The Cycliste Moderne, March 13, 2006

Paris-Nice Victory for Landis

American Floyd Landis became just the second American winner of the first ProTour race of the year by winning Paris-Nice on Sunday. Having shown strong form in winning the Tour of California, Landis was certainly among the favorites heading into the “Race to the Sun.” However, Landis won the Tour of California by destroying the field in the individual time trial. Landis won Paris-Nice by destroying the field during the first significant mountain stage, accompanied by little known Spaniard Patxi Vila, who one the stage.

Amazingly, Landis’ team managed to keep him out of trouble, even if it looked week at times and did not face any real attack from Vila who appeared to be happy racing for second place overall. American Chris Horner was also impressive with his tenth place finish for Lotto-Davitamon but he certainly benefited from the early season start in California as well. Discovery Channel teammates Jose Azevedo and Chechu Rubiera finished sixth and ninth respectively showing early season stage racing form.

American Bobby Julich, last year’s winner of Paris-Nice, won the opening prologue for this year’s race and wore the leader’s jersey for one day. However, Julich did not start on Sunday.

Milan-San Remo Preview

Next Sunday is Milan-San Remo the first of the classic single day races of the season. Based upon early form it is clear that current world champion Tom Boonen of Quick.Step has to be considered a favorite. With three stage wins at Paris-Nice, Boonen already has ten wins this season. His chances may have suffered a blow, however, with the injury to his teammate Paolo Bettini, during this week’s Tirreno-Adriatico while leading the race. Bettini had won two stages before crashing hard and ending up being transported to the hospital. Certainly the teammates would have been formidable requiring all the other teams to mark them as they hit the final climbs of the race before the finish in San Remo. Boonen is strong enough currently that he can win with power and does not necessarily have to ride a strategic race.

Another rider to watch is former world champion Oscar Friere who is also showing good form at Tirreno-Adriatico. Friere has been limited by back problems over the past few years. He is currently leading Tirreno-Adriatico and has shown he is still the equal to some of the fastest men in the peleton. The only legitimate sprinter/hard man Spain has produced in some time, it would not be surprising for Friere to duplicate his victory in 2004.

The final rider to watch, last year’s champion Alessandro Petacchi, has also shown excellent form this spring. Petacchi already has a handful of victories this year but the integration of Petacchi and German supersprinter Erik Zabel at Team Milram has shown some difficulties as Petacchi was beaten on Saturday at Tirreno when his lead out train did not show the precision that Petacchi is clearly used to and Thor Hushovd of Credit Agricole got around Ale-jet at the finish.