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Cycling national championships starting to roll in

by kferaday | June 29, 2008 at 01:29 pm | 296 views | 9 comments

Today is the BIG day for national cycling championships in most countries around the world. Some of the results are now starting to roll in. Here's a few from some of the big cycling nations:

Belgium

1 Jürgen Roelandts (Silence-Lotto)
2 Sven Vanthourenhout (Sunweb)
3 Niko Eeckhout (Topsport Vlaanderen)
4 Greg Van Avermaet (Silence-Lotto)
5 Tom Boonen (Quick Step)
6 Kurt Hovelynck (Topsport Vlaanderen)
7 James Vanlandschoot (Mitsubishi-Jartazi)

Italy

1 Filippo Simeoni (Ceramica Flaminia-Bossini Docce)
2 Giovanni Visconti (Quick Step)
3 Filippo Pozzato (Liquigas)
4 Davide Rebellin (Gerolsteiner)
5 Luca Paolini (Acqua Sapone-Caffè Mokambo)
6 Paolo Bossoni (Lampre)
7 Ivan Fanelli (Cinelli-OPD)
8 Marco Marcato (Cycle Collstrop)
9 Alessandro Ballan (Lampre)
10 Rinaldo Nocentini (AG2R La Mondiale)

Spain

1 Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (Caisse d'Epargne)
2 Oscar Sevilla (Rock Racing)
3 Oscar Pereiro Sio (Caisse d'Epargne)
4 Jaume Rovira Pous (Extremadura-Ciclismo Solidario)
5 Xavier Florencio Cabre (Bouygues Telecom)
6 Xabier Tondo (LA MSS)
7 Jose Ruiz Sanchez (Andalucía - Cajasur)
8 Daniel Moreno Fernandez (Caisse d'Epargne)
9 Manuel Vazquez Hueso (Contentpolis - Murcia)
10 Unai Uribarri (Orbea-Oreka)

France

1 Nicolas Vogondy (Agritubel)
2 Arnaud Coyot (Caisse d'Epargne)
3 Julien Loubet (AG2R La Mondiale)
4 Dimitri Champion (Bouygues Telecom)
5 Stéphane Augé (Cofidis)

Germany

1 Fabian Wegmann (Gerolsteiner)
2 Erik Zabel (Team Milram)
3 Gerald Ciolek (High Road)
4 Stefan Schumacher (Gerolsteiner)
5 Jens Voigt (Team CSC)
6 Björn Papstein (3C Gruppe)
7 Christian Knees (Team Milram)

I missed this one but here's the results from Britain (good to see Dean Downing from my favourites Rapha Condor Recycling come third).

1 Robert Hayles (Halfords / Bike Hut)
2 Peter Kennaugh (100% ME)
3 Dean Downing (Rapha Condor Recycling.co.uk)
4 Daniel Lloyd (An Post – Sean Kelly)
5 Mark Cavendish (Team High Road)
6 Russell Downing (Pinarello RT)
7 Andrew Tennant (100% ME)
8 Daniel Fleeman (An Post – Sean Kelly)
9 Jonathan Tierman – Locke (Mid Devon CC)
10 Jonathan Bellis (100% ME)

Get more at http://www.cyclingnews.com/road.php?id=road/2008/natchamps08/default.

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armchairsports

at 13:42 on June 29th, 2008

The most intriguing one here seems to the Valverde victory in Spain. It's hard to tell when you don't have a full idea of the nature of each parcours, but his form seems good at the moment. Though he's not a pure climber he may be one to watch at the upcoming Tour, which has no clear favorites. Wegmann also seems to be in good form but there are questions around his team, which have underperformed this year.

jordan

at 14:07 on June 29th, 2008

I hope none of these guys get busted for doping... hopefully these events can help rebuild cycling's reputation.

kferaday

at 14:20 on June 29th, 2008

Actually Boonen tested positive for cocaine a couple of weeks ago. As far as the doping goes, I'm getting a bit tired of everyone focussing on that. Cycling now does more than any other sport to fight doping. They do more out of competition tests, have introduced bio passports (which keeps a profile of key physical markers over time) and have a zero tolerance policy (Astana aren't invited to this year's TdF even after a complete overhaul of the team and management). Let's see North American sports do anything close. You'd have to shut down the NFL and MLB there's so much doping going on. Their doping policies are a joke.

Beaulieu

at 14:31 on June 29th, 2008

I wonder if there have been any mountainbikers done for doping and BMXrs? Any know any stats?

kferaday

at 23:26 on June 29th, 2008

Not really. Michael Rasmussen was a mountain biker so there's at least some history of likely doping there. Again, if you look at doping in cycling versus other sports cycling does a great job. I read a report about a year ago which surveyed use of performance enhancing drugs at the high school level in California. The report found that about 25,000 high school athletes admitted to doping. And that's just in California. You can bet that doping in the NFL and MLB is endemic. But they don't want to do anything because they don't want to stop the money from coming in which is why their doping programs are a joke.

kferaday

at 14:13 on June 29th, 2008

The surprise for me was Sevilla's second place. Also it was good to see Simeoni win after all of the turmoil he's gone through in the past few years (in particular Armstrong's bizarre actions toward him in the 2004 tour).

I agree that Valverde is going to be a factor as long as he can retain the great form he's got going in to the Tour. I think the key for him is surviving into the last week without losing alot of time. I'm hoping Cunego can do something. His trajectory may put him in good form by the time they hit the first mountains.