Fotoreporter Sirotti
Interesting and/or amusing cycling items from across the Internet, December 29, 2010
Seen any cool links we missed? Share ‘em in the comments below!
Fotoreporter Sirotti
#2 Liquigas – (Preview Ranking: #4)
What We Said:
Liquigas has perhaps the youngest and deepest grand tour squad in the sport, led by the Four Horsemen of the Green-pocalypse (yes, I made that up myself): Ivan Basso, Franco Pellizotti, Roman Kreuziger, and Vincenzo Nibali. In a way, Liquigas finds itself in a siutution akin to BMC in that its only problem will be sorting-out who’s leading the team in which races. Luckily for them, I have some suggestions:
1. Roman Kreuziger began to show himself as a talented one-day rider in the second half of 2009, nearly winning the Clasica San Sebastien and a stage in the Vuelta. If I were Roberto Amadio, I’d set Roman’s sights on the Ardennes, a goal only a week or two earlier than the Tour of Romandy—a race he won last year. Then I’d send him to the Giro as co-captain with Pellizotti. Maybe he takes the line at the Tour, but otherwise he races the Vuelta and Lombardy.
2. Ivan Basso’s best days might be behind him; now he’s best served as a super-domestique, perhaps riding for one of the other three. I’d have him peak for the Tour, but with the understanding that he’s not the leader—he’ll be there to ride for Vincezo Nibali, a rider whose Tour prospects are headed in a direction opposite his.
3. As for Pellizotti, he’s a talented climber, but not a leader for a grand tour. Time trialing is a big weakness, and his best results have come on days when he’s played more the role of the joker than the ace. Like he did in 2009, I’d send Pellizotti to both the Giro and the Tour. In the Giro, he and Kreuziger would be formidable duo. In the Tour, he’s free to hunt for stages in support of Nibali, and perhaps another polka-dot jersey.
4. As for Nibali, it’s all or nothing in this year’s Tour. He showed the potential last year; now he needs to continue to progress. It’s shaping-up to be a difficult field, but with luck Nibali might finish in the first five.
That said, let’s not forget the rest of the squad. Manuel Quinziato and Alexander Kuschynski performed well in the cobbled classics last year; they head into 2010 looking to improve on those results. Daniele Bennati and Francesco Chicchi have both started their seasons with wins; they’ll be hunting for stage wins in the Giro and Tour, with Bennati an outside favorite in some of the flatter classics.
All in all, Liquigas is perhaps one of the most underrated teams in the sport. If their talented youngsters continue to progress, that won’t be the case for long.
Man of the Hour: Italy’s abuzz with talk about Nibali’s 7th-place finish in last year’s Tour. He did just enough to contend both in the mountains and in time trials. This year he’ll need to show considerable improvement in at least one discipline to advance a spot or two in the GC.
On the Hot Seat: Ivan Basso had a respectable return to the sport in 2009, including solid rides in the Giro and Vuelta. Unfortunately, his inability to capitalize on his team leadership in Spain leaves many wondering if he wouldn’t be better off with a different set of goals.
Up-and-Comer: Peter Sagan’s only 20, but he’s already turned the head of Lance Armstrong following a week of aggressive riding in Australia. Sagan’s one of the riders I’ll be following in Saturday’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad as he’s an accomplished single-day racer with a background in cyclocross. It might be too soon to tell if he’s got the goods to be a successful pro—but he’s certainly off to an auspicious start.
Best Pick-Up: Liquigas had a rather quiet off-season, reinforcing its roster with a handful of neo-pros and some younger riders from other teams. One interesting note: Liquigas seems to be fond of riders from former Eastern Bloc nations, with 7 riders on the roster from Poland, Croatia, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.
Biggest Loss: Considering the talent Liquigas was able to retain, it’s tough to say they truly “lost†anything from 2009 to 2010. In fact, with some exceptions, most of the final 5 teams in the rankings suffered few big losses—perhaps a reason why they find themselves at the top of the heap.
What We Saw:
Is Liquigas occupying the #2 spot in our Season Review simply because its riders won two grand tours in 2010? Yes and no. While winning the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a Espana in one season is indeed an impressive feat—especially with two different riders—it’s not the only reason why Liquigas moves up two spots from its preseason ranking.  The team won 40 races in 2010—from January through October—and finished the season ranked second by the UCI. And while those grand tour wins certainly helped the Liquigas’ case, they weren’t the only bright spots on the team’s resume.
Liquigas began its season in January at Argentina’s Tour de San Luis where Francesco Chicchi took Stage 1 and Vincenzo Nibali won the Stage 4 ITT en route to the overall title. Chicchi then went to the Tours of Oman and Qatar, where he partnered with Daniele Bennati to bring the team three more victories.
Back in Europe, Roman Kreuziger took his first win of the season over an impressive field at the Giro di Sardegna, using a victory in the difficult Stage 2 to secure the overall. He went on to take third at Paris-Nice, ninth at the Volta a Catalunya, and fifth in the Amstel Gold Race before starting his build-up for the Tour de France.
The real spring star for Liquigas was Slovenia’s Peter Sagan, a rider who began the year by turning the head of none other than Lance Armstrong at the Tour Down Under. Sagan burst onto the scene for everyone else at Paris-Nice, where he won two stages and finished second on two more. Unfortunately, the youngster was left off his team’s roster for Milan-San Remo, an interesting omission considering he would have been a certain contender for the victory.
Instead, Liquigas seemed content in placing its San Remo hopes in the hands of Daniele Bennati, fresh from a stage win at Tirreno-Adriatico (Nibali finished eighth overall as well). Unfortunately, the competition once again proved to be too much for the Italian—he only managed fifth.
From there, it was time for the cobbled classics of Belgium and France, races that Liquigas was happy to animate in years past. The newly positioned Ghent-Wevelgem was up first, where Daniel Oss announced himself a future classics contender with a superb fifth-place finish. At the 3-Days of De Panne, Manuel Quinziato—the consummate classics dark horse—finished tenth overall by the end of the 3-day, 4-stage event. At Flanders and Roubaix, the team fared less well; Oss and Kristjan Koren were the team’s best finishers there—but well outside the top-10. In the Ardennes, Kreuziger’s fifth in Amstel was the lone highlight—Nibali did his best, but failed to finish in the top-10 at Fleche Wallonne or Liege-Bastogne-Liege.
Then again, Liquigas was not a team built primarily for wins in the cobbled or Ardennes classics. With proven grand tour contenders such as Nibali, Kreuziger, and Ivan Basso on the roster, May’s Giro d’Italia was a much important goal.
Basso chose a traditional approach to the Giro, using the Giro del Trentino and the Tour of Romandie to fine-tune his form. He took fifth overall in Trentino, then seemed to back off a bit in Romandie, finishing 13th overall. Sagan added a Romandie stage win to his growing resume as well.
Riding together at the Giro, Basso and Nibali (a last-minute replacement for the suspended Franco Pellizotti) proved to be a formidable duo, propelling the team to a win and the pink jersey for Nibali in the Stage 4 TTT. Nibali would give up the jersey days later, but that seemed okay with Liquigas—it would be better to let other teams tire themselves by having to defend the lead. The two started their final assault on the podium with wins on Stages 14 (Nibali) and 15 (Basso), sending a message to the competition that any attempts at wearing pink in Verona were going to pass directly through them. In the end, Basso proved the better climber of the two, perhaps benefitting from a few less race days than his younger teammate; he took the win by almost two minutes over Caisse d’Epargne’s David Arroyo. Nibali ended the race third—an impressive feat considering he wasn’t even supposed to be competing.
Meanwhile, while Basso and Nibali stormed Italy, Liquigas was also finding success at the Tour of California, as Chicchi won Stage 4 and Sagan took Stages 5 and 6. The team stayed stateside for the Philadelphia International Championship, where Sagan finished second.
June meant a return for Roman Kreuziger as the Czech began to prepare for July’s Tour de France. After an impressive second-place ride in the Stage 1 ITT, he ended the week 16th. Meanwhile, at France’s Criterium du Dauphiné, Sylvester Szmyd finished tenth—with Kreuziger and Basso he would be another card for Liquigas to play in the mountains at the Tour.
Unfortunately, a repeat of the team’s impressive Giro was not to be—at least at the Tour de France. Basso had hoped that several weeks of rest following his Giro win would leave him fresh and ready to contend in France, but a sickness sent him drifting back through the GC as the race entered its third week. As for Kreuziger, he rode consistently, but never quite seemed to have the form necessary to follow the main contenders in the mountains. He finished ninth overall in Paris, but seems to be struggling to take the next step into the top-5. As for the rest of the team, Oss did his best in the sprints and several riders tried their hands in breakaways, but the team went home winless, with little to show for their efforts. One has to wonder what could have been had Nibali’s original program remained intact.
August brought a series of one-day wins for Liquigas in Italy, as Basso, Koren, Nibali, and Oss all found the top step of the podium. Szmyd and Bennati took a pair of sixth-places in Poland and Hamburg, while Sagan took seventh in Plouay, keeping Liquigas relevant in Pro Tour events. And by the end of the month, Nibali was being hailed as one of the major contenders for September’s Vuelta. All eyes were on Spain as Italy’s tifosi prepared to watch the Sicilian take his first crack at leading the team as a favorite in a grand tour.
As they did in Italy, Liquigas laid the foundation for an overall victory with a fast ride in the TTT, this time finishing second to HTC in Stage 1. Nibali then rode one of the smartest and most tactically sound races of the year, eliminating his main competition one man at a time. A little luck no doubt helped the Italian, but by the time the race hit its final ascent to the Bola del Mundo, all Nibali needed to do was follow one man: Ezequiel Mosquera. His win promptly initiated an outbreak of yellow fever throughout Italy. And after Nibali’s seventh-place in Paris last year, can you blame them for getting a little excited?
Overall, Liquigas is the first team since Discovery Channel in 2005 to win two grand tours with two different riders in the same season. And with Basso and Nibali on board for 2011, there’s little reason to believe Liquigas can’t do it again. Should other stars such as Oss and Sagan develop into top contenders in the spring classics and other major one-day races, Liquigas could easily become the team to beat in 2011.
Most Valuable Rider: Basso’s victory in the Giro d’Italia was indeed an impressive feat, but Vincenzo Nibali is by far the more talented and valuable rider to Liquigas—if for no other reason than he’s at the opposite end of his career. While a full-on Tour de France assault might have to wait until 2012, Italy should expect to see its new hero in pink by the end of the 2011 Giro.
Biggest Surprise: Peter Sagan took the sport by storm in 2010, winning five races and placing highly in several others—and he’s not even 21-years-old! Here’s hoping he gets his first stab at more of the cobbled classics in 2011.
Biggest Disappointment: Roman Kreuziger has now finished thirteenth, ninth, and ninth in the last three editions of the Tour de France. While still only 24, those results indicate a rider stuck in a bit of a rut.  Will a change of scenery—and a teammate like Alexandre Vinokourov—help the youngster take the next step?
And that’s it for #2—we have one team left in our Team-By-Team Season Review. Come back tomorrow to see who it is. (Here’s a hint: it’s not Verandas Willems.)
Share your comments below.
Fotoreporter Sirotti
Interesting and/or amusing cycling items from across the Internet, December 28, 2010
Seen any cool links we missed? Share ‘em in the comments below!
Fotoreporter Sirotti
#3 – Team HTC-Columbia (Preview Ranking: #3)
What We Said:
HTC suffered several key losses after a fantastic 2009 season. Marcus Burghardt, George Hincapie, Edvald Boassen Hagen, Thomas Lokvist, and Kim Kirchen all left for other teams—taking the bulk of HTC’s wins from 2008 and 2009 with them.
But all is not lost, as two of the sport’s fastest talents remain with HTC: Mark Cavendish and Andre Greipel. Between the two of them, Cavendish and Greipel won 13 stages in the Giro, Tour, and Vuelta. This year, Greipel’s already off to a fantastic start, having won several races. Cavendish on the other hand, has been sick; that could hurt his repeat bid in San Remo.
As for the rest of the team, it’s still quite impressive. Tony Martin performed well during the Tour’s first half last year; he’ll return this season hoping to build on that experience. He can climb and time trial, and could quietly become someone Germany might once again be proud of. He’ll be supported by one of the peloton’s most underrated support riders, Maxime Monfort.
For the Classics, HTC might have found a future champion in Matthew Goss, a rider who showed serious potential with Saxo Bank last year. He’s joined by two other one-day talents, Martin and Peter Velits formerly of Milram. These three could form the nucleus of a talented classics squad for years to come.
All in all, while seemingly depleted, HTC’s roster is chock full of potential—especially if the younger riders begin to flourish as they step from the shadows of their former teammates.
Man of the Hour: Simply put, Mark Cavendish is a superstar. But I have a hunch Greipel will win more races and is perhaps more versatile. I wonder if the squad will prove big enough for both.
On the Hot Seat: Michael Rogers just won the Ruta del Sol, but that only adds fuel to the fire as his Grand Tour potential has been touted for years with little to show for it. Can he finally break through?
Up-and-Comer: Tony Martin’s a good pick, but I want to mention the winner of the 2009 Giro’s 8th stage, Konstantin Siutsou. Siutsou’s been on my radar since he won the “Queen†stage and overall title at the Tour of Georgia in 2008. A talented climber and time trialist, Sioutsou finished the race last year 16th overall. Will he continue to progress?
Best Pick-Up: Aside from the riders pulled from other teams, Bob Stapleton also did a terrific job of pulling talent from the U23 ranks including Belgium’s Jan Ghyselinck, Australia’s Leigh Howard, and Tejay Van Garderen from the USA. Once these riders develop, more wins will come for HTC.
Biggest Loss: Boassen Hagen would have won many races; but Hincapie would have helped win even more. It means a lot when Cavendish himself expresses his appreciation for all that Hincapie did.
What We Saw:
HTC has traditionally been known as a team for whom quantity means more than quality—and with 70 wins in 2010, it’s easy to see why. However, if you remove Andre Greipel and Mark Cavendish and their 32 victories from the equation, HTC season looks strikingly different. Don’t get me wrong, there are many teams that would suffer should one discount the efforts of their best riders (Katusha and Astana come to mind first), but for HTC it’s a fact worth considering before one declares them the best team in the world.
HTC began the season strongly with Andre Greipel taking another win in Australia’s Tour Down Under—making him the first leader of the UCI’s World Calendar classification. Greipel then took wins in Mallorca and Algarve before heading to Turkey—where he added another five wins to his season-best 21.
While Greipel was enjoying his success, other HTC riders were winning races as well, a testament to the depth of talent assembled by Bob Stapleton. Leigh Howard won a stage in the Tour of Oman over some stiff competition, Michael Rogers won the Rute del Sol, and Frantisek Rabon took the Tour of Murcia—all in a span of a little more than 2 weeks. Rogers would go on to take third in L’Eroica and second in the Criterium International—2010 was a banner year for the Australian (well, the first half of it at least). As for Mark Cavendish, health problems meant a late start to the year for him—he won his first race at the Volta a Catalunya near the end of March.
Up north though, HTC was having a more difficult making its presence felt. Bernhard Eisel did win Ghent-Wevelgem, a worthy prize for a rider often relegated to helping the faster sprinters on his team. But aside from Eisel’s victory, there was little to report following HTC’s classics campaign—one of the reasons why it’s difficult to rank the team as the best in the world. Even the Ardennes—terrain much more suited to the likes of Marco Pinotti, Peter Velits, and Rogers—the best the team could muster was Michael Albasini’s 11th-place in the Amstel Gold Race.
But April showers bring May flowers, and HTC’s season improved with the weather (depending on where you live).   Pinotti and Cavendish took stages at the Tour of Romandie, while Rogers finished third overall. At the Giro d’Italia, Matthew Goss and Greipel both won stages, while Pinotti took second in the final stage and ninth overall. Meanwhile, at the Tour of California, HTC put a stranglehold on the race, winning two stages, finishing on the podium seven times, and delivering Rogers the overall win he had come close to taking in past editions.
In June, it was time for the final push to the Tour de France at the Dauphiné and Tour de Suisse. For HTC, these races were opportunities for two of the squad’s younger stars to test their mettle against some of the world’s best stage racers. At the Dauphiné, American Tejay Van Garderen rode a near flawless race from start to finish, displaying an impressive mix of time trialing and climbing to finish third overall. What impressed me most was the American’s ability to ride within himself on the crucial stage to Alpe d’Huez, limiting his losses while protecting his place on the podium.
At the Tour de Suisse however, Tony Martin was not quite so lucky. The German cracked badly while wearing the leader’s jersey during Stage 7 to La Punt, dropping the rider down the GC and outside the top-10. A win in the final day’s ITT brought Martin back up to sixth overall, but one has to wonder what could have been had he not lost so much time in the mountains. June concluded with five HTC riders winning National Championships—most of them in the ITT.
By July, HTC was once again back to being a team built around its field sprinters as Cavendish took five stages at the Tour de France and Greipel took two in the Tour of Austria. This trend continued well into August as Greipel, Goss, Mark Renshaw, and Roulston won stages in Poland and Denmark, while Goss won the prestigious GP Ouest France Pro Tour event in Plouay. Not to be outdone, Greipel took a stage at the ENECO Tour the very next day, while Tony Martin took the overall title buoyed no doubt by his superior time trialing, but more so by a savvy breakaway with Koos Moerenhout during Stage 3.
As if it weren’t apparent already, it was now obvious that HTC had too many cooks in the sprint kitchen with Cavendish, Goss, and Greipel all winning races. Greipel spent much of the season widely expected to be the odd man out, a fact confirmed when he announced his transfer to Omega Pharma-Lotto by the end of the summer.
At September’s Vuelta a Espana, a new HTC began to emerge. And ominously for the rest of the peloton, the new one seemed capable of winning stages while contending for the overall title in Madrid. The team opened the race with a win in the Sevilla team time trial before guiding Cavendish to wins in Stages 12, 13, and 18. But something funny happened on the way to points jersey for HTC, as the team found itself a grand tour contender in Peter Velits. Before the race began, all eyes were on Tejay Van Garderen as he took the line in his first grand tour. But while Van Garderen rode well during the first week, it was Velits who really shone, winning the final ITT and sticking with the leaders in the mountains to finish third overall. For the 25-year-old Slovakian, the result was confirmation of the talent he displayed when he won the World U23 Road Race in 2007. Granted, it was the rider’s first such result in a 3-week Tour, but considering HTC’s other grand tour prospects, it’s reason to be optimistic.
But while all eyes were on the Vuelta in September, HTC continued to do what it did best in 2010: win just about every minor race it entered. At the Tour of Britain, Greipel added another three wins to his resume, while Albasisni won Stage 3 and the overall title. In Belgium and France, Leigh Howard and Aleksejs Saramotins won the Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen and the GP d’Isbergues—the final two wins of the team’s season.
So was HTC-Columbia the best team in 2010? The answer depends on how you define “bestâ€. Were they best at winning races? Absolutely. But were they the best at winning important races? Not by any account. A team known more for its sprinting and time trialing prowess than its ability to win major classics and grand tours, here’s hoping the continued development of young talent like Van Garderen, Martin, and Velits can take the team to new heights in 2011.
Most Valuable Rider: If anything, HTC showed that it’s not a team dependent upon the success of any one rider, something the team owes to its management team under the direction of Bob Stapleton. Stapleton’s showed time and again an uncanny ability to overcome the loss of both riders and sponsors, consistently putting forth a professional and competitive squad. Stapleton’s not a rider, but without him, this team goes nowhere.
Biggest Surprise: You’d be lying if you tell me you picked Peter Velits to finish inside the top-5 at the Tour of Spain. And if you’re not, you correctly predicted one of 2010’s most surprising and impressive performances by a rider in a grand tour.
Biggest Disappointment: For a team as talented as HTC, it’s hard to imagine that it doesn’t fare better in major one-day races—especially the classics. This is perhaps one area in which the team’s success hurts it a bit as the team’s best riders often are plucked by other teams.
That’s it for #3 in our Team-By-Team Season Review. Come back tomorrow for #2.
And share your comments below.
Interesting and/or amusing cycling items from across the Internet, December 27, 2010
Seen any cool links we missed? Share ‘em in the comments below!
Photo by Anthony Skorochod, Cyclingcaptured.com
For the past two seasons, Valentin Scherz, a 20-year-old elite cyclocross racer from Switzerland, has come to the US to compete in races as part of the Philadelphia Cyclocross School program. This season he was captain of their 2010 Cyfac-Champion Systems p/b Revolution Wheelworks Team. In 2010, Scherz successfully defended his Mid Atlantic Cyclocross Series titles (Elite & U23), while also competing in other events including Cross Vegas, Gloucester, Providence, and a few rounds of the USGP, winning five races and standing on the elite podium 11 times.
Scherz has since returned to Switzerland and is now competing in World Cup and other major European events as preparation for the World Championships, where he hopes to improve upon his 23rd-place from last year. Valentin’s graciously agreed to check-in with us periodically throughout the rest of the season, sharing his experiences and insights with us all from the perspective of someone who has competed at the top level both domestically and abroad. You can read the first installment here.
Back Issues Resolved?
After my poor performance in the World Cup in Koksijde on November 27th, I decided to use all means to resolve the problem I had with my back.  I had terrible pain since the race, and nothing was curing them. 24 hour a day pain for more than one week! I had an appointment with my doctor who gave me some anti-inflammatory medicine to see if it would help; I also went to my Osteopath again to see what he could do.  Unfortunately, these measures did not help; they were not able to find the cause of my pain.  The last weapon in my arsenal was to visit the bike position specialist, whom I visit before every season.  Her name is Marlyse Tercier, she is an expert in ergomotion.   She is a former top level mountain-bike rider, and as part of her practice performs bike fitting and makes orthotic insoles.
She immediately saw that something was wrong! My pelvis, which was perfectly balanced only four months ago, was completely twisted; one side was higher than the other, and it affected me from my feet to my shoulders. Marlyse is able to identify these small details, and as a well known bicycle specialist, how it affects me on the bike.  I’m particularly sensitive to such things, and I know it.
First, in order to compensate for this imbalance, she had to adapt the orthotics I use in my sport shoes, my cycling shoes, and my everyday shoes. But there was something we couldn’t understand; what changed? Why is my pelvis unbalanced now, and not before?
My osteopath did his job, and tried to relieve the tension in my back, but unfortunately, it kept returning. Then Marlyse had the greatest, but simplest idea; she said, “Let’s measure you- there is nothing else that could explain what would cause this but a change in heightâ€. Jokingly, I allowed her to. I was 178.5 cm (5’ 10.25â€) tall. She asked, “How tall were you the last time you checkedâ€? Wow! I was last measured in June, while I was fulfilling my military service in the Swiss Army; I was 177 cm tall. I grew 1.5 cm (over ½ inch) in the last few months! There is a saying in Switzerland, “boys grow until their army serviceâ€; it looks like this is true!
She adapted my insoles and increased my saddle height by 1cm.  For the first few hours after I left her office, I felt some pain as my body adapted. The next day, the pain which had been bothering me for almost 2 weeks was gone!
Evidently what happened is that one part of my body, probably my legs, had grown unevenly. It created an imbalance in my pelvis, and the small of my back. Coupled with riding my bike, and more than anything else, standing up for hours rebuilding my bike the week before the world cup, my back reacted poorly, and I paid the price when these small things emerge- during the race!
It might sound ridiculous to many of you, to have such drastic issues for less than an half of inch of saddle height, and for a few millimeters added under one of my foot, but I have what we call “hyper laxity in the jointsâ€, and my body goes out because of such little details.  It is how I am, and I need to deal with it. Because I am so sensitive, I probably am able to immediately detect when something is wrong, when some other riders wouldn’t feel anything until they get tendonitis. So be mindful about your position on your bike; if you have more than one, take care to make them equal. More than anything else, find what works for you, and stick to it.