Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

Liege Bastongne Liege closes out the 2009 Spring Classics. The lightweight climber types will look to avenge the spanking delt by veteran Davide Rebellin at Fleche Wallone. Liege does not finish with a long steep climb like Amstel and Fleche so the finish is not as critical. The key will be to whittle down the lead group on the numerous climbs leading into Liege. Sprinters such as Valverde and Cunego will have an upper hand if they make it through with a lead group. Here is last year’s finish with Valverde taking the win.

Michele Bartoli’s win in 1997 as he outlasts Jalabert.

Alll of the favorites together for the final kick up the Mur de Huy. Cadel Evans does the pace making at the bottom to string out the peloton and Davide Rebellin powers up for the win. Great win by a veteran rider who was almost written off into retirement.

Alejandro Valverde now has two Liege-Bastonge-Liege wins in his pocket. The Spanish climbing-sprinting sensation looks to be on track to be a contender in the Tour once again. Though he admitted that his form was not as good as in 2006 when he took his last win at Liege, he was able to use his sprinting ability and smarts to beat Frank Schleck and David Rebellin.

The Schleck brothers seemed to have the race to themselves. When the decisive breaks happened on the new climb of Falcon’s Rock 20kms from the finish the number favored the brothers from Luxembourg. The group of five that formed contained two the CSC brothers, David Rebellin and two Caisse D’Epargne’s (Valverde and Rodriguez). Rebellin was odd man out until Rodriguez could no longer keep pace. Andy Schleck launched an attack that everyone knew was a setup for brother Frank. Trouble is that once Andy was caught by a very attentive Rebellin, Brother Frank could not shake off two tough sprinters Valverde and Rebellin. As the break of three cruised to the end it was only a matter of ceremony for Valverde to take the top spot.

Too bad for Schleck, he came so close to wins and was beat out by little guys who can sprint. Last week in Amstel, Cunego came out from behind to beat Schleck in somewhat of a surprise. While this time he could not use his numbers to shake off Valverde before the sprint.

Meanwhile it looks like Valverde wasn’t even going to try for the win.

“I knew if I could make it to the sprint, I’d have my best chance against these two,” Valverde said. “This win means a lot because the spring classics weren’t even a goal this year. I came here with a lot of motivation to race because my goals come later in the season with the Tour and the Olympics.” — velonews.com

So Valverde was not intending to win? But won anyway? This guys must be on drugs… queue the Operation Puerto questions…

Inevitably, Valverde was questioned about his alleged links to Operación Puerto, but he said he’s racing with a clear conscience. Some believe Valverde is linked to the Spanish doping scandal, but he’s never been officially implicated.

“My link to Puerto only comes from the media. No judge or evidence has ever suggested that I had anything to do with it,” said Valverde. “I’m not worried about the Italian authorities. If they want to question me when the Tour goes to Italy, let them. No problem.”
–velonews.com

BTW, did you hear that Basso signed with Liquigas? WTF?

The more things change the more they stay the same. I thought we were moving on from the Operation Puerto stories and in one quick swipe we get two OP related stories in the headlines. Cycling cannot catch a break. Even as the exciting Liege-Bastongne-Liege race wraps up a drug scandal free spring season it all comes back just in time for the start of a major Grand Tour.

(AFP/Franck Fife)

Schumi (Stefan Schumacher) and Tintin (Davide Rebellin) have been a powerful duo in the last two hilly Classics races. Schumacher has been getting better results since his breakout performance in last years Giro. Amstel Gold is a major win for the young German.

REUTERS/Thierry Roge

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(pic from Yahoo! News)

Another exciting Paris-Nice is in the books. This one was particularly eventful with several lead changes and a dramatic last day stage win that sealed the overall victory by the latest “Next Indurain” of the Spanish peloton. In fact Paris-Nice saw two potential “Next Indurains” with Luis Leon Sanchez getting the moniker after his stage 6 win where he duped his former teammate Contador by going on a late attack that was ordered by his team management.

Both Sanchez and Contador came from the Liberty Seguros meltdown of 2006. Manolo Saiz must be waking up in a cold “Vega Vega Vega” for not being able to manage these two up-and-coming stars. If he only had someone else carry the bags of blood we wouldn’t be in this mess and these guys would both be riding for Saiz.

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Discovery Channel’s Alberto Contador was only six seconds behind Davide Rebellin going into the final stage 7 around Nice. The final stage was a brutal one with climbs up the Col D’Eze. Alberto Contador showing great form attacked Rebellin whose Gerolsteiner teammates were left far down the road.

More later…

The Italian Fall season is in full swing this weekend as the Giro Dell Emilia and the are warm up races for the “Race of the Falling Leaves” next week.

Davide Rebelling and Danilo DiLuca still have great form and helped to push the pace to form the winning move. Giuseppe DiGrande riding for the small Miche team came in third.

Paolo Bettini raced with a heavy heart as he is mourning the loss of his brother Sauro. Il Grillo decided to race and finish out the seasont o honor his brother. Forget the curse talk, this is a more serious tragedy than any other World Champ has had to endure. Sure guys like Luc Lablanc saw their teams crumble around them, Igor Astarloa couldn’t quite get back to his breakout form, but a death of a family member is harder than not getting a win for a while.

(pic stolen from cyclingnews.com)

Bettini’s choice of clothing did not reflect his somber mood. Paolo broke out a pair of shiny gold shorts that definaltey top the shiny gold shoes worn for the past two seasons.

1. Davide REBELLIN (Gerolsteiner)
km 196,6 in 4.55’15″, media 39,953;
2. Danilo Di Luca (Liquigas);
3. Giuseppe Di Grande (Miche) a 2″;
4. Santo Anzà (Selle Italia) a 10″;
5. Riccardo Riccò (Saunier Duval) a 15″;
6. Simone Masciarelli (Acqua&Sapone) a 21″;
7. Ruggero Marzoli (Lampre);
8. Oliver Zaugg (Saunier Duval);
9. Luca Mazzanti (Panaria Navigare) a 30″;
10. Kanstantin Siutsou (Acqua&Sapone).

Davide Rebellin captured the triple in 2004 by winning the Amstel Gold Race, Liege-Bastongne-Liege and Fleche Wallone. He is one of Italy’s top one-day riders and had great form going into the Olympics and the World Championships that year.

Unfortunaelty he was not on Franco Ballerini’s radar to join either team. Feeling disgruntled, he decided that he should try to ride the World Championships for another country. Davide “The Rebel” Rebellin had some relative somewhere that made it seem feasable to switch nationalities in time for the Worlds. Small problems arose as Rebby had to actually visit the county at some point and spend some time there.

Argentina is not like visiting Switzerland or Portugal, it take a while to get there from Italy. The Argentinian Rancheros love their beef which is cheap and plentiful. This diet-although tasty-does not agree with the slight almost waifish figure that a man such as Rebellin has to maintain.
Seems like the process of becoming Argentinian for one race was going to be more complicated that originally thought, so no Worlds for Davide in 2004 or even 2005.

In 2005 “The Rebel’s” only result was a stage win in the Brixia Tour which is very paltry when you are one of the more fearsome small Italian one-day races whose name is not Paolo Bettini. A change is necessary, so Rebby will give up on becoming an Argentinian and focus on staying Italian. Rebellin will be focusing on getting some good results in the spring classics in 2006 and is now talking to Franco Ballerini about getting one of the coveted spots on the Italian World’s team for Salzburg. It helps that Rebellin can get up steep hills quick as the German Worlds looks to be one for the climbers.

Rebellini has not been too fond of Grand Tours as he rode the Giro last year but only lasted one week. He will give the race another try this year to see how things go. His main goal is to win a stage and to capture the Maglia Rosa which he last wore ten long years ago.