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Nuyens Flies at Flanders

Tour of Flander 2011 Nick Nuyens riding for Saxo Bank-SunGard, since Fabian Cancellara left the team for rivals Trek-Leopard, has won this year’s edition of the Tour of Flanders with a thrilling three way sprint finish that saw Sylvain Chavanel of Quick Step in second and the pre-race Flander’s favourite and defending champion Cancellara third. Nuyens’ home turf victory also made him the first man to twice win both the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix in the same season, making it a double blow for Cancellara who was chasing the same dream… Nuyens tackled the 256k course with its rolling hills and notorious cobblestoned sections in 6:01:20. Team RadioShack’s Sébastien Rosseler who won the Three Days De Panne event last Thursday (always something of a prelude to Flanders) was a regrettable DNF on the day.

 

For full results see: www.uciworldtour.com

 

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Denmark’s the Start for Giro 2012

Giro d'ItaliaAfter months of speculation the organisers of the Giro d’Italia have finally announced that the 2012 edition will begin in Denmark, marking its first ever visit to Scandinavia. The Giro will kick off on Saturday, May 5, in Herning (coincidently also the birthplace of Bjarne Riis who rides for Saxo Bank-SunGard) with the Individual Time Trial beginning and ending at the town’s Exhibition Centre. Stage two’s 200k loop will also call Herning home, before the action transfers to Horsens in east Jutland for stage three and then moves back to more familiar Italian home ground. The decision finally lays to rest the rumours that the 2012 Giro would begin in Washington DC – which would have made it the first Grand Tour to start outside of Europe – and marks the tenth occasion on which it has started outside of Italy. The 2010 edition started in Amsterdam.

 

In a joint statement the mayors of Herning and Horsens, Lars Krarup and Jan Tojborg respectively, comment: “We share a strong tradition for cycling and are experienced in handling large, international events and we look forward to the challenge and to giving the Italians a perfect start of the race in 2012.”

 

This year’s Giro d’Italia starts May 7 in Turin, finishing May 29 in Milan.

 

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RadioShack Battle the Elements

Yesterday saw a dramatic final day of racing at the Three Days De Panne in Belgium with poor weather spoiling many a rider’s chances. With the event considered a prelude to the Tour of Flanders, which takes places this Sunday, wind and rain at Thursday morning’s 3a stage forced the withdrawal of many competitors including Filippo Pozzato, Peter Sagan, Stijn Devolder and Alessandro Ballan (the latter two both previous Flanders winners.) In all 21 riders abandoned the penultimate stage.

 

The afternoon’s 3b stage – the 14.7k Time Trial – proved even more disastrous for Quick Step’s Niki Terpstra who wiped out and sustained a fractured collar bone, ending his hopes of success (indeed participation) at Flanders. The accident marks a continuation of the run of bad luck this season for Quick Step who have already lost 4 riders to injury.

 

But it was RadioShack’s Sébastien Rosseler who fought through the blustery TT conditions to convincingly win the final stage and bag an overall win in to the bargain. RadioShack also celebrated a third overall place with Michal Kwiatkowski taking just a +14 behind Rosseler’s winning time of 12:21:33, and the Netherland’s Lieuwe Westra (Vacansoleil-DCM) squeezed in between the two for second place on +6.

 

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Pot(hole) Luck

News reaches Cyclo that a simply jaw-dropping £10 billion may be required to fix the UK’s increasing pothole problem, with an annual shortfall somewhere in the region of a £895m on the highways maintenance budget. The disturbing figures come from the Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey produced by the Asphalt Industry Alliance (for there is such a thing) and are, naturally, of concern for any cyclist that regularly runs the gauntlet.

 

At current maintenance levels, the average frequency for a road to be resurfaced and fully repaired is once every 65 years in England and once every 81 years for Wales. Yes, you read that correctly.

 

As a potential crumb of some comfort the construction company Aggregate Industries has joined forces with the CTC – the National cyclists’ organisation, who launched their fillthathole website back in 2007 – to reward the most proactive councils. Two categories are up for grabs, one for the council with the highest percentage of potholes fixed, and a “People’s Choice” voted on by the public via the website. Olympic cyclist Victoria Pendleton has put her weight behind the awards too, commenting that: “I’m getting involved because anything that showcases pothole repairs and encourages councils to improve their roads has to be a good thing for both cyclists and motorists.” Pendleton also gets to meet the winning councils later this year. Lucky lady.

 

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RIP: Cycling England

Cycling England, the body established by the Department for Transport in 2005 to “promote the growth of cycling in England by championing best practice and (by) channelling funding to partners engaged in training, engineering and marketing projects”, will cease to be from Thursday March 31. Due, in the main, to Governmental cost-cutting many of the bodies key functions will be brought back in-house by the Department for Transport who will now oversee funding (and distribution of funding) via the Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF). Spending on cycling-based schemes – which naturally fall within the “sustainable transport” category – will now primarily be down to the whim of individual local authorities and be dependent of how willing those authorities are to jump through the hoops for submitting funding requests.

 

A small number of Cycling England’s most successful initiatives, including their flagship Bikeability scheme (described as “Cycling Proficiency for the 21st Century”) will be maintained. However fears remain that the idea of “hand(ing) power back to local authorities”, as Norman Baker, Under-Secretary of State for Transport, has put it will ultimately see the end to much of the joined-up thinking that has defined Cycling England for the last 6 years. Cyclo, for one, will miss you…

 

See below for Norman Baker’s introductory speech on the Local Sustainable Transport Fund.

 

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Homage to Catalonia

VoltaTriple Tour de France winner Alberto Contador has managed to both maintain and capitalise on the lead he established in last Wednesday’s Andorra mountain stage to bag another overall win at this year’s Tour of Catalonia with a time of 29:24:42. Italy’s Michele Scarponi (Lampre-ISD) finished in second just 23 seconds behind, whilst Team Garmin-Cervelo’s Dan Martin placed third at +35. The seventh and final day/stage of the Tour – Parets del Valles to Barcelona – was won by France’s Samuel Dumoulin with Sky’s Rigoberto Uran in second.

 

Yesterday’s win in Catalonia sees a continuation of an outstanding season for the Spanish rider – he has already scored a win at this year’s Vuelta de Murcia (Tour of Murcia) – despite the controversy over last year’s Tour de France failed drug test still rumbling on.

 

First held in 1911 – and won then as now by a Spaniard (Sebastià Masdeu) – The Tour of Catalonia (“Volta” Ciclista a Catalunya) was celebrating its Centenary edition this year – it’s the third oldest cycling stage race in the world just a year or two off the Tour de France (1903) and Giro d’Italia (1909).

 

For full results see: www.uciworldtour.com

 

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Aussie Rules

So, not a bad haul of medals for Great Britain as the UCI Track Cycling World Championships draws to a close after five days of fierce competition in the Netherlands. But it wasn’t without its upsets and GB, despite ending fourth in the medal tables, were certainly down significantly on last year’s total of three golds, five silvers, one bronze; managing here just a solitary gold (Women’s Team Pursuit), plus three silver and five bronze. Meanwhile Australia blazed their way to a magnificent eight golds with 11 medal wins.

 

Australia’s Anna Meares ended Victoria Pendleton’s chance of a fifth consecutive world sprint title eliminating her in the semi-final stage in a battle which was as nerve jangling to watch as it must have been to participate in. Both riders displaying as much psychological grit and mind-game as raw power; but in the end it was Pendleton that cracked and Meares that went on to prove that this year’s Championships truly were an Aussie affair as she made comfortable work of defeating Lithuania’s Simona Krupeckaite 2-0 in the final to take her first sprint world title.

 

Things took an equally disappointing turn for Sir Chris Hoy who had to settle for silver in the men’s keirin as he was narrowly squeezed out by Australian Shane Perkins in the final few meters.

 

Still, there’s more than a year to go to the Olympics, right?

 

For full results, see:www.worldchamptrackcycling.com

 

 

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Gold for Women’s Team Pursuit

By the midway point of this year’s UCI Track Cycling World Championships (March 23 – 27) Great Britain’s Women’s Team Pursuit trio have taken gold with a blistering performance in the Netherlands. After setting the fastest qualifying time of 3:23.642, the relatively newly formed team of Wendy Houvenaghel, Laura Trott and Dani King (the latter two making their World Championship debuts) stormed home in the finals with a winning time of 3:23.419 holding the USA in silver medal position (3:25.308) and New Zealand in bronze (3:24.065). The success marks veteran Houvenaghel’s third title.

 

But in the Women’s Team Sprint final British pair Victoria Pendleton and Jessica Varnish had to settle for silver with a time of 33.525 behind Kaarle McCulloch and Anna Meares (Australia) who scored a gold place with their time of 33.237. China took bronze.

 

There’s still plenty of time over the next few days for GB to pick up further wins and boost their confidence pre-2012 Games; Cyclo will bring you more news and results from the Championships over the weekend.