Up until this past weekend the vast majority of the racing in the early 2016 season has been under sun drenched skies in warm climates. What the Belgians might refer to as the pre-season, what I might call the tune-up racing where the big names are racing for fitness and form. Maybe that's a little unfair to some of the races, but that's January and February of a new season for you. Until this weekend that was, when the racing arrived in Belgium and kicked off the cobbled classics campaign. Now the racing is for keeps.
And it's funny though, because after the two opening races this weekend -- the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne -- the riders will head south again to training camps, the Paris-Nice, Tirreno-Adriatico, and Milan-San Remo before they turn up in Belgium again almost a full month later for the Dwars Door Vlaanderen and eventually the Tour of Flanders. So in many ways these two races are pre-season races in the cobbled classics season; a chance for riders and team management to access form and build a strategy for when they arrive back again in a months time.
Still, the two races do in way mark the real beginning of the European season and what follows on at Paris-Nice, Tirenno and San Remo is only the continuation of the schedule. The Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad released their cycling season guide on the weekend and many fans really begin to sit up and take note of results. As I said, they're racing for results now and not just fitness.
Monday, February 29, 2016
Monday, February 22, 2016
A look back on the early season racing
So the new road season is well underway and there has been no shortage of stories. From Australian dominance of their own Tour Down Under, to Marcel Kittel getting back to winning ways on his new team, to Chris Froome and Vincenzo Nibali starting their season as they hope to go on, to a horror crash involving a car and the Giant-Alpecin team, to the scandal of a motor being found in the bike of an U23 rider at the Cyclo Cross World Championships.
It's been tough to keep up with it all. On the men's road scene there has been racing goin on in one form or another across four different continents since mid-January with a total of 47 different winners (not counting national championship races), of which only 10 have won multiple races. Alexander Kristoff and Marcel Kittel are off to flying starts with five and four wins respectively, with Kristoff surely now the man to beat at the first Monument of the year, Milan-San Remo, while Caleb Ewan, the young sprinter of which so many things are expected, has won three races thanks to his form in his homeland Down Under. Indeed the Aussies have been in dominant form picking up 8 in total (again not counting national championship results, for obvious reasons) including all five stages of the TDU. Simon Gerrans took two on top of Ewan's three in that tour, including the overall GC, while Jay McCarthy added one and Richie Porte another on his now traditional stomping ground of Wallonga Hill.
Elsewhere, Dayer Quintana, brother of Nairo, won the overall at the Tour de San Luis, Marcel Kittel won the Dubai Tour (along with two stage wins), Froome won the Herald Sun Tour, Jerome Coppel the Etoile de Bessèges, Wout Poels the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, Mark Cavendish the Tour of Qatar (in which he has also won a stage), Andrei Grivko won La Méditerranéenne, Philippe Gilbert the Vuelta de Murcia, Andrea Fedi the Trofeo Laigueglia, Leigh Howard the Clasica de Almeria, Vincenzo Nibali the Tour of Oman, Alejandro Valverde the Ruta del Sol and Geraint Thomas the Volta ao Algarve.
As you can see, there is no end of racing in these tune up style multi-day races ahead of the spring classics.
It's been tough to keep up with it all. On the men's road scene there has been racing goin on in one form or another across four different continents since mid-January with a total of 47 different winners (not counting national championship races), of which only 10 have won multiple races. Alexander Kristoff and Marcel Kittel are off to flying starts with five and four wins respectively, with Kristoff surely now the man to beat at the first Monument of the year, Milan-San Remo, while Caleb Ewan, the young sprinter of which so many things are expected, has won three races thanks to his form in his homeland Down Under. Indeed the Aussies have been in dominant form picking up 8 in total (again not counting national championship results, for obvious reasons) including all five stages of the TDU. Simon Gerrans took two on top of Ewan's three in that tour, including the overall GC, while Jay McCarthy added one and Richie Porte another on his now traditional stomping ground of Wallonga Hill.
Elsewhere, Dayer Quintana, brother of Nairo, won the overall at the Tour de San Luis, Marcel Kittel won the Dubai Tour (along with two stage wins), Froome won the Herald Sun Tour, Jerome Coppel the Etoile de Bessèges, Wout Poels the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, Mark Cavendish the Tour of Qatar (in which he has also won a stage), Andrei Grivko won La Méditerranéenne, Philippe Gilbert the Vuelta de Murcia, Andrea Fedi the Trofeo Laigueglia, Leigh Howard the Clasica de Almeria, Vincenzo Nibali the Tour of Oman, Alejandro Valverde the Ruta del Sol and Geraint Thomas the Volta ao Algarve.
As you can see, there is no end of racing in these tune up style multi-day races ahead of the spring classics.