Tag: Green
-
Apparently Mark Cavendish can beat Marcel Kittel
It seems increasingly unfashionable to make a case for something using facts. I don’t quite know what it says that it took a Briton from outside the UK to remind everyone how persuasive such things can be. The Isle of Man’s status is not something to get into here. All that matters to a cycling…
-
Peter Sagan finishes second to… Ruben Plaza?
No, me neither. Ruben Plaza won a stage of the Vuelta a Espana a decade ago and he’s been Spanish national champion a couple of times, but I’d have had him down for break fodder; one of those faceless riders who makes up the numbers and ultimately gets dropped. He didn’t though. He waved goodbye…
-
Alexis Vuillermoz forces people to learn his vowels
Alexis Vuillermoz is the kind of cyclist I’m happy to see finishing sixth in La Fleche Wallonne. This is because I don’t have to write about the guy who comes sixth and therefore don’t have to try and wrap my brain around the typically vague, meandering French vowel sound that results from ‘uiller’ in the…
-
Andre Greipel rides like the wind – which on this stage meant in brutal, destructive fashion
Greipel wins! Take that pedals! At the finish, Mark Cavendish’s Etixx-Quick Step team made a bollocks of it. Starting his effort early, Cavendish seemed to be sprinting for an age with a great line of riders just chilling out behind him, biding their time. Other than Greipel, Peter Sagan and Fabian Cancellara also went past…
-
Green jersey contenders in 2015
The green jersey is awarded to the winner of the points competition. It’s been slightly tweaked this year to reward those who win sprint finishes in particular. It was widely believed that this would play into the hands of Marcel Kittel, who appears to have become the top sprinter over the last couple of years.…
-
Marcel Kittel’s back off holiday
Because that’s where he’s been, right? On the eighth of July, he’d won three out of four stages and then, on the 27th of July, he won a fourth. In between those times, he disappeared. I can only conclude that he had a fortnight in the Bahamas. What an oddly protracted sporting event the Tour…
-
Ramunas Navardauskas finds his niche
The penultimate sprint stage of the Tour de France was no such thing. Lithuanian rider, Ramunas Navardauskas got away towards the end and held everyone off for the win. If you’re thinking to yourself ‘who is Ramunas Navardauskas?‘ he’s one of those riders who doesn’t particularly have a ‘thing’. He’s quite a big guy, which…
-
For once Jack Bauer needed just a few more seconds
Jack Bauer has never been afraid of doing a full day’s work. The Kiwi cyclist got in the break from the very start of stage 15, alongside Swiss rider, Martin Elmiger. No-one joined them and so the two of them were committed to an all-but-impossible day-long attempt to stay away from the peloton over flat…
-
Alexander Kristoff’s turn to aggravate the Slovak
Maybe they could bring in a bridesmaid’s jersey for the rider with most second-placed finishes. It could be a garish pink with stupid puffy sleeves. Peter Sagan would be delighted. Alexander Kristoff was the latest beneficiary of Sagan’s extraordinary run of near-misses. Kristoff won Milan-San Remo this year, you know. His usual thing is winning…
-
Peter Sagan is getting really rather annoyed
Matteo Trentin is a rider so anonymous that I’d actually forgotten that he won a stage of the Tour last year, even though I wrote about it at the time. If you watch a lot of cycling, you’ll know his name, but you’d never have him down for the win. He’s one of Mark Cavendish’s…
