I hasten to add that the above wasn't said by me, but by Rob Hayles (at least I think it was him) on Eurosport before. It made me so mad that if I could I would have reached through the screen and thumped him one!!

And it started so well as I totally agree that the Madison and Individual Pursuits shouldn't have been dropped from the Olympics - especially as they've been replaced by something which treats us all like we have the attention span of a goldfish! But then he went on to say that instead they should have got rid of the road race as that would get rid of 100 or so riders - ignoring the fact it's about the number of events not the number of participants.

Why most the road boys and girls should (in his view) be denied ANY event at the Olympics and the track not lose any he didn't explain and the idiot main presenter didn't even ask him to explain such a controversial view

Mens Elite - Time Trial
Rubens Bertogliati, 1979, Lugano, VC Lugano
Fabian Cancellara, 1981, Ittigen, CI Ostermundigen

Substitutes:
Mathias Frank, 1986, Roggliswil, VC Pfaffnau-Rogggliswil
Thomas Frei, 1985, Olten, VC Pfaffnau-Roggliswil

Mens Elite - Road Race
Michael Albasini, 1980, Gais, VC Mendrisio
Rubens Bertogliati, 1979, Lugano, VC Lugano
Fabian Cancellara, 1981, Ittigen, CI Ostermundigen
Mathias Frank, 1986, Roggliswil, VC Pfaffnau-Rogggliswil
Gregory Rast, 1980, Cham, RMV Cham Hagendorn
Oliver Zaugg, 1981, Arcegno, RV Wetzikon

Substitutes:
David Loosli, 1980, Bern, RRC Bern
Florian Stalder, 1982, Zweisimmen, CI Ostermundigen
Steve Morabito, 1983, Monthey, VC Mendrisio

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Uncle Bjarne has finally decided that this little bunch will be Sexy Bank's line-up at the Vuelta (Van Goolen misses out):

Jakob Fuglsang

Andy Schleck

Frank Schleck

Fabian Cancellara

Matti Breschel

Kurt-Asle Arvesen

Karsten Kroon

Alexandr Kolobnev

Stuart O'Grady

Thoughts?? A shot at the overall for Fuglsang will probably depend partly on whether he can regain the form he showed at the Dauphine as well as at what point various of his teammates drop out for Worlds, but other than that they're obviously on the hunt for stage wins here and there. Also nice to see Arvesen back in what will probably be his last GT outing for the team (damn you for probably leaving Kurt!!)

Whilst they only qualify to have 3 riders in the road race at the World Championships in Mendrisio based on the rankings, being the hosts means the Swiss can have an extra 3 riders apparently and so their long list of possible entrants has been drawn up. Not that many surprises in terms of the long list, though there was one rider I was surprised not to see on there... They've also named the provisional two for the ITT plus some reserve names

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As this is about Jens! I figured it deserved a post all of it's own :)

Anyway, apparently  the big guy is hoping to be released from hospital tomorrow once they've done one final head scan (he had a minor blood clot it seems, not unexpected considering). He still doesn't remember a thing about the accident. One minute he was thinking about how he could do more work for Andy & Frank, next thing he was on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance (reminds me of skier Dani Albrecht - he has no problem watching video of his horror smash from January this year because he has that same blank about his accident, for him it's like it's someone else he's watching)

But the best news is that the crash has made Jens! determined to come back for one more Tour (he'd spoken on the first rest day about this possibly being his last one)

And in typical Jens! fashion (and something that made me smile) apparently he's already spoken to Riis about when he can get back on the bike - he mentioned the Denmark Tour but seen as this starts in a week or so, Riis' response was that that might be a bit too soon :) Good luck with trying to calm him down there Bjarne!

Riis has also said Jens! would be in his 2010 Tour line-up and that he's also already spoken to him about what he could do with the team once he climbs off the bike (imagines Jens! as very scary (in a nice way) DS in the car) - something of a hands off to Team Sky, amidst rumours that they had approached the german re some kind of contract

News is just breaking at the moment (so not too many details available) that some idiot shot an air or BB gun at the riders at the top of one of the climbs on today's stage. Oscar Freire and Julian Dean got caught by a pellet each it seems. Neither seriously hurt - Dean has a minor finger injury and Freire has had a pellet removed.

Police investigation has been opened but ASO making no further comment till tomorrow.

Story at Reuters here

In case anyone was wondering what happened to this story... Reports coming out of Germany  (specifically in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) say that the results of the B samples of the 5 athletes from Beijing who tested positive after samples were retested (inc Stefan Schumacher and road race silver medallist Davide Rebellin) have also all come back positive. Lawyers for the 5 have apparently met to plan their strategies re appeals to CAS. Schumacher's lawyer seemingly trying the whole 'procedural error' line as apparently that can be the only reason all 5 A & B tests were positive (not because the people involved actually, you know, cheated!)

No official comment from anywhere from what I've been able to find so far, but news article here :

The search for a second sponsor for Team Saxo Bank is at an end, with today's news that Playitas have signed up as co-sponsors.

Playitas - a Spanish holiday resort operated by travel services company Apollo have signed up to the end of 2010. As part of the deal the team will now run training camps and team building courses on Fuerteventura (which will be warmer than Denmark and the like in the winter so that should make the riders happy - though I wonder if this really rules out having the team building at other places too).

The new name will appear on jerseys from this weekend's Danish championships (too late to alter the other jerseys I guess) and so will also appear at the Tour (possibly it'll mean the jersey's look like last years)

More details and comments from Riis and the CEO of Apollo to be found here

They'll still be Sexy Bank to me :)

Following on the heels of last week's Swiss Sportsperson of the Year ceremony, which saw a dazzlingly dressed Fabian Cancellara beat two-time winner Roger Federer to the title, tonight we had the Sports Personality of the Year Award (or SPOTY as it's known) here in the UK and what a night it was for cycling!!

The GB Olympic Cycling team got the Team of the Year award, their main coach David Brailsford won the Coach of the Year award and they also won the big award with the Sports Personality of the Year Award going to Chris Hoy (and 3 other cyclists made the final 10 list which was brilliant)

...and after all the will he go Spanish, or will he stay Dansh, the man (and/or his girlfriend) has finally decided to stay put, signing a new three year contract extension at Saxo-Bank - IT Factory.

http://www.teamcsc-saxobank.com/ny_news.asp?n_id=2192

Given Larsson's seeming propensity for changing teams regularly, I'd have to say I'm a little surprised at the length of the contract, but it's a good sign.

So.....with an eye to the TTT in the Tour, will Riis take both Cancellara AND Larsson to France next year...guess we'll find out next summer. And that should see me reach the word limit too

So...last week (or the week before, I forget when it was exactly) when it was revealed that Scott Sunderland wasn't going to be at Cervelo after all, but would instead be working for some unnamed team that was looking to be set up for the 2010 road season, I put forward the suggestion that maybe it was the proposed GB road team - and according to Feltet.dk that's exactly who he's off to - so that's another Aussie helping GB cycling if the rumours are true.

His job for next year will be scouting for riders. Will be interesting to see just what the Brits/non-Brits mix ends up being...

Whilst some people (I wasn't one of them) thought that today's announcement from Saxo-Bank and Riis Cycling would be that the bank were pulling their sponsorship, this has not turned out to be the case.

Instead, a co-sponsor has been revealed - Danish company IT Factory. The deal is for three years and the team will be known as Team Saxo Bank - IT Factory. When offered the chance to become a sponsor IT Factory wanted to do so only if they could be a main sponsor, Saxo Bank agreed to share and the new arrangement was born.

Danish companies now main sponsors for Riis (opens in new window)

Wonder what the new strip will look like? I like this season's a lot and hope it doesn't change too much...

Yet more horrendous weather meant a 2 hour delay to the start of Stage 6 of the Tour de Pologne whilst the entire race travelled to a new start  due to the stage being shortened from 201km to 118. This change also meant that the mountain's would only be climbed the once (rather than twice).

There was the usual breakaway that had a lead of around 2 and a half minutes at one point (and special mention here to Sapa on the Polish national team who has been in the break every day I think - great rides by him), but late on Jens! (well who else!) attacked from the front of the peleton and caught each of the seven escapees in turn to come through and score a brilliant stage win!!

The German diesel engine (as the CSC website calls him) now leads the race overall by 1min24 with just the one stage left to go

Bet that has put a smile back on the faces of the CSC-Saxo Bank boys after 5 days of riding in miserable conditions

Go Jens!

Today was the day the peleton in the Tour de Pologne finally snapped and after 3 days of having to ride in awful conditions on street circuits that carry a large amount of danger, the riders used the only power they have available to them and basically went on strike at the end of the stage.

After an agreement between the riders and organisers to stop at the end of the first circuit was gone back on by the organisers (allegedly) the riders took things into their own hands and stopped at the end of the second circuit (a circuit early) and this was after they went round those two in formation with them all across the road and pretty much one rider from each team at the front - no GC could be decided on and the stage was declared null and void.

According to reports the chief instigators were Allan Davis (Quickstep) as yellow jersey and also Fabian Cancellara (he may be Swiss but he sure ain't neutral)

Whilst it's all sad for the fans who turned up and got wet waiting I have to say my sympathy is with the riders on this one. It's not the riding in the wet and cold that bothers them so much (though that can't be fun day after day) but the conditions have been pretty hairy at times and there's already been some nasty crashes in this race (poor Milram seem to have suffered most of them) and at the end of today they all looked more like mountain bikers than road racers what with all the dirty faces and weather gear bulking them up.

There is also an interview with Fabian which has some interesting things in it (translated from the Polish so the exact details are probably off a bit): ED--on the flip...

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Full statement not up yet, but a brief announcement has been posted on the CSC-Saxo Bank team site that Sastre is off to the Cervelo test team

http://www.riis-cycling.com/ny_news.asp?n_id=2083

And here's the statement from Sastre's own website:

http://www.carlossastre.com/Noticias_En.html

Looks like he's after a new challenge - which is fair enough, especially at this stage in his career. I figure he's smart enough to know that this was his year to get the victory he wanted and he took that chance - but with the likes of Contador, Andy Schleck and other young riders coming along so quickly he likely wouldn't get the chance again at this point in his career.

I'm sad to see him go (first the bikes, now the team leader) but I wish him luck and hope he enjoys his new venture, even if I'm still slightly in the dark about wha the aims of the new Cervelo team actually are!

Will he be riding the Tour next year - guess we'll have to wait and see... There would be a part of me that would not be happy to see another team wearing the 2-9 numbers when they weren't the ones who rode their asses off getting the win, but I guess that's racing (obviously got no problem with Sastre wearing 1)!

Now I realise this isn't a confirmed final line-up yet (remember they changed the Deutschland tour line up late on) but from the looks of it CSC- Saxo Bank are certainly taking the Tour of Poland mighty seriously when you look at their provisional line-up:

Kurt-Asle Arvesen / Lars Bak / Fabian Cancellara / Gustav Larsson / Magnus Ljungqvist / Andy Schleck / Frank Schleck / Jens! Voigt

Sports director: Kim Andersen

As long as no-one mentions the Olympics (especially the road race) it should be fun :) (I jest)

CyclingNews is reporting that among the 153 people tragically killed in Wednesday's plane crash in Madrid was Jose Joaquin Perez de Obanos - one of the great patrons of Spanish cycling.

As well as being president of the National Federation of Agriculture, Perez was a big fan of cycling and had helped in organising the Vuelta as well as helping to bring a stage finish of the 1996 Tour de France to near friend Miguel Indurain's home in Pamplona.

Perez was a close friend of Caisse d'Epargne manager Jose Miguel Echavarri since their days in the military together and had visisted the team at this year's Tour at both Pau and Paris.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2008/aug08/aug23news

Sorry, I'm just so fed up of the hypocrisy that comes from WADA that I just had to have a rant and get this off my chest...

What's got me angry is the latest suggestion from WADA that it may ask for cycling (and weightlifting) to be excluded from the Olympics because of the history of positive drug tests in the sports.

Such a stance is fine, if you're going to apply it equally to all sports (and here's what makes me mad) because I notice there's no suggestion that athletics be excluded from the games too is there?? This is despite the number of Russians who were excluded just before the games and the high number of athletes (especially the sprinters) from recent major championships who have all tested positive in the subsequent years...

I'm not denying there's still a problem re drugs, but cycling is far from being the only sport with such a problem and is in fact the one doing the most to combat it - which I guess makes it an easy target (kind of the same way in which some people seem to take pleasure in trying to kick those cycling pro-teams who run strong anti-doping programs)