Photography by Cor Vos

Daily News Digest

Thursday January 29, 2015

by Matt de Neef - January 29, 2015

In this morning's edition of the CyclingTips Daily News Digest: Joe Cooper claims stage 1 victory at the New Zealand Cycle Classic; Astana report expected in early February; Lawson Craddock heads home after TDU crash; Teams announced for the Tour de Langkawi; Doping in sport is a public health issue - WADA chief; What is Lance Armstrong doing?; Bike Hawk GPS tracker; Team Sky - the first five years; The funniest cyclocross crash ever?

Joe Cooper claims stage 1 victory at the New Zealand Cycle Classic

New Zealand national road race champion Joe Cooper (Avanti) has won the prologue time trial at the New Zealand Cycle Classic in Palmerston North.

#nzcc 1,2 for @AvantiRacing 1st @joecooperme 2d @GoughFraser 3d @morgzracer @SubaruAlbion http://t.co/iGWIDzzyDI pic.twitter.com/e8kVzp9KX3

— ollie (@ollieman56) January 28, 2015

Cooper completed the 3.5km ITT in 4:09 — an average speed of 50.6km/h — finishing 10 seconds clear of teammate Fraser Gough in second. Subaru Albion’s Morgan Smith also finished with a time of 4:19 and took third place.

The UCI 2.2 New Zealand Cycle Classic is the country’s only UCI-classified tour and is this year in its 28th edition. The five-stage race continues today with a 140km stage, starting and finishing in Palmerston North (where all stages start and finish).

Prologue: Palmerston North > Palmerston North - Stage Result

Wednesday 28th January 2015

1.	COOPER Joseph Avanti Racing Team	00:04:09
2.	GOUGH Fraser Avanti Racing Team	0:10
3.	SMITH Morgan	-

Click here to read more at CycleTourNZ.

Astana report expected in early February

by Shane Stokes

UCI spokesman Louis Chenaille has told CyclingTips that the independent audit of Team Astana — which started when the team was granted a probationary WorldTour license for 2015 late last year — is set to drop in the next few weeks.

“The Astana report is expected in early February,” Chenaille said. “Things are ongoing. Thus far the Lausanne University is in line with the expected timetable, in terms of interviews, collected data and so on. They seem to be working well and on schedule.”

The team is being audited by the Institute of Sport Sciences of the University of Lausanne (ISSUL) to determine “to what extent the team and or/its management is responsible” for a string of positive doping tests in the past 12 months.

Chenaille told CyclingTips that there has been no decision made as to the fate of the Astana Continental team, from which three of the positive tests came.

“As regards the Continental team, that is still under review,” he said. “There is a discussion ongoing with the team and their national federation, but there is no decision as yet.”

Click here to read more at CyclingTips.

Lawson Craddock heads home after TDU crash

A nasty crash at the end of stage 4 of the Tour Down Under caught most of the headlines, but it was an unlucky accident earlier in the day that seemed to create the worst injury.

Does crashing make me look fat? pic.twitter.com/iby7adHKeW

— Lawson Craddock (@lawsoncraddock) January 24, 2015

Giant-Alpecin’s Lawson Craddock has returned to the US after three nights in an Adelaide hospital after a crash early on stage 4 which saw the young American fracture his sternum, wrist and a rib.

VeloNews reports that Craddock punctured his front tyre before heading into a drainage ditch where his front wheel collapsed, sending him over the handlebars. In an email to VeloNews earlier in the week Craddock said: “I’ve definitely been better. I spent three days in the hospital before finally getting released,” Craddock wrote. “I should arrive [home] tomorrow night, and then I’ll start the long road to recovery. Hopefully, it shouldn’t be too bad.”

Team doctors aren’t sure how long Craddock will be away from racing for.

Click here to read more at VeloNews.

Teams announced for the Tour de Langkawi

by Shane Stokes

Team Sky team has been confirmed as making its debut at the Tour de Langkawi and will join three other WorldTour teams plus seven ProContinental squads in the race.

Sky will join Astana, Tinkoff-Saxo and Orica-GreenEdge for the eight-stage Malaysian race which begins on March 8.

“Those teams are four of the five very best in the world,” Le Tour de Langkawi Datuk Malik Mydin said. “We’re talking about teams who have won three Tour de France, one Giro d’Italia and two Vuelta a España in the past three years.

“It’s a huge honour to have them racing in Malaysia. Their faith in our organization is very much appreciated.”

Also confirmed are the Pro Continental teams Colombia, Androni-Venezuela, MTN-Qhubeka, UnitedHealthcare, SouthEast Pro Cycling, Bretagne-Seche Environnement and Bardiani CSF. The line-up will also include 10 continental squads plus the Malaysian national team.

Click here to see an in-progress startlist.

Doping in sport is a public health issue: WADA chief

WADA director general David Howman has told AFP that doping in sport has become a public health issue as a result of the widespread nature of substance abuse.

“Too many people are taking too many substances they don’t even know,” WADA director general David Howman told AFP. “Where have they come from? They are not sanitised, they could be very dangerous.”

Speaking at a conference in Tokyo, which included sports bodies and the pharmaceutical industry, Howman suggested that some young athletes are now doping.

“Sometimes children — and I’m not suggesting Japanese children but I certainly know in North America — have taken drugs that their parents don’t know they’re taking,” he said. “As a society we would be shocked at the amount of stuff that our children are taking.

“We think this is a public health issue and we are supported by the World Health Organisation and by many others who now see it’s not just a sport issue.”

Click here to read more via AFP and the Bangkok Post.

What is Lance Armstrong doing?

The story of Lance Armstrong’s fall from grace is seemingly never-ending, with a recent BBC interview the latest media appearance to stir up interest in the Texan. And it’s fair to say that many people are well and truly sick of hearing about Armstrong — people that wish we could just leave that chapter of the sport behind us and move on.

In an article in The Guardian Suze Clemitson has posed the question “What is Armstrong doing?”, looking at his recent exploits, including the BBC interview and a bizarre cameo in a music video made by his friend and former Rage Against the Machine bassist, Tim Commerford.

Here’s an excerpt from Clemitson’s piece:

“

So what is Lance Armstrong playing at this time? It seems he is, to borrow Sean Kelly’s immortal phrase, “making the calculation”. He is quite candid in his lengthy, sometimes mawkish, interview with the BBC’s Dan Roan that he got the timing wrong when he “confessed” to Oprah. So what is the endgame for The Boss?

Let’s set aside the references to himself in the third person, the supposed “good” he has done for the sport in lining the pockets of Trek and Oakley and the fact that he equates the gaping hole of his stripped victories with the two greatest military catastrophes of the last century, when riders fought and died in two world wars and no race could run over the shattered roads and battlefields of France. Because most fans of this glorious, murky sport have news for you. It’s over. Finished.

Time to go back to Austin, to the seven framed and worthless jerseys, and leave well enough alone. Reactions have ranged from the disgusted to the downright bored. It seems the strategic brain that oversaw those seven discredited victories has got it wrong again. That this is another gigantic misstep for the Texan.

Click here to read the full story at The Guardian.

Bike Hawk GPS tracker

Here’s a nifty device which you can use to track your bike in the event of it being stolen. It’s not the first device of is kind, but the fact the device has a build in GPS tracker and can connect to the mobile phone network is quite interesting.

Click here to read more at Indiegogo.

Team Sky: the first five years

Here’s a nice video summary of the first five years of Team Sky’s existence. Australian fans will note the omission of Porte’s win on Willunga Hill at the TDU last year.

The funniest cyclocross crash ever?

We’ve watched this a bunch of times and it doesn’t get any less funny.

What You Missed

And finally this morning, here are a few things you might have missed at CyclingTips in the past few days:

***

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Today’s feature image comes from Jered Gruber.

Tags: 2015 New Zealand Cycle Classic, 2015 Santos Tour Down Under, 2015 Tour de Langkawi, Astana, cyclocross, doping, Joe Cooper, Lance Armstrong, Lawson Craddock, Rocacorba Daily, Team Sky, UCI, WADA

MK

“. And it’s fair to say that many people are well and truly sick of hearing about Armstrong — people that wish we could just leave that chapter of the sport behind us and move on”
So why write about it? If people are sick of it, maybe the media should stop writing stroies about it? Or maybe people aren’t sick of it and these articles score good hits and therefore will continue to get written and posted…….
- http://cyclingtips.com.au Matt de Neef
  
  Because some people are interested. And because, for better or worse, it is news. Also worth noting that we’ve never done things at CyclingTips to “score good hits”. As I’ve said many times, this daily news round-up is simply a collection of things we’ve come across that we find interesting and/or or thought-provoking. There’s absolutely no obligation to read any particular item or click through to the original article.
  - velocite
    
    I’m interested.
    - Michele
      
      I must admit I also find it quite interesting. It’s like watching reality TV when it comes to LA.
      
      Armstrong is still so out of touch with reality and society I feel like I am watching a version of Big Brother where there is only 1 person in the house.
      
      I say let LA live in his fantasy world, and let us keep watching him do so. It’s all quite fascinating.
      
      DISCLAIMER: I do not, nor will I ever watch BB!
  - A
    
    Love it!
- dave
  
  Show some respect, the man cured cancer and invented cycling.
- Andy B
  
  Cant.
  Get.
  Enough.
- Kaweh
  
  I believe Armstrong was always obsessed with staying in control of his storyline, especially his cancer defense but also the never tested positive approach. He seems to be trying to create a new storyline and spin to come back and since I am also half disgusted and half bored, I believe there is an obligation of the same media that catered to his needs (as far as real cycling media and not general mainstream media is concerned) to step in this time and make sure he does not (a) create a successful spin for the public to allow his ban being shortened or lifted and (b) further damage the sport of cycling with his cynical statements and false apologies. Just my 2c…
Lewis

That dirt road in the cover photo looks incredible! Location?
- Sean
  
  The top of the article.
  - velocite
    
    Your best, I think, Sean.
CCain

Lance is not The Boss. There is only one Boss.
- jules
  
  i don’t think he’s much chop on a bike though
  - Tony Abbott
    
    Better than Bono at least…
jules

from the full Astana article: “It said that the audit would also seek to “assess the team’s internal structures, culture and management systems to understand whether these are adequate to ensure that the highest ethical standards are upheld.””

this is just plain ridiculous to me. AFAIK, there is no positive duty on teams to have a management system that works to prevent doping by their riders. licences seem to be granted on the assumption that everyone will ride clean and then action is only taken later on, when doping evidence is uncovered.

why review a team’s mgt structure only after it’s become clear that the structure is deficient? it’s just fundamentally flawed.
- velocite
  
  Maybe under that cover the real task is to form a view as to whether the current or past ‘structure’ and the people in it were complicit in the ethical failure. One hopes.
  - jules
    
    i think that’s clearly the aim. but it puts the investigators on the back foot - “we will attempt to find evidence of.. ” similar to the Vance review of OGE.
    
    the fact that there have been multiple positives on Astana proves that its mgt has failed to oversee an effective anti-doping system. but - unbelievably - that is not in itself an offence. the UCI is now forced to start from scratch and establish whether there is a problem.
    
    it’s almost as if it’s designed to give teams the upper hand and justify business as usual.
    - velocite
      
      It’s possible these sorts of reviews do have a benefit even if they don’t find anything. They look like window dressing, but they must have the effect of reminding the teams and the riders that they’re under scrutiny. In any case, it’s hard to see what the UCI can do. I don’t think a whole team should be rubbed out because two team riders doped. We probably expect USADA type results every time now, but they were only possible because of the prior FDA investigation. What sort of UCI investigation can threaten people with gaol for perjury?
      - jules
        
        team licences should be conditional upon maintaining an effective anti-doping program. if you don’t have such a program - even if you have no positive tests on your team (yet) - you should be in breach of your licence conditions.
        
        Garmin has one. yet other teams take the “we don’t need to do anything as all of our riders are saints, and you can’t prove they’re not”. that shouldn’t be acceptable.
        
        velocite
        
        A very good idea.
        
        Abdu
        
        Garmin, run by Lance Armstrong’s loyal lieutenant JV. A rider who willingly and with some serious endeavour doped himself and as part of the team. JV even ‘schooled’ Christian VdV because as he said later he wished someone had told him all about how to dope when he first raced pro (for a small Spanish team). A guy who has never admitted to doping publicly, nor apologised for cheating for years.
        Yeh, that Garmin.
        
        jules
        
        that’s the one :)
        
        none of those things detract from the value of how he runs his current team, which he claims exists with an objective of providing a platform for riders to race and win clean. from all i’ve read and seen, he appears to be walking the walk.
        
        but the point isn’t to deify JV, rather to highlight what should and can be done better to combat doping.
- Anon n+1
  
  The article from Nature at the link may be of interest
  
  http://www.nature.com/news/gather-data-to-reveal-true-extent-of-doping-in-sport-1.16798
  
  The editorial argues that without some measure of the extent of the use of “performance enhancing substances” by the public, it is impossible to make any assertion concerning the effectiveness of the anti-doping program.
  
  Others argue that competitors should be allowed to take anything they wish provided they declare it in advance. Then the results should be published to allow the general public evaluate the merits of the various substances. If the public were made aware of all adverse reactions it would discourage use by others.
Jean Dupouy

So nice to see the good old Rocacorba Daily title. Now it should be clear to everyone what it is, well done CT! :)
- velocite
  
  Wot?
  - Jean Dupouy
    
    The title on the right, Rocacorba Daily, it is back :)
    - velocite
      
      I don’t think that ever went away Jean. But I agree it’s a good thing it at least stayed there.
Neil_Robinson

if you just want to see the poor cx bloke crash over, and over and over again, play the video, then press 5 on your keyboard. the video will skip to 50% of the way through, which is mere moments before the poor fellow upends himself.
- Immortal
  
  Jooeeyyyy!!!!