No-one knows what it's like, to be the bad man, to be the sad man, behind sun glasses. Roberto Ferrari, seen here winning the Flèche d'Emeraude - Saint Malo 2012 will today throw his arms up in apology to Cav. Photograph: Isabelle Duchesne
I'm not sure why they call it a "rest day" in cycling? We all know these guys don't actually rest. In fact, they take to their bikes on a rest day and go put in some big miles in order to "stay loose" for the next thousand or so race miles before the next "race day". If you ask me that defeats the purpose of a rest day entirely. A rest day should ban the riders from going near the bike...
I know if I was doing a 3 week stage race and was offered a day away from the saddle the last thing I'd want to be doing was stepping on the pedals. You'd find me in the hotel pub enjoying a few cold ones proud of what I had achieved so far and trying to pretend what was to come didn't really exist.
Anyway, a "rest day" it was and all the talk around the Giro d'Italia camp fire was the physical assault by Roberto Ferrari on Mark Cavendish in stage 3. It caused a mighty pile up and originally Ferrari refused to apologise. I hear it made for an interesting charter flight over to Italy from Denmark, with Cavendish and Ferrari sat beside one another. Rumours that the pilot threatened to land the plane on two occasions after disturbances broke out involving a small man with a slurring British accent, a dashing Italian and a bottle of Rum are as of yet unsubstantiated, as are those that they were even on the same flight.
Not wanting to be the bad man of the peloton, the man nobody helps out in times of trouble and the man nobody rides for however, crash starter, Roberto Ferrari has said he would offer up a public apology to Mark Cavendish ahead of a return to racing today. Whether that means taking to the sign on stage with a microphone and swooning the onlooking peloton with a love song or two in the direction of the World Champion, or just shaking his hand in front of the cameras in a glorious PR stunt, I'm not quite sure. I'm also not quite sure why it had to be a public apology and not one made out on the road, other than to regain the love of the fans. Still, at least he now sees the error of his ways and we can all move on from this great tragedy and get some sleep tonight.
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Other guff
Taylor Phinney enjoying his rest day
Crash happy Giro d'Italia race leader, Taylor Phinney who a source within the BMC team informed me is out to win the Giro while becoming the first man to crash on every single stage, today announced he was doing the unthinkable and taking the Giro "day-by-day" and, get this, "hour-by-hour". As opposed to taking the race year-by-year, Phinney announced that he was "definitely lucky with the timing of the rest day and the timing of the crash yesterday because I was fortunate enough to be in the last three kilometres," before adding that he hopes to time his crash in stage four just as well.
Cycling drug king-pin of the 1990's, Bjarne Riis came out today to claim he felt like a "passenger on the Titanic ship, waiting on whether we struck the ice berg" with regards to how he and his team Saxo Bank have been treated by the UCI. It centers around the suspension of his star man Alberto Contador followed by the threat that the team might have lost their WorldTour status. "I've been missing support from the UCI, and I had hoped for a helping hand from them in a difficult situation," said the man who drugged his way to the 1996 Tour de France title shamelessly. That he blammed the UCI and not Contador himself for the lack of support says something.
For the first time in professionally organised cycling history (I completely assume) spectators will be charged to watch an event and leave it to the Brits to be the ones to pull it off. Yes, fans wanting to get onto the best part of the Olympic road race course on Box Hill will have to pay a fee to do so. The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) claim that "it's a move that will encourage more people to attend", and not at all a move to make more money. Can you imagine the French did this with Alp d'Huez?
