Rick Scott's Weekly Rap: Wrapping the Classics
27 April 2009By Rick Scott
Let’s wrap up the Spring Classics and look forward to the season’s first Grand Tour. Also, let’s salute cycling as the sport puts its best cleated foot forward to help others.
The Beat
The week of Ardennes Classics caters to the one-day specialists who climb and gives us a progress check on the form of the Grand Tour contenders as they prepare for the upcoming Giro d’Italia and Tour de France. Russian veteran Serguei Ivanov notched the biggest win for the new outfit, Team Katusha, at the Amstel Gold Race when he dusted Saxo Bank’s Karsten Kroon in the uphill sprint. Two-time Amgen Tour of California Best Young Rider winner Robert Gesink (Rabobank) finished 3rd, but complained of a knee injury later and had to miss the week’s second event, the mid-week Fleche-Wallonne. Also missing Fleche-Wallonne was Amgen Tour of California stage winner Frank Schleck, who has a nasty and scary crash that looked life-threatening. Thankfully Schleck suffered only a concussion and minor injuries and was back to race the week’s final event.
Cagey 37-year-old Davide Rebellin (Serramenti Diquigiovanni) won Fleche-Wallonne for the third time when he outfoxed and out-sprinted Frank’s 23-year-old brother, Andy Schleck (Saxo Bank), in an uphill duel that finished at the top of the famed Mur de Huy. In 2004, Rebellin became the only rider ever to win all three Ardennes Classics in the same week.
The final Spring Classic is the oldest: Liege-Bastogne-Liege. The leg-pummeling route is 261 kms with eleven climbs, including an uphill finish. Andy Schleck made it look easy when he rode away from an elite lead group on a climb and soloed the final 20 kms to become only the second Luxembourgian ever to win the event that was first held in 1892.
Giro del Trentino is Italy’s final stage race prior to the start of the season’s first Grand Tour, the Giro d’Italia, hence the General Classification riders wanted to test their fitness. Astana went 1-2 at the opening time trial, thanks to Andreas Kloden and Jani Brajkovic. Brajkovic donned the leader’s tunic after Stage 2, which he held until the final day. Liquigas and LPR Brakes worked en tandem to crack the young Slovakian on the final climb. Mission accomplished as the stage win went to LPR’s Danilo DiLuca and Liquigas’ Ivan Basso smiled the brightest from the top step of the overall podium. Both men are former winners of the Giro d’Italia are amongst the favorites for the centennial edition, which commences May 9th.
At Monterey, California’s two-wheeled Woodstock, the Sea Otter Classic, three-time Amgen Tour of California winner Levi Leipheimer (Astana) showed up sans teammates yet still won the road race ahead of a trio from Bissell Pro Cycling Team that dominated the race. But revenge was enacted the following day with Bissell’s Ben Jacques-Maynes winning the twisty circuit race from an escape that sentenced Leipheimer to 5th place a few minutes down. In the hour-long opening day criterium, Bissell swept the top 4 places with Morgan Schmitt celebrating top honors.
The Big Men on Campus wearing the black & white BMC kits swept the two-day Tour of the Battenkill in New York, thanks to wins by Chad Beyer and Scott Nydam at the challenging races sometimes described as America’s one-day Classics. The California-based squad will next prey upon the peloton during the Tour of the Gila in New Mexico.
It’s crit season in the U.S. and there are plenty of races on short, fast circuits on both coasts. Out West, Rock Racing’s Rahsaan Bahati, the reigning U.S. National Criterium Champion, dropped mad skillz on pedalers including Team OUCH’s Floyd Landis and Rory Sutherland to win the Dana Point Grand Prix. Kiwi Heath Blackgrove (Hotel San Jose) won the prestigious Athens Twilight Crit held under the lights in front of a boisterous throng of “well-lubricated” fans/partygoers. It was the first leg of the USA CRITS Speed Week Series.
The Flow
Amgen Tour of California stage winner Tom Boonen injured his foot in the massive pile-up at the end of the Belgian semi-classic Scheldeprijs Vlaanderen. Luckily for him, the ten days he’s spending off the bike healing coincides with the planned break marking the end of his Classics season before gearing up for the Tour de France…
Antiguedad, the tiny Spanish village where Lance Armstrong broke his collarbone last month during the Vuelta Ciclista a Castilla y Leon, erected a monument on the spot of the crash. They marked the location by cementing an old blue bike adorned with a plaque in tribute to the broken collarbone. Healed after surgery and training like a madman, Armstrong is confirmed to be starting next month’s Giro d’Italia…
LPR Brakes riders DiLuca and Alessandro Petacchi are raising money for fellow Italians impacted by the devastating 6.3 magnitude earthquake that recently rocked the Abruzzo region killing 293 people. DiLuca hails from Abruzzo and the two champions are auctioning items on eBay with the proceeds benefiting quake victims…
Sending a red, white & blue star-spangled salute to the 60 or so cyclists that recently completed the six-day Ride 2 Recovery Texas Challenge. The cyclists are “wounded warriors” – U.S. military veterans with war injuries – who have turned to cycling to boost their physical and mental rehabilitation. The mission of Ride 2 Recovery (http://road2recovery.us.com) is to assist wounded warriors improve their health and wellness by providing a life-changing experience that can impact their lives forever through bicycling. Their next journey will be the Memorial Challenge starting from our nation’s capital May 25th and finishing May 30th in Virginia Beach, Virginia…
# # #
Rick Scott is president of Great Scott P.R.oductions, an entertainment and sports public relations, marketing and management boutique. He can be contacted through www.greatscottpr.com. Follow him at www.twitter.com/greatscottpr.
