The Hardmen Rule

Milan-San Remo Recap

The longest of the Classics celebrated its 100th Anniversary with an exciting and satisfying finish. Oscar Freire, Rabobank's Spanish one day rider once again showed that he is one of the smartest and most competetive riders in the world. I have sung his praises in the past because, when healthy, he is consistently one of the strongest riders there is today. He is not necessarily as fast as the absolute fastest sprinters and does not necessarily have the strongest team support. He consistently keeps himself at the front, picks the right wheels to follow in important races.

Freire has won three world titles, two Milan-San Remo titles, consistently wins Grand Tour stages and sprint stages in minor tours. But for back problems that have plagued him most of his career, Freire probably could have had significantly greater successes. Clearly he is the best Spanish classic rider of the current generation. While Feire rode an excellent race and beat an excellent field, the day was most impressive by some of the shows of strength by the peleton.

With Boonen, Petacchi, Zabel, McEwen and O'Grady all finishing in the top 10, it was a strong field and a strong sprint. However, Milram and Petacchi need to be concerned with his recovery from last year's freak accident during the Giro d'Italia where Petacchi broke his kneecap. Even "Ale-Jet" conceded after the race that he does not have the speed he used to have. Milram set everything up perfectly for their leader and he could only muster a top 10 finish.

World Champion Paolo Bettini got caught behind a crash on the Cipressa, the second to last climb, some 30km before the finish. Bettini is racing with broken ribs and has had a couple of rough weeks. Yet, he raced back to the leaders and animated things on the Poggio for his teammate Boonen.

Discovery Channel's Yaroslava Popovych attacked on the Cipressa, then attacked again when caught on the Poggio. It was the type of move that really showed how strong Popovych is this year. I think the jury is still out on whether Popovych can be a GC contender in the Grand Tours, however, he has shown himself to be a much more opportunistic rider this year than in years past.

Saunier Duval's Ricardo Ricco, is really young but has had a good week coming off of a good showing at Tirreno-Adriatico. He had told the press he would attack on the Poggio and after Popovych was caught attacked and nearly got away to the finish with Francaise de Jeux's Philippe Gilbert. They unfortunately were caught before the finish but made the peleton race hard to bring them back.

Nasty Crashes

Gerolsteiner suffered two nasty crashes in the race that put two of their riders in the hospital. The first, David Kopp, went down hard and suffered facial injuries. TV did not capture the crash, but any time you see a rider lying on the ground and his bike is nowhere to be seen you know it was a bad accident. The second, Andrea Moletta, suffered a broken leg. Moletta had been in the attack with Popovych initially, however, coming around a curve, he could not hold his line and ploughed directly into the concrete utility pole seen at the right of the linked photo. He took the utility pole head on ending up stradling it and being whipped around. Maybe if Gerolsteiner had more manly kits, the asphalt gods would not be so hostile to them.

Better Coverage?

Today's two hour broadcast on Versus gives me some hope for the future of cycling broadcasting in the United States. Phil Ligget and Bob Roll did the race commentary as you would expect. However, Versus ran a profile and interview of Paolo Bettini and also had an interview with Charlie Wegilius of Liquigas on what it is like riding for Filippo Pozzato. Next week is Criterium International which should have more Americans racing in it but if today's coverage is any indication, Versus may have realized that banking all of your cycling coverage on one or two Americans may not be the best way to build a long term audience.