Bicycle Racing News and Opinion,
Wednesday, July 26, 2023
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2022 Tour de France | 2023 Giro d'Italia
I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. - Michael Jordan
Bill and Carol McGann's book The Story of the Giro d'Italia, A Year-by-Year History of the Tour of Italy, Vol 1: 1909 - 1970 is available in print, Kindle eBook & audiobook versions. To get your copy, just click on the Amazon link on the right.
Current racing:
- July 22 - 26: Tour de Wallonie
- July 26 - 27: Vuelta a Castilla y Leon
Upcoming racing:
- July 29: Clásica de San Sebastián
- July 29 - August 4: Tour of Poland
Latest completed racing:
- July 1 - 23: Tour de France
- July 2 - 6: Österreich Rundfahrt-Tour of Austria
- January - June 26: National Championships
- June 11 - 18: Tour de Suisse
- June 14 - 18: Baloise Belgium Tour
- June 15 - 18: Route d'Occitanie
- June 4 - 11: Critérium du Dauphiné
- June 7 - 11: ZLM Tour
- June 4: Brussels Cycling Classic
We posted the report from stage winner Filippo Ganna's Team INEOS Grenadiers with the results.
Here's the report from eighth-place Jannik Steimle's Team Soudal Quick-Step:
Jannik Steimle once again confirmed the progress he has made in races against the clock, taking a strong eighth place on the penultimate day of the Tour de Wallonie – a 32.7km individual time trial held around Mons, over an undulating parcours.
What made the 27-year-old German’s result more impressive was the fact he was among the early starters Tuesday afternoon, hours before the specialists of the discipline. An average speed of 49.67km/h helped Jannik score his fifth top 10 finish of the season, as Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) took a victory which put him in control of the overall standings.
Filippo Ganna riding to first place.
In the general classification, Coppi e Bartali champion Mauro Schmid is the team’s highest-ranked rider, just four seconds off the top ten, but with a real shot of moving up the standings on the final stage, which will await the peloton with numerous climbs, including a 1000m-long one averaging 6.8% just before the last kilometer.
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Reuters News Agency posted this news:
July 25 (Reuters) - Colombian rider Miguel Angel Lopez has been provisionally suspended for a potential anti-doping rule violation, the International Cycling Union (UCI) said on Tuesday.
Lopez, currently of Colombian Team Medellin-EPM, has been notified of a potential violation for use and possession of a prohibited substance in the weeks prior to the Giro d'Italia in 2022, the UCI said in a statement.
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Miguel Angel Lopez winning the 2016 Milano-Torino. Sirotti photo
The world governing body added it had decided to provisionally suspend the rider following a review of the information provided by the International Testing Agency (ITA) on June 26 and July 7, pending the final decision.
The material includes evidence obtained from Spanish law enforcement authorities and the Spanish Anti-Doping Organisation (CELAD) during an investigation into Marcos Maynar.
The Colombian's former team Astana-Qazaqstan ended his contract in December over new evidence linking him with Maynar, a professor who is under investigation for alleged drug trafficking and money laundering.
In a statement following his suspension in December, Lopez said he rejected "any allegation that could damage his name and honour as professional rider, and reminds that he has never tested positive for any drugs or doping."
Lopez, 29, has previously won stages on the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana and is a past winner of the Tour de Suisse and the Volta a Catalunya.
He recently won the Colombian National Time Trial Championships.
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The team sent me this schedule:
Tour d'Alsace: JUL 26 - 30
Bennie Lambregts - Team DSM coach:
"The Tour d'Alsace is a really nice but hard race where we have to show really good teamwork, to get the best possible out of it. The race kicks off with an opening TTT, where we want to have a good start to the week before we will look for our chances on every stage. With Frank van den Broek we will also have a new rider racing in the Team dsm-firmenich colours. We are looking forward to a hard race with a nice group and to work together on the overall development and teamwork."
Line-up
Joost Brinkman (NED)
Patrick Eddy (AUS)
Moritz Kärsten (GER)
Enzo Leijnse (NED)
Frank van den Broek (NED)
Vlad Van Mechelen (BEL)
Donostia San Sebastian Klasikoa: JUL 29
Luke Roberts - Team DSM coach:
"As usual the Donostia San Sebastián Klasikoa is scheduled for the weekend directly after the Tour de France. The course for this Saturday's race has the traditional climbs, albeit with some small changes. The big climbs of Jaizibel and Erlaitz will come earlier in the race which could produce an epic final if the attacks start already at that point. Those who are distanced will still have time to form an organised chase with just the two smaller climbs coming in the final 40 kilometres. Our line-up includes some riders coming straight out of the Tour and others who have been preparing for the second part of the season. As things now look, Romain has had a good recovery and is ready for his return to racing here after leaving the Tour de France with concussion, it will be great to have him back with us. Our goal will be to race aggressively, anticipating the key moments and play several cards throughout the race."
Romain Bardet on the Grand Colombier in the 2023 Tour de France. Sirotti photo
Line-up
Romain Bardet (FRA)
Marco Brenner (GER)
Matt Dinham (AUS)
Chris Hamilton (AUS)
Andreas Leknessund (NOR)
Florian Stork (GER)
Kevin Vermaerke (USA)
Tour de Pologne: JUL 29 - AUG 04
Pim Ligthart - Team DSM coach:
"The group that arrives for the Tour de Pologne has already been together since almost the beginning of July at High Altitude Team Camp in Küthai, so everyone is really motivated to go and race together. In general, we will take the race day-by-day and look at each stage to get the maximum out of it. For the sprint stages, we have Casper as our finisher while with Max and Oscar as finishers we also have some options to look at the GC. Yet, as we are coming straight down from altitude we have to see where that goes and look for our options every day to play our cards well."
Line-up
Tobias Lund Andresen (DEN)
Patrick Bevin (NZL)
Sean Flynn (GBR)
Lorenzo Milesi (ITA)
Oscar Onley (GBR)
Max Poole (GBR)
Casper van Uden (NED)
Hel van Voerendaal: JUL 30
Joey van Rhee - Team DSM coach:
"This Sunday we will have the Hel van Voerendaal on our program. It’s the next race of the U23 road series so we will ride together with our colleagues from the Dutch Food Valley Cycling Team. It feels a little bit like a home race for us because it’s really close to Sittard and our Aqua-Step Keep Challenging Center. It will be a hard one-day race with up and down roads the whole day. In Aosta, we did a good job with the team so the plan is to continue that. Mauro showed good legs there so we will look after him as our finisher."
Line-up
Mauro Brenner (GER)
Milan Kadlec (CZE)
Axel Källberg (FIN)
Adam Seeman (CZE)
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Bicycle Retailer & Industry News posted this:
A U.S. District Court denied Fox Factory a preliminary injunction that would have forced SRAM to immediately take some RockShox forks off the market. Fox sued SRAM last July, claiming that the air bleed valves on some RockShox forks infringe on its patents.
U.S. District Judge Raymond P. Moore denied Fox’s request for a preliminary injunction on Wednesday. Moore said Fox failed to convince him that the company risked irreparable harm if the products stay on the market during the dispute
Wesley Allinger, the executive vice president of Fox's cycling division, testified that Fox and SRAM compete for OE spec with bike brands and said that once a bike brand chooses a component brand, it is more likely to continue with that component for some time. Allinger referred to this as the "stickiness" of spec' wins.
You can read the entire story here.
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