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.

As a result of their success in Australia, the Orica GreenEdge team had started the new season in the manor in which they so frequently start Grand Tours: in blistering form. Five wins in total by early February though have since been passed by the power house teams of Sky and Etixx Quickstep who now stand with six and ten respectively (including one team-time-trial win for Etixx. Speaking of which, FDJ have even won a TTT! Orica will be hoping to keep their fine start going and with Caleb Ewan in their ranks and slated to start the Giro, as well as a returning to form Simon Gerrans, you have to think they just might. Sky will be impressed with their start too: There was one day in which the team had three winners on three separate continents with Wout Poels winning in Spain, Pete Kennaugh in Australia and Elia Viviani in Dubai. They will now look to carry their own form into the single day cobbled classics which begin later this month.

Only two World Tour teams are left still looking for their first win. Lampre-Merida and Giant-Alpecin, but it's the later of those two who have had the worst start imaginable, for reasons of awful misfortune, but also in a strange way, a lot of luck. Misfortune in the sense that on a training ride in Spain six of their team were knocked down by a car travelling on the wrong side of the road. Luck in the sense that they're damned lucky nobody was killed. Of the six, Chad Haga came off worse, but the others -- Warren Barguil, John Degenkolb, Fredrik Ludvigsson, Ramon Sinkeldam and Max Walscheid -- were all banged up and Degenkolb looks set to miss a spring classic season in which a lot was expected of him as defending champions of Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix.

The incident appears to have knocekd the wind out of their sails, and while we can harp on about things like this bringing a team closer together, there is no doubt it will have shaken up the entire team, not to mention stripped them of some fine talent who might otherwise have had a result or two to their names by now. In time all will recover but it's going to be a rough old road back to winning ways.

That all said however, the biggest talking point came by the way of a scandal, as it so often does, and this time from the off the road scene, at the cyclo-cross worlds, when a motor was found in a competitors bike. January is the cross season's busiest time of the year and so rightly it should be at the forefront of our attentions, but some brilliant racing, in which Wout Van Aert became men's elite World Champion, and Evie Richards won the woman's U23 race for Great Britain in a sport all but monopolised by the Belgians and Dutch, was overshadowed by 19 year old Femke Van den Driessche. We've often heard rumours of this technology existing in the sport for a while, but while the UCI has been on the hunt for a number of years now, nothing had ever been found. So step forward Van den Driessche to take your place in infamy.

It left everyone asking just what on earth the teenager was thinking, but also concluding logically that she could not have acted alone. The excuse of the bike belonging to a friend was wheeled out, but quickly shot down when it became clear her name was on the bike, that it was in her pit, and that it was fitted to her. I can only imagine she faces a lengthy ban now and a lifetime of regret but I also wonder how the other competitors that she has beaten over recent weeks or months will feel about those results?

The UCI deserve a lot of credit for continuing in their persuit of this technology and there is talk that they were tipped off by fellow competitors of Van den Driessche, which is to be encouraged, but the scandal has ignited the debate over how widespread this mechanical doping might be? Personally, I don't believe it's as widespread as 'chemical' doping was in the 90s and 00s for a number of reasons I may have to lay out in a separate blog, nor do I believe it is common beyond perhaps a small number of the worst of the worst, but that said, there is no way a 19 year old Belgian girl is the first to do it; she's just the first to get caught, and as a result the checking of bikes must continue and should perhaps even be stepped up.

And so on with the racing season we go...the racing is held up by, and waits for no man.

---

This season I had been hoping to do a rider-of-the-week and month award though as yet have not gotten around to starting it. Thankfully though the season isn't that old and so I will now hand out some belated awards. I will endevor to become more prompt with this in the coming weeks.

Riders of the weeks and months of January/February:

18 Jan - 24 Jan: Simon Gerrans (2 wins & GC at TUD)

25 Jan - 31 Jan: Andre Greipel (2 wins at Challenge Mallorca)

Month of January: Simon Gerrans (Impressive start after rough 2015)

1 Feb - 7 Feb: Wout Poels (2 wins & GC at Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana)

8 Feb - 14 Feb: Alexander Kristoff (3 wins from 5 stages at Qatar)

15 Feb - 21 Feb: Vincenzo Nibali (Commanding win at Tour of Oman)

---

For early season race results and number of rider and team wins, click below...

Early season results:

18-24 Jan Tour de San Luis (2.1): Dayer Quintana (MOV)
Stages: Etixx in TTT, Fernando Gaviria (EQS), Peter Koning (DPC), Eduardo Sepulveda (FVC), German Nicolas Tivani (ARG), Miguel Angel Lopez (AST), Jakub Mareczko (ITA).

19-24 Jan Tour Down Under (WT): Simon Gerrans (OGE)
Stages: Caleb Ewan (OGE), Jay McCarthy (TNK), Simon Gerrans (OGE), Simon Gerrans (OGE), Richie Porte (BMC), Caleb Ewan (OGE).

28-31 Jan Challenge Mallorca (1.1): n/a
Palma: Andre Greipel (LTS); Alcudia: Gianluca Brambilla (EQS); Calvia: Fabian Cancellara (TFS); Manacor: Andre Greipel (LTS).

31 Jan Cadel Evans Great Ocean Race (1.HC): Peter Kennaugh (SKY)

31 Jan Grand Prix Cycliste la Marseillaise (1.1): Dries Devenyns (IAM)

3-6 Feb Dubai Tour (2.HC): Marcel Kittel (EQS)
Stages: Marcel Kittel (EQS), Elia Viviani (SKY), JJ Lobato (MOV), Marcel Kittel (EQS).

3-7 Feb Herald Sun Tour (2.1): Chris Froome (SKY)
Stages: William Clarke (DPC), Peter Kennaugh (SKY), Caleb Ewan (OGE), John Murphy (UHC), Chris Froome (SKY).

3-7 Feb Etoile de Bessèges (2.1): Jerome Coppel (IAM)
Stages: Bryan Coquard (DRE), Bryan Coquard (DRE), Sylvain Chavanel (DRE), Angel Madrazo (CRS), Jerome Coppel (IAM).

3-7 Feb Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana (2.1): Wout Poels (SKY)
Stages: Wout Poels (SKY), Dan Martin (EQS), Dylan Groenewegen (TLJ), Wout Poels (SKY), Stijn Vandenbergh (EQS).

8-12 Feb Tour of Qatar (2.HC): Mark Cavendish (TDD)
Stages: Mark Cavendish (DDD), Alexander Kristoff (KAT), Edvald Boasson Hagen (DDD), Alexander Kristoff (KAT), Alexander Kristoff (KAT)

11-14 Feb La Méditerranéenne (2.1): Andrei Grivko (AST)
Stages: FDJ in TTT, Arnaud Demare (FDJ), Andrei Grivko (AST), Jan Bakelants (ALM)

13 Feb Vuelta Ciclista a la Region de Murcia (1.1): Philippe Gilbert (BMC)

14 Feb Trofeo Laigueglia (1.HC): Andrea Fedi (SEV)

14 Feb Clasica de Almeria (1.1): Leigh Howard (IAM)

16-21 Feb Tour of Oman (2.HC): Vincenzo Nibali (AST).
Stages: Bob Jungels (EQS), Edvald Boasson Hagen (DDD), Alexander Kristoff (KAT), Vincenzo Nibali (AST), Edvald Boasson Hagen (DDD), Alexander Kristoff (KAT).

17-21 Feb Volta ao Algarve (2.1): Geraint Thomas (SKY).
Stages: Marcel Kittel (EQS), Luis Leon Sanchez (AST), Fabian Cancellara (TFS), Marcel Kittel (EQS), Alberto Contador (TNK).

17-21 Feb Vuelta a Andalucia Ruta del Sol (2.1): Alejandro Valverde (MOV).
Stages: Daniele Bennati (TNK), Nacer Bouhanni (COF), Oscar Gatto (TNK), Tejay Van Garderen (BMC), Alejandro Valverde (MOV).

20-21 Feb Tour du Haut Van (2.1): Arthur Vichot (FDJ).

Stages: Tom-Jelte Slagter (CAN), Arthur Vichot (FDJ).

---

World Tour rider race wins:
5 - Alexander Kristoff (KAT)

4 - Marcel Kittel (EQS)
3 - Caleb Ewan (OGE)

3 - Edvald Boa. Hagen (DDD)
2 - Simon Gerrans (OGE)
2 - Andre Greipel (LTS)
2 - Bryan Coquard (DRE)
2 - Peter Kennaugh (SKY)
2 - Wout Poels (SKY)
2 - Fabian Cancellara (TSF)
1 - Fernando Gaviria (EQS)
1 - Peter Koning (DPC)
1 - Eduardo Sepulveda (FVC)
1 - Nicolas Tivani (ARG)
1 - Miguel Angel Lopez (AST)
1 - Jakub Mareczko (ITA)
1 - Jay McCarthy (TNK)
1 - Richie Porte (BMC)
1 - Gianluca Brambilla (EQS)
1 - Dries Devenyns (IAM)
1 - Elia Viviani (SKY)
1 - JJ Lobato (MOV)
1 - William Clarke (DPC)
1 - John Murphy (UHC)
1 - Chris Froome (SKY)
1 - Sylvain Chavanel (DRE)
1 - Angel Madrazo (CRS)
1 - Jerome Coppel (IAM)
1 - Dan Martin (EQS)
1 - Dylan Groenewegen (TLJ)
1 - Stijn Vandenbergh (EQS)
1 - Mark Cavendish (DDD)
1 - Leigh Howard (IAM)
1 - Andrei Grivko (AST)
1 - Jan Bakelants (ALM)
1 - Philippe Gilbert (BMC)
1 - Bob Jungels (EQS)
1 - Daniele Bennati (TNK)
1 - Nacer Bouhanni (COF)
1 - Luis Leon Sanchez (AST)
1 - Vincenzo Nibali (AST)
1 - Oscar Gatto (TNK)

1 - Tejay Van Garderen (BMC)

1 - Tom-Jelte Slagter (CAN)

1 - Alejandro Valverde (MOV)

1 - Alberto Contador (TNK)

1 - Arthur Vichot (FDJ)

Wold Tour team race wins:
10 - Etixx Quickstep (inc. 1 TTT)
6 - Sky
5 - Orica GreenEdge
5 - Katusha
4 - Astana

4 - Team Dimension Data

4 - Tinkoff
3 - Direct Energy
3 - IAM Cycling

3 - BMC
2 - Lotto Soudal
2 - Trek-Segafredo

2 - Movistar
2 - FDJ (inc. 1 TTT)
1 - LottoNL-Jumbo
1 - AG2R La Mondiale
1 - Cannondale
0 - Lampre-Merida
0 - Giant-Alpecin