Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

Ivan Basso may have sparked the latest trend in cycling of racing both the Giro and Tour de France. Basso was unable to ride the double last year due to some doping investigation, but with the Giro win in his pocket he was able to get some trophies from the adoring Italian press by the end of the year. Since then many other pros have looked at doing the double themselves. Paolo Salvodelli announced he is going for the Giro-Tour double as is Iban Mayo. Fresh into his new Sauunier Duval team kit the enigmatic Spanish cyclist is full of hope for 2007.

Read the rest of this entry »

Paolo Savoldelli is the latest signing of the Astana team joining Mattaes Kessler and Andreas Kloden. The Swiss based Kazak team is building up its roster to provide a totally fresh look. The roster they are building looks like an older version of T-Mobile as Savoldelli was a T-Mobile man just prior to joining Discovery Channel. During his T-Mobile days Il Falco never quite found the form that was expected of his talents. It wasn’t until he joined Disco that Il Falco was flying again.

(pic from Yahoo sports)

It took a Time Trial to show that the Discovery Channel team has a very weak belly without their former leader Lance Armstrong. It is natural when you put in such a successful system where everyone is a role player. They made it very successful for seven straight years, but unfortunatley the system does not do as well without the leader, Lance Armstrong.

Admiration of a superstar athlete grows after their retirement. While Lance was still racing, you would get tired of the same old formula. He would crush everyone in the first TT and build on that lead in the mountains. The story would play out each year (unless there was no early TT) but it worked and worked like clockwork. Lance made it look easy, and anyone on Disco getting a front row view of this phenomenon would probably think they could do it too. Well, now was their chance, four Disco guys went out with one goal in mind and that was to be the “new” man for Discovery to rally around. In the end, all four guys realized just how hard a task it is being the man. Not everyone is made to be the man which is why there is only one.

So Hincapie was talking big, saying that Disco will see who the leader will be after the first TT. Popovych is always threatening to break out, but Bruyneel reminds everyone that he is too young. Azevedo was nowhere, and Savoldelli did his usual performance. Not bad individual performance for each, but not the stuff that makes for a true contender. The Tour is only one-third done, and there are still many stages to go, but after today Disco must be missing Lance which must be why Lance pledged to come out to France and visit the team. Maybe to kick some ass of the Disco riders while he is there too.

The top guy for Disco now seems to be Savoldelli. With Sergei Gontcher winning the TT today, it seems like we are back in Italy for some reason. Savoldelli is ina good position, he can climb and stick with the main contenders well enough. If he has full team support he may be able to pull off a win much like he did in the Giro last year. Of the top contenders such as Landis, Rogers and Evans none have super explosve climbing abilities, so this will allow Savoldelli to stay close.

Perhaps Savoldelli was a bit overlooked since he never performed well in the Tour de France. Bruyneel says that the Giro is completely different. Well look at the GC Johan, Gonchar lead the Giro for a few days this year, and he is in Yellow today. Not so different if you ask me. So, Johan give Paolo your support, he will need it and he just may pull off the win that Disco wants so desparately in the post-Lance era.

Now that Operation Puerto has completely up-ended anyone’s Tour de France predictions, it is time to hastily draw up a new set of favorites for the upcoming Tour. The dust has yet to settle on the fiasco caused by Operation Puerto, but we must move on and pick favorites.

It looks very good for an all American podium now that most of the top faves are gone. Top picks should now go to Floyd Landis, Levi Leipheimer and Paolo Savoldelli. With all of the fallout even Hincapie has a strong chance at an overall win…psyche, just kidding George.

Yaroslav Popovych, Carlos Sastre and maybe even Bobby Julich could place very well in this Tour de France.

Unfortunately the entire Tour will be overshadowed by the Operation Puerto mess, and the sporting side will be minimized. It almost makes me not want to follow the Tour this year.

(pic from eurosport.com)

The Giro started this weekend and may have ended this weekend too. Ivan Basso put down a Lance Armstrong/Miguel Indurain type of performance on the first real mountin top finish of the Giro. As Carlos Sastre set a tempo reminiscent of Discovery Channel/Postal leadout of the past seven years, Basso simply clicked away as contenders drifted off the back of the group.

The first of the contenders to feel the pain was Danilo DiLuca. “The Killer” did not seem to be on form all this weekend. It was reported that DiLuca was suffering some sort of ailment on Saturday which showed. On Sunday his pace was much better, but he was one of the first top contenders to get launched off the back.

Paolo Savoldelli had a good ride, but probably lost one minute more than he would have liked. He was not going to keep up with the top mountainmen in the Giro this year, which may mean that he does not have much of a chance to repeat his win from last year.

Gilberto Simoni could not get launched by his teamate Leonardo Piepoli. The small Italian climber helped Gibo get to the top of the climb on Sunday as Basso simply rode away with the win. Simoni felt that he set a good pace and was frustrated that he could not muster any more speed. Is he getting old? Not really he placed respectably, he is just not as fast as Basso or Cunego.

Read the rest of this entry »

The latest start list from the Giro D’Italia
Salvodelli gets the number 1, while Jan Ullrich gets the last number 219.

Discovery Channel: 1. Savoldelli (Ita), 2. Danielson (Usa), 3. Beltran (Spa), 4. Ekimov (Rus), 5. Joachim (Lus), 6. McCartney (Usa), 7. Padrnos (R. Ceca), 8. Rubiera (Spa), 9. White (Aus).

Ag2r Prevoyance: 11. Calzati (Fra), 12. Chaurreau (Spa), 13. Deignan (Irl), 14. Dion (Fra), 15. Dupont (Fra), 16. Gadret (Fra), 17. Krivstov (Ucr), 18. Naibo (Fra), 19. Vaitkus (Lit)

Bouygues Telecom: 21. Bernaudeu (Fra), 22. Chavanel (Fra), 23. Clement (Ola), 24. Drancourt (Bel), 25. Flickinger (Fra), 26. Gene (Fra), 27. Labbe (Fra), 28. Le Boulanger (Fra), 29. Lefevre (Fra)

Caisse d’Epargne-Ill. Balears: 31. Carrasco (Spa), 32. Efimkin (Rus), 33. Erviti (Spa), 34. Fertonani (Ita), 35. Gutierrez (Spa), 36. Horrach (Spa), 37. Cegarra (Spa), 38. Pradera (Spa), 39. Perez (Spa)

Read the rest of this entry »

Only one week to go until the calendar turns to 2006 and all self respecting cycling sites do one thing. They have to proclaim a cyclist of the year. Looking at L’Equipe, they point to Danilo DiLuca, obvious choice since he won two classics and followed up with a fourth place in the Giro. He kept his form throughout the summer classics to keep his lead solid. DiLuca’s performance at the very entertaining Giro helped to solidify his standing as one of the top riders of 2005. His gritty fights for the Maglia Rosa against Paolo Bettini in the early stages were fun to watch compared to the predictable Petachi sprint victories. DiLuca never faded as the Giro headed to the high mountains, but kept with the best climbers as his team GC leaders Garzelli and Cioni faded. The stage to Sestrierre where DiLuca matched Jose Rujano and Gilberto Simoni up the Col de la Tenda and Col dela Finestre showed DiLuca’s class as he was hampered by a muscle spasm. Plus, he made the ProTour leader’s jersey actually look stylish by dressing completely in white.

Read the rest of this entry »

At a recent get-together to honor Ivan Basso, Yaroslav Popovych and Paolo Salvodelli, the issue of riding the Giro was discussed. In seems that the “will he or won’t he” question is not yet put to bed on whether Ivan Basso will ride the Giro.
Upon looking at the course which seems more tailor made for his team and skills than the Tour De France, Basso cannot let the idea of riding into Milan wearing the Maglia Rosa go. This is probably from the time-off during the off-season where Bjarne isn’t shooting the idea down for good. Next week, after the CSC Boot Camp, Basso may not be waxing about riding the Giro and speaking about each competitor he will face in the Tour and how they shoudl be the favorites and not him.

Yaroslav Popovych is a Ukrainian turned Italian and even he had to inquire with Johan Bruyneel about the possibilities of riding the Giro. He was quickly only to be rebuffed logically since Discovery has the defending champion on the team. Paolo Salvodelli pointed out that this year he will enjoy getting the varsity squad to support him, instead of the jv’s.

This year at the Giro I will have a senior squad which includes Rubiera, Padrnos, Beltran and Danielson a rider who is tougher than he even knows.

Seems like Discovery will be trying hard to defend the Giro title.

Tuttobici Web