Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

(Photo from flickr user Darcy McCarty)

Defending Milan San Remo winner Fabian Cancellara and World Champion Alessandro Ballan will miss the start of Milan San Remo. Cancellara is battling poor form and sickness that has been reoccuring since his prologue win at the Tour of California. Cancellara dropped out of Tirreno Adriatico this week and is trying to establish a program that will allow him to return to top form for the Classics in the next few weeks. Cancellara will race in next weeks Settimana Coppi e Bartali.

I regret not being able to do Milano-Sanremo which for obvious reasons is a race that has a special place in my heart, but I need to be realistic. It’s the best decision based on the form I have right now and more importantly, for family reasons, I wasn’t able to do the race on Saturday either way. I want to stay focused and since I had to exit Tirreno-Adriatico, I need to get more stability and I can only get that from racing and continue my work. I look forward to be gaining more form in the Italian stage race and hopefully, that will help me get some progress and form.

Meanwhile World Champion Alessandro Ballan has been sick with Citomegalovirus which means that he will have to stop racing for 15 days to recuperate from the infection.

Interestingly one of the transmission methods of Cytomegalovirus is through blood transfusions. Hopefully this is not the way Ballan contracted the infection. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytomegalovirus

Ballan has been having a tough early season so far having to miss Kuurne Brussels Kuurne and Het Volk due to lack of form/sickness. Could this be the curse of the Rainbow Jersey taking hold again?