Team Sky and GreenEDGE are going to rub up against each other a lot this year. Take two teams, each with one of the two best sprinters in the world, then sprinkle it with decades of British and Australian rivalry.
An exciting prospect for fans, but really serious stuff for those involved.
The season started with friction at the Santos Tour Down Under.
Team Sky’s head sports director, Sean Yates, suggested that GreenEDGE weren’t serious, that some of their riders weren’t fit. He got slapped down when Simons Gerrans won the race, but Yates specifically didn’t include Gerrans or Cameron Mayer in his assessment.
His opposite number at GreenEDGE, Matt White, suggested Yates said what he did to start eroding Australian confidence in build up to the Olympics, where GreenEDGE’s Matt Goss and Team Sky’s Mark Cavendish are favourites for gold the road race.
But Yates doesn’t say things to play games.
He says what he sees, and what he saw didn’t impress.
He’s spent his working life assessing form: first as one of the most highly respected support riders in the peloton, and ditto, as a team manager after that.
When Yates shakes your hand with his right, he’ll grab your upper arm with his left hand. It’s a habit.
You think he’s being extra friendly, but he’s not. He’s taking a skin-fold measurement from the back of your arm. He’s got a stockman’s eye for the shape of a bike racer’s backside, and can tell how many beers he’s had in the off-season by the skin at the front of his legs.
Still, Team Sky went one nil down at the Santos TDU.
But where have GreenEDGE been since?
They were okay in the Tour of Qatar and Tour of Oman. But while they are important races for their countries, important too for the global spread of cycling, at its heart, pro road racing is still Euro-centric.
And the harsh reality of Belgium hit GreenEDGE square in the face this weekend.
In many people’s eyes, this is where the 2012 season really starts. It’s the first weekend of the run up to the spring Classics, anyway: single-day races that, along with the Tours of France, Italy and Spain, are the key targets of the pro road racing year.
And Sky were good in Belgium.
They hauled Juan-Antonio Flecha to the front of Het Nieuwsblad on Saturday, where he took third. Then on Sunday, Sky led Mark Cavendish to the finish of Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, and he took out the victory.
GreenEDGE had Tomas Vaitkus trail in 56th, five and half minutes behind Flecha, and their best rider behind Cavendish was Aidis Kruopsis in 12th.
Yeah, two Lithuanians.
The next match is Milan-San Remo, and it’s a big one.
Of all the Classic races, five are just more classic. They are called the Monuments, sort of cycling’s Grand Slams, and San Remo is one of them.
Matt Goss won it last year and Cavendish won in 2009.
It’s a sprinter’s race nowadays, so it should be between these two for victory in 2012, but the way things are going Goss’s best chance of a high placing will be to lead Cav out, like he used to when they were both in the HTC-Columbia team.
The Greenies need to find something for him, and quick.
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