Innehållsförteckning för April 22, 2021 från Cycling Weekly

Social media was awash with celebration of Mark Cavendish’s wins last week. The Manxman has come in for more than his fair share of criticism on Twitter and Facebook in the past, so reading the congratulatory messages from teammates and rivals past and present made for a refreshing change. Firstly, let’s not get too carried away. The Tour of Turkey was one of the original s**t small races he accused André Greipel of winning when the pair had a public spat a decade or so ago. Equally, don’t underestimate the achievement of coming back to winning form and the confidence that will bring. But it’s not the wins that have impressed me the most, rather it’s his determination to keep going when others would have quit. Cavendish has had a…

If there was any doubt left that Tom Pidcock is one of the best one-day racers of the pro peloton and Britain’s next top road star then it was completely erased last week as he celebrated his first pro win and came agonisingly close to a second. The Ineos Grenadiers rider outsprinted one of the peloton’s hottest riders Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) at Brabantse Pijl last Wednesday and very nearly did so again four days later at the Amstel Gold Race before a photo finish ruled he’d lost out by mere millimetres. So close was the result that it prompted speculation on social media about its accuracy, but Ineos made no protest. At Amstel, it was Pidcock’s blistering acceleration over the Geulhemmerberg that had split the front group taking himself,…

Sat 24 July 3.00-10.15 BST Men’s road race Sun 25 July 3.30-9.40 BST Women’s road race Wed 28 July 3.30-9.40 BST Men’s and women’s time trials Mon 2 August 7.30-10.30 BST Track: women’s team sprint Tues 3 August 7.30-10.15 BST Track: men’s team sprint, women’s team pursuit Weds 4 August 7.30-11.00 BST Track: men’s team pursuit Thurs 5 August 7.30-10.50 BST Track: women’s keirin, men’s omnium Fri 6 August 7.30-11.15 BST Track: men’s sprint, women’s Madison Sat 7 August 7.30-10.25 BST Track: men’s Madison Sun 8 August 2.00-5.15 BST Track: men’s keirin, women’s sprint, women’s omnium…

Through the rain you could still make out the imposing yellow and black gilet on the back of Wout van Aert in full flight. The Belgian was straining every sinew, pushing the limits of traction on the treacherously slippery Italian roads to hunt down his nemesis Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) and Tour de France champion Tadej Pogačar (UAE-Emirates). The TV camera moto sticks close to him – they know you’ll want to see this. But further back down the road the chase is not for glory, it’s just to stay in the race. “You just thought, how long can this go on?” marvels John Archibald, new signing for UCI ProTeam Eolo-Kometa riding his first WorldTour race at Tirreno-Adriatico. “You’d think there must be other people feeling like I did…

Endura has paired up with former British Cycling physiotherapist Phil Burt to create its new ‘Ergonomistry Project’ shorts. According to Burt, “due to a woman’s mechanical structure, the hips tend to rotate slightly forwards, transferring weight on to the soft tissues at the front.” He adds that there’s also a lot of variation in women’s soft tissues and the pain can be significant enough to put women off riding altogether. To address this, Endura developed a new chamois: the Women’s 800 Series ConForm EGM Pad. Instead of the traditional foam and PU gels, this uses a medical grade silicone elastomer, placed within a foam pad, which wicks swear and aids breathability. The shorts are finished off with raw edge seams and silicone grippers. The bib section features a high front…

How similar are you to your brother or sister? If you’re lucky enough to have a sibling, it’s a question you’ve probably been asked countless times. While it’s not uncommon for siblings to share certain sporting traits, it is extraordinary for five siblings from one family to all become high-achievers in the same sport. But that’s precisely the story of the Jameses. Hailing from the Monmouthshire town of Abergavenny in Wales, the James household counts 69 national medals across three disciplines of cycling between four sisters: Rachel, Becky, Ffion and Megan. Twenty-nineyear-old Becky, the quiet and reserved sister, won two Olympic silver medals at Rio 2016, four years after she won national team sprint gold with Rachel, the energetic eldest, now 32. Rachel went on to win two golds, piloting…

Professor Nir Eynon, a geneticist at the Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia, believes that elite athletes are blessed with very unusual genes. “There are very few people in the world who can match these athletes, and we don’t understand why,” Professor Eynon told CW. “I have no scientific proof of this, but I think that elite athletes have very rare and unique variants that make them who they are, just like people who have rare diseases. A gene variant is something you either have or you don’t, there is nothing you can do about it.” The problem, though, is finding these genetic variants. With only a few 100 world-class athletes for each sporting discipline, it’s impossible to create large enough studies to analyse the data. What’s more, it is very…

EVENT #40 COURSE TEMPUS FUGIT Taking his second win in two weeks, CW’s Michael Hutchinson clocked 20.13 in last Wednesday’s Club 10 (14 April), 27 seconds faster than David Raynham in second. Club 10 regular Ben Short was third in 21.07. In the women’s race, there was a new name at the top – Helen Meigh took the win in 23.02, which was 34 seconds faster than Alice Maclennan in second, while Jen Lucas-Hill filled was third in 23.59. CLUB 10 AT TEMPUS FUGIT FAST FACTS FASTEST MAN Will Lowden 19:53 (Week 15) FASTEST WOMAN Frances Owen 21:46 (Week 2) VISITS TO THIS COURSE 12 MEN WOMEN JOIN US EVERY WEDNESDAY AT 6 PM CLUB 10 TT COURSES INCLUDE: LONDON 8, BOLOGNA, TEMPUS FUGIT, INNSBRUCKRING, TICK TOCK Sign up via…

Eight and a half years after claiming victory at the 2012 World Championships in Valkenburg, Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma) returned to the Limburg region of the Netherlands to tick off yet another achievement in her career by winning Amstel Gold for the first time. The former world champion sprinted from a small group which caught two leaders in the closing 300m after Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo) refused to work with defending champion Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM). The result came down to a photo finish as Demi Vollering (SDWorx) nearly caught her compatriot on the line, eventually finishing second. Vos said: “I’ve already experienced great editions, but this is really cool. It feels different without spectators, but you notice that people care about this race. I hope we have made the people at…

Groupama-FDJ’s dream Valenciana Arnaud Démare won the final stage five bunch sprint at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana 2021 to cap off a superb week for Groupama-FDJ. The French team took four of the five stages on offer in the Spanish race, as well as the GC with Stefan Küng, for whom it was a career first stage race win. French champion Démare looked a cut above his rivals in the two sprint finishes, while his team-mates Miles Scotson and Küng took stage one and the stage four TT respectively. 05:03 The new provisional record set by Brother UK rider Rebecca Richardson for the circuit of the Brecon Beacons. Her time for the 103.3-mile ride in Wales beat the RRA’s ‘standard to be beaten’ by nearly an hour. She…

When British athletes step on the Team GB-branded British Airways flights to Tokyo this summer dressed in their smartest suits, below their feet in the luggage storage will be four suitcases of clothing for each athlete. “It’s ridiculous,” laughs Hayles. “The amount of kit we get is stupid.” Cycling kit aside, what do riders have in their collections? “Ten T-shirts, 10 jackets, shorts, bucket hats, nice suits, jeans, just so much,” is Doull’s take on it. Hayles remembers Ben Sherman cufflinks, slacks and official watches, and even retro jackets and tracksuits, items he says “would be worth something to collectors but they’re better for a fancy dress party.” It’s not a surprise to learn that most of the clothing is never worn. “Most of my stuff is at my parents’…

LAURA KENNY Going for three golds (team pursuit, omnium, Madison) for the first time in her career, 28-year-old Kenny remains one of the fiercest competitors on the track. She’s had limited chance to really show her best in the last couple of years due to some crashes though. ETHAN HAYTER Currently winning on the road with Ineos, Hayter was instrumental in Britain winning the team pursuit at the Worlds in 2018. He’ll be crucial if the team is to do so in Tokyo, where they’ll likely need to ride more than eight seconds faster than they did that day. SIMON YATES The Bury rider has long stated his aim of winning gold in the Tokyo road race. He’ll come in after both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France…

The Eolo-Kometa team was established by Spanish Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador in 2017 and with the help of Italian Giro d’Italia winner Ivan Basso it has secured new sponsorship and moved up to ProTeam level in 2021. Archibald says he didn’t know what to expect when he met the bosses at the team’s training camp last December. “They were both, I would say, quite opposite of each other. Basso was very relaxed and jokey, while Contador was a lot more serious and focused on results and racing. You can just see that aura of success around him.” The pair both accompanied the team on some of their training rides. “Contador likes to hammer still. When we were doing a chain going through and off he’s the one kicking through.…

“Between two non-identical siblings or parents and children, the proportion of shared genetic variants is 50 per cent,” explains Alun Williams, head of the Sports Genomics Lab at Manchester Metropolitan University. Only Ffion and Megan grew up in a cycling household from birth. Were they destined to follow in the wheeltracks of their siblings? “To have the potential to do the same thing at a high level, there’s between a 60 and 70 per cent inherited component,” Williams continues. “Environment, family and role models are also important, but siblings do share much of the same biological potential.”…

You race and work full-time – that can’t be easy? It’s a pretty full-on life. I’m working with Cycling UK on their behaviour change project, and outside of my job I’m heavily involved in community projects [as an athletics coach] – another 10 hours on top of my 40-hour working week. It’s about finding that level of balance, trying to listen to my body even more than normal. You were an international-level middle-distance runner – why the switch to cycling? I was recovering from an Achilles injury, training really hard in the pool, and it coincided with my last year at university – I went into my last exam completely cooked. I picked up a virus and didn’t really recover for 18 months. That helped me learn my lesson in…

I very much enjoyed watching Mark Cavendish winning some stages at the Tour of Turkey last week. The best bit was the joyous irony of almost every cycling journalist and fan with a social media account using, almost as one, the phrase, “Form is temporary; class is permanent” to describe Cav’s return to… well, actually it would be form. The moment for praising someone’s class is when the form isn’t there. In this instance it would have meant rather more a couple of years ago, when Cavendish was fighting through a lingering illness that would have nudged almost any other rider in the world towards retirement. I bet that in those dark days he’d have killed for a “Hey, Cav! Loving your class!” But he didn’t get one till he…

CHOOSING who you want on your football five-a-side team always leaves those picked last disheartened. Just imagine if that was how selection for the Olympic Games was decided. “Let’s just say that preparation for 1996 was shocking. It was non-existent,” Rob Hayles remembers. “They even asked us to select the team. It was like, ‘Really?’” Olympics, local kick-about with your mates. Same thing, right? “Talk about taking the pressure off the coaches,” Hayles adds. “We were at a training camp somewhere and we were all sat around when Doug Dailey [former national coach at British Cycling] walked in and said, ‘Right, you guys decide.’ Each rider wrote down their own list of who should go and then they counted the names up and said, ‘This is the team you have…

With Covid still playing havoc with the calendar the run into the Olympic games on 23 July is far from certain. The Newport Track World Cup that should have taken place in March was cancelled and travel restrictions make attendance at other events a moving target. British Cycling sent a team including Olympic prospects Laura and Jason Kenny and Katie Archibald to a meet in Ghent last weekend, the start-list of which was swelled by top stars desperate for racing experience. There are some smaller track meets in Russia (21-23 May), Germany (23-24, 28-29 May) and Ireland (5-6 June) that BC could enter riders into but they are not currently on the BC plan. Current possible warm-up events are: NATIONS CUP HONG KONG 13-16 MAY British Cycling is not expected…

FILIPPO GANNA When Ganna came third in the time trial at the end of Tirreno-Adriattico it was considered more newsworthy that he’d lost than Wout van Aert had won – that’s the level of dominance the world champion has exercised on the discipline lately. Plus, Ganna will then switch to the track, where he’ll anchor Italy’s team pursuit squad. FREDERIK RODENBERG The Danish powerhouse anchored the team pursuit squad’s world record ride of 3.44 at the World Championships in Berlin last year. He turned himself inside out in the process. He’ll need to do it again in Tokyo if they’re to lower that mark further, which is eminently possible. LOTTE KOPECKY Currently busy having one of her best years on the road, the 25-year-old Belgian is one of the biggest…

It is obvious that the Jameses have been blessed with good sporting genes. But nature only accounts for around 50 per cent of sporting performance, and there remain a number of other crucial factors that have led them towards cycling success. The biggest part of the ‘other’ 50 per cent, they feel, are mental factors – determination and commitment. “I was always very determined,” Becky says. “I always had a big goal, targets in my mind, and I always wanted to go to the Olympics and win a medal.” Rachel chips in: “For sure, none of us are afraid of hard work, that’s a definite. Working hard is one of my strengths, and I can push myself and be quite determined to train really hard. I think we’re all the…