Australia’s male road cyclist of the year is a no-brainer. Or is it?
The UCI’s sixth-ranked nation has yet again produced some amazing individual performances for virtually the entire season.
Simon Gerrans almost book-ended his season in the most perfect way but just failed to snare the dream of World Champion to go with the National Championship jersey he won in January.
In between of course, Gerrans provided more brilliant rides, which pretty much confirms the builders will be needed sharpish to construct a new trophy cabinet.
Michael Matthews took some big steps up his career ladder with more Grand Tour success. Stage wins at the Giro and Vuelta, victories elsewhere and a host of top 10 placings have ‘Bling’ pushing up fast on that elite group of men which includes the likes of Marcel Kittel, Mark Cavendish and Andre Greipel.
Meanwhile, another Michael who wasn’t even racing until the end of April stunned the cycling world with not one, not two, but three Grand Tour wins.
If you look at it pragmatically, Simon Gerrans deserves to be named Australia’s elite male road cyclist for 2014. He is a template for showing how to build to a peak for specific times of the year, and do it almost perfectly.
We will never know what might have happened if Mark Cavendish hadn’t brought Gerro down at the end of Stage 2 of the Tour de France in Harrogate, but Orica Green Edge’s main man can be well satisfied with what did happen when he was fit.
Best make room for some more silverware Simon.
Unless I was the judge that is.
For me, the return to cycling by Michael Rogers after winning an appeal against his positive Clenbuterol test was one of sport’s most remarkable stories in 2014.
A proud and dignified man, Rogers return to the pinnacle of the sport should only be seen in books, as in, works of fiction.
The Tinkoff-Saxo veteran didn’t even finish his first race back, Liege Bastogne Liege on April 27 before suiting up for the Giro two weeks later.
After Orica Orica-GreenEDGE, Michael Matthews and then Cadel Evans helped us through an amazing first week or so, Stage 11 turned into a double celebration for Aussie cycling, with two of our boys on the podium.
It saw Cadel Evans pull on the pink leader’s jersey for a fourth straight day, but only after Rogers had attacked on a descent with 20kilometres to go and time-trialled to the his first Grand Tour win.
Little did we know that was only the appetiser for a magnificent three-course meal. Just nine days later Rogers presented the main course. On the fearsome Monte Zoncalon, Roger made his decisive move while fighting off rabid crowds and the unlucky Francesco Bongiorno before climbing to an emotional win on a mythical Giro peak.
To be sitting up on a cold May night in wintery Australia and see those stage wins just a few weeks back from a six months away from the sport was almost unbelievable. No doubt what had happened while he was fighting that ban provided the fuel for those performances.
But it’s hard to know if that ride or his next win a few weeks later at the Tour de France was better.
On reflection though I think the dessert of this three-course meal was for me at least the sweetest win of all.
Maybe that’s because I have a chronic sweet tooth, or maybe it was because I was there to see it in the flesh.
It was warm and sunny in Bagneres de Luchon when Rogers, as he did in his first Giro victory, crossed the line well ahead of the next rider.
Previously it was an attack with 20 kilometres to go. This time it was a 4.5-kilometre solo surge to glory after a slogging 238-kilometre race.
Despite the spate of Aussie success in recent years at the Tour, there were some moist eyes in Bagneres-de-Luchon that day as Rogers rolled over the line and onto the podium.
The Giro was a statement that he was back. The Tour was a statement that Michael Rogers wasn’t just back – he was reborn.
And his attitude to racing when the moment presented was totally pragmatic.
“On the descent, I thought, I’ve been in this position too many times to lose, I’m either going to crash or I’m going to win today.”
But its origins came from his ban.
‘There was a lesson in life for me. I just accepted the person who I was,” Rogers said.
”I always dreamt of winning a Grand Tour.
”I tried for many years, and all of a sudden I [realised I] should stop living someone else’s life.”
Rogers was referring to comments made by many cycling “experts” that had marked him down as a potential Grand Tour winner, when in fact that level of performance was far more than he was capable of.
The time-off while he was fighting the Clenbuterol rap convinced Rogers that he should just lower the expectations.
And when he did, look what happened.
This clarity of resolve and the results it produced so quickly after his return, match anything Simon Gerrans has achieved this year.
Gerro may have accumulated 418 more UCI points this year than Rogers but for me, ‘Dodger’ Rogers deserves the ultimate accolade Australian cycling can bestow on him.
That may require a miracle, but in some ways that’s what we’ve already seen this year from the Canberran with the can-do attitude.
Let the voting commence.
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