Cycling news

Poll: Tour of Turkey crash: Theo Bos grabs yellow jersey Daryl Impey, both riders go down. No action taken. Do you agree?

Minutes after a crash near the finish of today's Tour of Turkey final stage, we posted a link to this YouTube video showing the final kilometers of the stage.  (The crash, involving Theo Bos (Rabobank) and Daryl Impey (Barloworld) takes place 03:40 into the video.)

The image above is a still from a higher quality video clip at laola1.tv. (free registration)

According to cyclingnews, "Impey remained on the ground for 20 minutes before getting back on his bike to cross the finish line. He was taken to the hospital in Alanya where the doctors reported a fracture of the third disc of his lumbar vertebra, a micro-fracture of his neck, facial trauma, a few broken teeth and a deep cut in his lips."

Bos denies intent with regard to Impey's crashing.  UCI commissaires watched the video and agreed, taking no action against Bos.  And yet one thing is sure:  In the middle of a high speed sprint finish, Bos grabbed hold of Impey's jersey, a dangerous action, and caused the crash.  Do you agree with the UCI commissaires?

 

Tour de Cycling - Saturday

You've heard of the Giro d'Italia. The Giretto d'Italia, or "Little Giro," is a charity ride created by an American father and daughter team, Gene Nacey and Nina Wilczek. They need sponsors and riders. They are riding the first 5 stages of the Giro next month ahead of the peloton.  Want to consider sponsoring a rider?  "Whatever you can do is great - 10 cents per mile, $1 per mile, $10 per mile - it's up to you! Your funds will go towards cancer research through the Lance Armstrong Foundation and benefit cancer survivors worldwide."  Click here for more info.

 

- Amstel Gold Race:  There are multiple live feeds playing now, post-teams presentation.  There are different camera angles....looks like cyclo-tourists crossing the finish line, riders climbing the Keuteberg, and people gathered at a party.

- Tour of Turkey: David Loosli (Lampre), who lost the yellow jersey yesterday after a couple of flats and finally a crash, decided enough is enough and did not start today.

- Tour of Turkey Stage 7 LIVE now too on laola1.tv with Martin McCrossan commentating. (link below)

- Tour of Turkey LIVE now on TRT 1. (link below)

- Later today, we'll take a first look at the Amstel Gold Race live coverage options, with our full live coverage guide listing Amstel Gold Race live video, audio, tickers and graphics coming Sunday morning.

- Highlights of yesterday's Tour of Turkey Stage 6 are available at laola1.tv here.  (free subscription required)

On today: Tour of Turkey, Stage 7: (through April 19)
Live video at TRT 1 (link is back online)
Live video at laola1.tv (14:00 CET (8am U.S. Eastern), English commentary, free, requires registration)
Live audio (Eurosport France) (14:00 CET) - Eurosport is not showing live weekend coverage of the Tour of Turkey
Official Website - Teams/Start List

 

Tour de Cycling - Friday

 - Tour of Turkey Stage 7 live video on laola1.tv Saturday: 14:00 CET (8am U.S. Eastern)

 

Hamilton announces retirement following positive test


Tyler Hamilton on Mont Ventoux during the 2004 Dauphine Libere.
Copyright © 2004 Pete Geyer/www.cyclingfans.com

- Tyler Hamilton retires, reveals he has been fighting depression for years, tested positive for an over-the-counter antidepressant.  AP story here.

- Tyler Hamilton to announce retirement today.  Story at ESPN here.

- Breaking news:  The New York Times is reporting that American Tyler Hamilton has tested positive for a banned substance and could face a lifetime ban from cycling.  Story here.

- Tour of Turkey LIVE again on laola1.tv. (link below)

- Update: 14:34 CET (8:34am U.S. Eastern) - Tour of Turkey video currently not playing for us (France) or Bernie (U.K.)

- Tour of Turkey LIVE now on laola1.tv (link  below), though we aren't getting any audio at the moment.

- More to come.

Tour of Turkey, Stage 6: (through April 19)
Live video (13:55 CET (7:55am U.S. Eastern))
Live video at laola1.tv (English commentary, free, requires registration)
Live audio (Eurosport France) (14:00 CET)
Official Website - Teams/Start List

Tour de Cycling - Thursday

- Tour of Turkey Stage 6 live video Friday: 13:55 CET (7:55am U.S. Eastern)

 

GP de Denain: Casper wins

 

- Watch a French evening news clip about the GP de Denain and Jimmy Casper's record-setting third win today.  Casper beat Juan Jose Haedo to the line.  Includes some historical footage.  Not a whole lot of race action. Clip is here.  (watch from position 17:10 to 19:20 in the program)

- Just in: Boonen foot not broken:  Tom Boonen, involved in the sprint finish crash at yesterday's Scheldeprijs Vlaanderen, was examined today and has "heavy bruising" to his right wrist and foot but did not break any bones as was originally feared.  But if he still has pain on Monday, more tests will be done.  (source: Sporza)

- GP de Denain:  Mission accomplished for Jimmy Casper who just won his third edition of this race in a group sprint and solidified his overall lead in the Coupe de FranceJuan Jose Haedo took second, Denis Flahaut third.

- Tour of Turkey LIVE coverage has begun.  Links below but also, one person emailed and another tweeted that there is a live feed with English commentary available via laola1.tv.  This feed was embedded on the official site the other day but at the moment you will find a link to it at the bottom of the page here.  Note that registration is required.  We don't know anything about this site.

Tour of Turkey, Stage 5: (through April 19)
Live video (13:45 CET (7:45am U.S. Eastern))
Live audio (Eurosport France) (14:00 CET)
Official Website - Teams/Start List

- Kazakhstan’s cycling federation to resume paying Astana wagesAlberto Contador and his teammates had not received paychecks for about a month.  (Lance Armstrong is not taking a paycheck for riding for the team.)  AP story here.

- Robbie McEwen injury update:  McEwen suffered a concussion but no fractures in yesterday's sprint crash at the Scheldeprijs Vlaanderen. (source: AFP)

Tour de Cycling - Wednesday

- Tour of Turkey Stage 5 live video Thursday: 13:45 CET (7:45am U.S. Eastern)

 

50th Grand Prix de Denain Thursday

Thursday will see the running of the 50th Grand Prix de Denain (France).  Edvald Boasson Hagen won last year and he is back to defend.  Past winners include Jean Stablinski (1968), Walter Planckaert (1976), Paul Sherwen (1983), Frederic Moncassin (1990, 1991), Jan Kirsipuu (1998, 2001), Thor Hushovd (2004), Jimmy Casper (2005, 2006).

The GP de Denain is the next leg of the Coupe de France following yesterday's Paris-Camembert, won by Casper (Besson-Sojasun).  Casper is overall Cup leader with 85 points, Romain Feillu is in second place with 45 points.  Casper hopes to get his third career victory in Denain (worth 50 points) which would give him a pretty commanding lead in the French Cup.  He already has 4 victories this season, his surprising Besson-Sojasun team, led by manager Stephane Heulot, has 10 victories overall.  There is no live TV coverage for this race.

GP de Denain Official Website
Start List (.pdf)
(Boasson Hagen, Eisel, Kirchen, Renshaw, Elmiger, Krivtsov,
Chainel, Chavanel Seb., Guesdon, McEwen, Napolitano, Steegmans, Haedo, Feillu, Petacchi, Cooke, Lhotellerie, Bessy, Casper, Engoulvent, Jeandesboz, Vandenbrouke)

 

Quick Step to Tour of Missouri (September 7-13)

Tour of Missouri organizers have announced that the world's #1-ranked team, Quick Step, will compete at the 3rd annual Tour of Missouri.  More here.

Tour de Cycling - Tuesday

- Tour of Turkey live video Wednesday: 13:45 CET (7:45am U.S. Eastern)

 

 

Scheldeprijs Vlaanderen Live Coverage

- Tomorrow, Wednesday, is the 97th Scheldeprijs Vlaanderen (Belgium).  (In French it is called the Grand Prix de l'Escaut.)  Mark Cavendish won the race in 2007 and 2008 but is not back to defend this year.  Among the broadcasters showing the race live are cycling.tv and Sporza.  We'll have the Scheldeprijs Vlaanderen live video streams and tickers in the morning, updated during the race.

Scheldeprijs Vlaanderen Official Website
Start List (.pdf)
(Boonen, Kirchen, Eisel, Davis, Hoste, Brown, McEwen, Napolitano, Steegmans, Ciolek, Knaven, Haedo, Haussler, Hammond, Petacchi, Cooke)
Race starts at: 12:15 CET (6:15am U.S. Eastern)
Live webcast on CTV: 15:15 CET (9:15am U.S. Eastern)
Live video on Sporza: 15:15 CET (9:15am U.S. Eastern)
Other sources: Check back in the morning

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Tour of Turkey is also LIVE on Eurosport TV.  If your French is better than your Turkish, you can listen to the Eurosport France live audio feed while watching the live video.

- Paris-Camembert ticker updates will be infrequent - communications can be difficult or impossible in some remote areas of Normandy along the race route.

- Tour of Turkey LIVE video now playing.  Paris-Camembert LIVE via ticker.  Links below.

- L'Equipe photographer Bernard Papon gets the shots

Graham Watson is by far the best-known individual cycling photographer worldwide.  He obviously is world class and arguably the best.  But when French sports daily L'Equipe puts a half dozen or more of its own world class photographers on a bike race, they easily combine to produce the best photographic coverage.  The low resolution and highly compressed images above do not do justice to the superb sequence shot by L'Equipe's Bernard Papon. - Thor Hushovd, the last man left to challenge Tom Boonen in Sunday's Paris-Roubaix, goes down and Boonen is gone.  -Pete

- Paris-Camembert is underway, ticker is "live".  More to come, latest notes at the top.

On today: Paris-Camembert - (more info, links, photos, video on our Paris-Camembert page here)
Live ticker (Google-translated to English)

Also on today: Tour of Turkey (through April 19) - Official Website - Teams and Start List
Live video (starts at 13:45 CET (7:45am U.S. Eastern)

Armstrong plans return at Tour of Italy

"I go out on the bike every day and ride just like I did before (the injury). I don’t want to fall on it again right now, but I think it will be fine for the Tour of Italy. I fully anticipate being there and being strong and fit and being ready to race."

Read more here.

French anti-doping agency (AFLD) says it could punish Armstrong

Agency runs controversial national anti-doping lab (LNDD)

Update:  MSNBC video (01:07)
(Ed. note: Lots of ridiculous AFLD chest-thumping lately.)

Re: cycling.tv/Silverlight and our relationship to CTV

As a follow-up to yesterday's post regarding cycling.tv soon switching over to a Silverlight player, here is more information:

It will be Silverlight version 2.0.  I am not a big Microsoft fan but I have heard good things about this, particularly during the Beijing Olympics last August.  The hope here is that for most people this will result in a better experience on cycling.tv.  But as you no doubt know, any change, even for the better, ultimately, can introduce issues of its own for some users.  We will monitor this and look for your feedback.

CTV tell me they are in final testing right now.  If you are on their email list, you should receive notification and an explanation of the benefits as well as steps to take in order to start using the new player.

CTV also tell me: "We will want to launch during a window where there are at least two days respite from live racing."

We'll post more info here as we get it.

On another note:  A couple of you emailed regarding a comment I posted on Wednesday: "Note: cyclingfans.com is a cycling.tv affiliate partner"

To clarify: cyclingfans.com is NOT owned by cycling.tv.  They have an affiliate program by which websites that bring them customers earn a commission and I joined that program a couple of years ago.  cyclingfans.com is paid for out of my own pocket....and with the hard work and sweat of a few people, notably U.K. correspondent Bernie S. and me.

So nothing has changed with regard to our editorial position, live race coverage, listings, etc.

Milan-San Remo live coverage info coming later today...

- Pete

CTV to Switch to Silverlight Player

Cycling.tv tell us they are about one week away from implementing a Silverlight player.  Silverlight is Microsoft's answer to Adobe Flash which dominates the market.  (Flash is used in applications such as the Tour Tracker employed during the Tour of California.)

Silverlight was notably used by NBC to stream the Beijing Olympic Games and is used by the Netflix streaming service.

Silverlight promises new interactive features as well as "adaptive streaming" which allows the player to choose a bit rate based on available user bandwidth and CPU resources.  Of interest to users of Apple Macs is the fact that Silverlight supports Safari and Firefox Macintosh browsers.  CTV's Ben Golding indeed expects their new Silverlight player to meet the needs of Mac users.

We will of course be monitoring this.

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