Cycling and the ACC report: No room for complacency
My friend Phillip Gomes has given voice to a feeling that's undoubtedly going round the Australian cycling community. While acknowledging the "massive decades-long problem…
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My friend Phillip Gomes has given voice to a feeling that's undoubtedly going round the Australian cycling community. While acknowledging the "massive decades-long problem…
Samantha Lane's tweets described Before The Game's interview with injured Hawthorn player Brent Guerra as 'refreshingly honest' as the journalist admitted to being 'intrigued'.…
Some extra bonus points for bluffers for the women’s Worlds:
* races are shorter, so omits a couple of hours of watching the leader/favourite’s teammates ride tempo on the front while everybody else cruises and chats. Not so good if you’re a fan of French chateaux, a relief to the rest of us.
* Smaller teams, so it makes it harder for a strong squad to neutralize the race…however…
* Rabobank-Liv are super-strong at the moment (think Sky in Tour 2012) so it’s making life very hard for everyone else.
* The Dutch will be the strongest national team at the Worlds.
* Among the Aussies, Tiffany Cromwell is the likely team leader and best chance at a result in the Worlds – a punchy climber with a good turn of speed.
If you don't like women's cycling, make like Thumper and shut up
Like everyone else, I wish Michael the very best in what will undoubtedly be a very long recovery.
But Michael’s family doesn’t owe the public anything. If they choose to make no comment, that is their right, frustrating as it might be.
On Michael Schumacher
Geez, if you were an aspiring GT GC rider, you’d be tempted to have a crack at the Tour. Probably a better chance of a podium than the Giro, and if Froome falls off his bike…
As for Contador, to be blunt, he was up there with the very fastest hillclimbers in history, he got busted for doping (in complicated circumstances, but CAS called it a bust nonetheless). Now, despite being in what should be his prime as a cyclist and with no obvious injury or illness, he’s come back at a still high but distinctly terrestrial level. Draw your own conclusions about what this means for his prospects of matching Froome in 2013 form.
Who’s afraid of Christopher Froome?
One thing that sports bodies should do globally is to launch a marketing campaign to convince fans (fans? punters, perhaps) not to bet on non-elite competitions.
Governments could also negotiate an international treaty in which each government’s gambling regulator puts together a list of events which are actively monitored for corruption. No bookie of a member country would be permitted to offer odds on sporting events that are not on the global list.
That doesn’t stop bookies outside the system (whether not domiciled in a member country or illegal bookies) offering odds on other events, nor does it prevent corruption in top-level sport, but it might help direct bets away from these third-tier events.
Arrests over Victorian soccer match fixing
This article on free throw shooting in the NBA is relevant here.
In short, free throw shooting percentages have not really improved over the history of the league, and while some players have managed to get sustained improvements in free throw shooting, declines are almost as common as improvements.
Make goalkicking the goal
I dunno whether it applies as much to climbers, but bunch sprinting is as much about self-belief – and projecting that self-belief – as it is about fast-twitch muscle fibres.
You have to convince yourself, and others, that it’s you and not them who deserves to slot into the prime position for the sprint, get that gap, and so on.
But, as for GC riders, not so sure. When it comes down to it, the rider with the best watts per kilogram wins more often than not!
Is there a superstar advantage in cycling?
The racing seemed like it was pretty good over the weekend; the cars look far smoother (and faster) through the corners.
And, in theory, it’s nice to have a couple of new brands to cheer for.
But Car of the Future also represents the final step in the NASCARization of domestic racing. The cars, whatever the bodyshell implies, are all designed to behave identically in aerodynamic terms, and have engines regulated to the same power levels. While there is technical diversity between the brands in terms of engine technology, that technical diversity is regulated into insignificance.
It may as well be a one-make series, and the cars, like their post-91 V8 Supercar predecessors, are in many key ways far less advanced technologically than road cars to allow driving talent to take precedence and keep costs under control.
But if there’s no actual technical competition, it’s hard to give a toss what fiberglass panels the teams are strapping over the identical frames.
I’d be just as happy if they raced Aussie Racing Cars (an amateur racing formula with a custom miniaturized chassis, a large motorcycle engine and bodies that look like caricatures of V8 supercars); it’d be a fifth the cost and just as entertaining.
Bold new world begins for V8 Supercars
Hmmm. Couldn’t support Flo-Jo given the strong suspicions of extensive PED use. If you’re going to include her on the list, why not Marita Koch?
The 'Babe' the best: My top 20 sportswomen of all time
On early form and last year’s results you’d have to rate Froome and Contador as the early favourites; but who knows?
If Evans shows up in 2011 form, Froome in 2012 and Contador in, well, anything except 2011 form it’d be a hell of a race. If Contador showed up in 2009 form he’d blow everyone away, but I doubt he’s ever going to climb quite that fast again.
Is Cadel Evans a chance to win the 2013 Tour de France?
Greatest sportswoman is hard to judge, given the lack of depth in many women’s competitions.
Other candidates for the list might include Marianne Vos, who has won just about everything in women’s cycling there is to win, on the track, on the road, and in cyclocross, and is now considering a crack at the Olympic MTB race to complete her set.
It’s hard to argue with including a lot of tennis players and golfers given they’re the two women’s sports with long established professional circuits, though.
The 'Babe' the best: My top 20 sportswomen of all time
I think this is a great plan, personally. It could revolutionize the economics of domestic cycling teams in Australia, not only as a huge bonus for the team that qualifies, but in creating additional fan interest to find out who gets in.
I do have a bit of a concern about the risks of having riders who aren’t in the biopassport program competing at the very highest level for big stakes. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that the NRS is clean (or mostly so) and that particularly the NRS teams that would be a chance to qualify as you describe in the foreseeable future (Huon Genesys, Drapac, and Budget Forklifts) are run by people with integrity.
But the extra incentive to dope to qualify, and/or perform at this big race, is a worry – or equally bad, that unfounded rumours would start should the qualifying team perform better than expected. Look at the rumours that surrounded Jonathan Tiernan-Locke after he did well in a few early season races last year.
No, the UniSA riders aren’t necessarily on the biopassport program either, but they do tend to pick riders either with previous WT or Pro Conti experience (and thus they have performed under full scrutiny in the past), or riders who have AIS connections and thus are “in the system” and the sports science people have a fair idea of whether their capabilities are plausible.
I dunno whether it’s a deal-breaker, or what could be done if it is; maybe samples could be taken and frozen, for subsequent re-analysis for a biopassport if a team wins the NRS and they become the “national team” for the TDU.
Build the NRS from the Tour Down Under up
The way that the Hun Tour has been belted around by officialdom over recent years is very annoying.
I reckon it can recover; the fundamentals are there – a strengthening domestic scene seeking international competition, a decent size market with a lot of money and an appetite for cycling, and in the long term a time zone that lets you telecast live into China at a time that outdoor sport is very limited in north-east Asia.
New calendar position heralds a new beginning for Suntour
It’s an open question how strong Contador will be in 2013. He was good in the Vuelta, but didn’t have that margin of superiority tha he’s had in the past. He only beat Rodridguez and Valverde by a tactical coup.
Furthermore, we have no idea whether Sky will be able to repeat their bulldozer tactics of 2012. Whatever the sources of their marginal gains are, they can’t keep it secret forever; the rest of the peloton will catch up.
What the 2013 Tour de France route means for Cadel Evans
Not convinced by “psychometric testing” – lie detectors, in other words.
Aside from anything else, their use for employment screening is actually illegal in New South Wales.
Instead of punishing dirty cyclists, should we reward the clean?