The Cycliste Moderne, May 2, 2005

Ekimov Injury

By now you may have heard that Discovery Channel’s Viatcheslav Ekimov was injured in a training accident in Texas last Thursday. Ekimov hit a pot-hole while out training with Lance Armstrong and crashed, breaking his sternum. It is not clear how long Ekimov will be out of action as press reports have conflicted as to the severity of his injury.

It is, however, likely that Ekimov will not start at this year’s Tour de France. If he does not start, it will be a major blow to Armstrong’s campaign to win a seventh Tour. Ekimov has completed 14 Tours and is just two shy of tying the record held by Joop Zoetemelk of the Netherlands.

Ekimov has had a distinguished career on the track and on the road. A gold medalist in the team pursuit at the 1988 Olympics, he has medaled in the time trial at both the 2000 and 2004 Olympics. Although he has retired once, Ekimov is a strong rider who provides leadership. He remains a threat in one-day races and time trials. He was a strong GC rider earlier in his career as evidenced by his battles with Armstrong at the Tour du Pont in the early 1990’s.

It would be unfortunate if this is how his career ends; a broken sternum could prevent him from training for a couple of months. Discovery will miss him if he is unable to come back from this injury.

Romandie Recap

The Tour of Romandie concluded Sunday with Phonak’s Santiago Botero, the Columbian time trial ace, winning the final stage and taking the GC. Botero has had a rough few years after his strong performances for Kelme at the Tour de France. His time at Telekom was largely a waste. He gave Phonak the win that they desired at Romandie.

The rest of the GC evidences the fact that the favorites for the Giro d’Italia are going to arrive at the start in excellent form. Damiano Cunego of Lampre-Caffita showed strength on the climbs and had a good performance in the final time trial, although he could not be expected to have been competitive with Botero.

Stefano Garzelli had a good time trial but faltered in the mountains of Switzerland. He may need the first ten days of the Giro to ride himself into better shape. Fortunately, the big climbs of this year’s Giro, and they are truly big climbs, do not come until the second half of the race.

My surprise at Romandie was Denis Menchov, Rabobank’s Russian GC rider. He had a strong Romandie finishing on the podium in third. He could finish in the top ten for Rabobank at the Giro, however, it is much more likely that Rabobank will hunt for stage wins in Italy.

Spain Won’t Get it Either

Well, I was quite frustrated by the fact that OLN has elected not to show live coverage of the Giro d’Italia for the first time in several years. The Giro is a fun race to watch due to the passion of the Italian fans. It is spring time so the country is green, unlike the Vuelta a Espana in September when much of Spain is dirty, dusty and dead.

However, in a move which clearly supports my belief that there will not be a single Spanish rider in the top 20 at the Giro, it was announced this week that there will be no live coverage of the Giro in Spain. It is amazing that a country that is as cycling mad as Spain will be in the same predicament as us in the United States, although OLN will at least provide weekend coverage of the Giro.

You would think that in the era of 500 channels, there would be at least one that would provide you cycling 24/7. If you are really desperate, however, and have satellite, you can get RAI, the Italian national broadcaster, which provides the same feed that OLN has used in the past. The coverage is in Italian and you do not have Bob Roll talking about the “ciclomina” jersey or explaining the “InterGiro.” You can’t have everything.