The Festival of Bikes
Mohd Harrif Salleh snatched his 2nd win of the season after securing a win in 132.6 kilometer Stage – 3 of Tour of Borneo from Penampang on Tuesday. The stage – 3 was made for sprinters, with a Category Four climb at halfway mark as well as the Terengganu Cycling rider traversed the line in 3:20:39 in a bunch sprint.
Sir Bradley Wiggins could not be able to defend his title as a Tour de France champion this year after being ruled out of his team for a knee injury. His knee injuries and along with chest infections that occurred in Giro D’italia led him to back out of the race last may. In doing so, he won’t be able to join the sky team for the next tour de France, letting his co-member Chris Froome to lead the new team. 27 years-old and Keya-born Froome finished as a runner up last year to Wiggins in the tour de France.
The one hundredth Tour de France begins in Corsica on June 29. This year there are 21 stages before the race comes to an end on the evening of July 21 in Paris.
Sven Nys, the current world cyclo-cross champion is of the opinion that only a handful of cross racers have the capability of enjoying very successful road careers and the young Zdenek Stybar is definitely one of them.
For best of athletes, the upcoming Olympic in Rio seems to have begun with UCI Track Cycling Championship at Minsk, Belarus. The Minsk Track World Championship is scheduled from 20th- 24th February, 2013. In absence of star riders in the Velodrome, national federations seem to be on the hope of discovering new talents in course of the competition from this Wednesday to Sunday.
British cycling head coach Shane Sutton believes that the new British cyclists can go gold at the Rio Olympics 2016. In the London Olympics too, the British team won 5 gold medals to secure their position as the top country to produce cyclists.
The upcoming team would consist of six World Championship debutants, two of whom, Simon Yates and Elinor Barker, won the rainbow jerseys as mentioned by Shane. He has issued a warning for other teams across the world about the greatness of this team and the surprise it would bring.
Though the cycling season has ended but Alberto Contador is still busy doing his works. Guess what? Contador will soon be seen in a television serial called “Fenomenos” where he is working as an actor. The serial is basically a Spanish Comedy and it is telecast on Antena 3. Contador finished the shhoting of his part and he is now eagerly waiting for the show to be telecast.
Bradley Wiggins, the reigning Tour de France champion, expressed his utter shock and dismay at the amount of evidence that has been leveled against the former seven time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong in the report published by the US Anti Doping Agency while admitting that he could have been dragged into the doping cycle as well, owing to peer pressure had he developed in any other cycling system other than the British.
Tyler Hamilton was among those 11 former teammates who gave their testimonies to USADA against him. But recently Hamilton was noticed saying that he felt sorry for this unfortunate end of Armstrong’s career. The United States Anti-Doping Agency recently banned Armstrong and stripped him of his seven Tour de France titles.
Thomas Voeckler is a French road racing cyclist who rides for Team Europcar. Being professional since 2001, he is extremely popular among his fans.
He is a petite and pale complexioned 33 year old sportsman, who looks much younger than his age and has a typical habit of sticking his tongue out while racing. His significant victory came in 2003 where he performed well in Tour de Luxembourg. In 2004, after seizing the French championship, the much underestimated Voeckler rose to international prominence and entered the 2004 Tour de France.