble-rousing statement of intent if ever I heard one. Thor Hushovd is the race leader after winning stage one, taking a 10…
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Tony Martin really can do a decent team time trial on his own
The team trial took place over the same course as the individual time trial. Based on his individual time, Tony Martin would have finished sixth in the team event. Being as it’s easier to cycle behind someone else – particularly at higher speeds – that’s an astonishing fact. Tony Martin could compete as an individual…
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How did Bradley Wiggins win the Tour of Britain?
The same way he always wins stage races. He rode steadily and conservatively on all the road stages and then smashed everyone to pieces in the time trial. Why break from a winning formula? And to complete a picture of British cycling in microcosm, Mark Cavendish won the final stage. Cav winning the sprints, Wiggins…
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Mark Cavendish jiggles up Guildford High Street
Sprint finish. Mark Cavendish won. But it was a bit of an odd one. It seems Cav’s lead-out man, Alessandro Petacchi, is still strong enough at the age of 39 to split the peloton on the run-in to the line when everyone’s pretty much going flat out. There was him, Cavendish and then some other…
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Simon Yates sprints to a win up Haytor in the Tour of Britain
It seems I may not be quite so in touch with modern youth culture as I once was. I simply cannot understand youngsters’ perennial ill-feeling towards ‘Haytors’. Haytor provided a sparkling summit finish on stage six of the Tour of Britain. What’s not to like? Before the race, I told you to watch Simon Yates,…
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Bradley Wiggins makes nothing happen on Caerphilly Mountain
When you’re ahead in a stage race, you basically want nothing to happen. If nothing happens, you win. If something happens, you might not. Sometimes, it can take a hell of a lot of effort to make nothing happen. Caerphilly Mountain invited attacks. Attacks came. Bradley Wiggins and Team Sky chased them down. Everyone important…