Moi, I am very excited, needless to say.

And of course jurnos have to make the headline something like "Contador is going to face off you know who in CI", bah.

anyways, CN story here.

like everybody around here, I like Jens!, but who else cares about CI....I certainly don't. LBL and Fleche Wallonne on the other hand....

of course, Bert has zero finishing speed (would be interesting to see him and Basso in a sprint though),  methinks he might do well, but not win.

note to self: do NOT jinx your vds team.

As you probably know, I love tennis. Lucky,  Melbourne Park (the venue for Aust Open) is a casual 20 minute walk from my place -- and people asked why I moved to Melbourne instead of City A, B or C.... can you believe it?!

Naturally, I go to the tennis every year. First 2 days are great value for money, you go buy a ground pass for $29, and watch as many games as you can, until you are sick of tennis (that of course never happens:)

Thought I put this thread up that people like me....err....we can talk about it over the next two weeks.

Predictions are always difficult, mainly because it's soooo early in the season and everyone's form is more or less unknown. Sure you can have a look at Brisbane, Sydney or Kooyong's results, but those really don't mean a lot. Tennis players like sandbagging as much as cyclists.

So, who's you pick for the men's final?

Finally, something is happening in Victoria...

Official site here.

This is a 6 stage race going from Ballarat, Colac, Warrnambool, Barwon Heads, Geelong to Melbourne. Finishing on Melbourne's little Italia  Lygon St. The Geelong stage is a 10K TT, which will be used in next years' Worlds, the Worlds one of course will be much longer.

Today is what they called a preface in Ballarat, which I think it's a crit.

OneHD will have a 30 min highlight show every night at around 8:30pm, with Saturday's Lygon St stage live starting 5pm. I expect Matt Keenan and someone else doing the commentary (hopefully not Phil).

15 teams of 7 riders will be in it, most high profile surely is Bradley Wiggins, not sure about his form tho...Garmin is also sending Trent Lowe, Chris Sutton, Svein Tuft....Too bad all the other big name Aussie riders will not be here.

Other foreign teams include Rapha Condor(Albertina, tell us more about them please), Rock Racing, Jelly Belly, Bissell, Aisan(Japan) and Le Tua(Malaysia).

I don't think we need a separate thread for each stage, maybe just keep updating the results here.

Final GC:

1      Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Garmin-Slipstream      15:51:27       
2     Chris Sutton (Aus) Garmin-Slipstream     0:00:11      
3     Jonathan Cantwell (Aus) Fly V Australia     0:00:20      
4     Svein Tuft (Can) Garmin-Slipstream     0:00:48      
5     Bernard Van Ulden (USA) Jelly Belly     0:01:43      
6     Matthew Wilson (Aus) Jayco Australia National     0:02:05      
7     Ben Jacques-Maynes (USA) Bissell Pro Cycling     0:02:08      
8     Aaron Kemps (Aus) Rock Racing     0:02:12      
9     Philip Zajicek (Aus) Fly V Australia            
10     David Tanner (Aus) Rock Racing     0:02:23

For those of you who's interested:

Starting 15 Nov 2009 Foxtel Sports package will have Eurosport (Asia - Pacific).

Link here.

Note they include Giro and Vuelta in the preview video.  Moi, I am very excited. I've been waiting for this since first saw the rumor on whirlpool.

Err, of course, you have to have their basic package first and then sports. So it's $58 monthly costs at least, add IQ to that, another 10 bucks. I strongly recommend the IQ though, very handy. If only I can upgrade to IQ2 without paying that $200 upgrade fee.....

The rumor has been floating around for a few weeks. Guardian is now reporting the deal's done. Link here. I haven't seen it anywhere else, but Guardian generally is pretty reliable.

According to them, Sky paid 2 million pounds for Wiggo. Obviously we know how JV is going to spend the money - if it's not already done.

To me it seems rather expensive, and as some have raised the issue before, they are in fact paying the Bert price  while getting Wiggo instead. I like Wiggo as a rider, but don't think he's worth that much money, of course he's English and that, but still....

Also, from all the riders announced so far, is that a good enough GT support team for him? Discuss. On the other hand Garmin is looking very good.

Oh, just found this, according to our friends in England this is a total crap paper, I can see why(even if we forget about that cycling hating cook): Garmin Chipotle...

I wonder if he'll still be coming to Victoria for the Herald Sun Tour.

Jose Luis De Santos announced his team yesterday.

Samu Sanchez

Oscar Freire

Alejandro Valverde

Juan Manuel Garate

Joaquin Rodriguez

Daniel Moreno

Juan Jose Cobo

Calos Barredo

Ruben Plaza

The leader(s) will be.....AV and SamSan? People are saying Mendrisio is harder than Varese, does that favour Spain? Maybe. But Puppy looks very good at this moment and he's more concentrated, Italy has a crazy strong team to support him as well (I'm hoping for Garzelli to do something).

If both AV and SamSan finish on the podium in Madrid, not sure whether they can hold the form for another week. Same goes for J Rod who has been working hard for AV. I don't think this year is for Oscaritto....

As for TT, it will be Jose Ivan Gutierrez and Hector Guerra Garcia. Gutierrez of course is a former Spanish TT champ, waiting for Helsy to tell us something about HGG, all I know is he rides for Liberty Seguros.

The current Spanish TT champ however, will not be in Mendrisio as we all know. Moi, very disappointed. Not a bad course for him you see, there's a 650m long climb in it....

ooops, update:

Guerra tested positive for EPO, Cobo will race the TT as well as the RR.

Preliminary Squadra Azzurri for Mendrisio (road) consists of:

• Happy Puppy
• Ivan Basso
• Alessandro Ballan
• Pippo Pozzato
• Stefano Garzelli
• Michele Scarponi
• Giovanni Visconti
• Marzio Bruseghin
• Matteo Tosatto
• Luca Paolini
• Mauro Santambrogio

Final nine will come from this eleven. Now, happy puppy looks really good in the Vuelta, won two GT stages since....err...2004 Giro. He can win this thing, at least I hope so. Then I don't have to pick him for next year's vds!

Obviously he doesn't like Swiss cheese!

On a more serious note, I was hoping he would at least race the TT....so his season ends with the tour. Crits don't count of course.

Story here.

According to google translate, he said " since I haven't race after the tour, we (him and  José Luis de Santos) decided it's best to give my place to someone else, riders who are racing in the Vuelta will have better form going to Mendrisio."

So, who is going to Mendrisio for Spain? With Valverde and SamSan going all out in the Vuelta...Can Lulu do the TT? Helsy....need your input here.....

Just saw this new article on marca, saying that he can't move to a new team...aaaggghhh!

link here.

looks like he's prepared to see out his current contract with Astana and then move to Alonso's new team in 2011. At least that's what google translate is telling me:

he is resigned to remain connected to his current team....Assemble a team with Alonso is something to be done well in advance....

We didn't have a  live thread yesterday. But today is the all important ITT. Ok tomorrow's stage is also quite desicive in terms of the GC...

Start and finish in Roa, 15K. It looks rather flat I may add.

The stage starts about 16:30 local time, check here or here for live streaming later. 

This is a Spanish live ticker.

Official website here. 

Stage result:

1. Tom Danielson (Garmin) 17:09
2. Danny Pate (Garmin) a 10
3. Alexei Markov (Katusha) a 16
4. Alejandro Valverde (Caisse) a 18
5. Lieuwe Westra (Vancansoleil) a 22
6. Luis Pasamontes (Caisse) a 23
7. Xavier Tondo (Andalucía) a 24
8. Simon Gerrans (Cervelo) a 29
9. Gustavo C. Veloso (Xacobeo) a 32
10. Stefano Garzelli (Acqua) a 33

GC after Stage 4

1. Tom Danielson (Garmin) 
2. Danny Pate (Garmin) a 4
3. Alejandro Valverde (Caisse) a 5
4. Xavier Tondo (Andalucía) a 18
5. Stefano Garzelli (Acqua) a 26

Stage 2 goes from Villasana de Mena to Miranda de Ebro, 153 km. Several cat 3 climbs to keep things interesting...it is in Spain you know...I think I know why majope is not interested...

Official website here.

We should have some live streaming later. I watched a ETB one thanks to our friend justin yesterday. Check MyP2P.

Yes, I know following three races at the same time is crazy. But Burgos has a very nice field IMO...

As if Astana don't have enough troubles now.

Basically they are saying Vino's return on 24 July is the end of JB & LA in Astana. Kazakh President Nazarbayev is stepping in, will get rid of the sponsors who hadn't paid (and find some new ones presumably).

They are going to make a new offer to Bert, guarantee his sole leadership blah blah blah...according to L'Equipe, this will happen in Sep.

hmmm, may the bidding wars begin...

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