Les Licences ProTours de 2012

Chaque année, l’UCI donne 18 licences ProTours aux 18 meilleur équipes.  Les équipes ProTour doivent rivaliser toutes les courses ProTours comme le Tour de France, avec quelques équipes d’élément imprévisible.  C’est un procès longue et compliqué  avec plusieurs étapes, mais une des étapes plus importantes est finie maintenant.

Chaque équipe doit subir une évaluation sportive, quand l’UCI examine les palmarès des 15 plus meilleurs coureurs pour sa valeur sportive.  Dans chaque course quel on rivalise pendant l’année, les vainqueurs sont donnés des points, qui sont utilisé pour déterminer la valeur de chaque équipe collectivement.  Les 15 équipes avec la valeur sportive plus haut, sans ordre, sont Astana Pro Team, BMC Racing Team, Garmin–Cervélo, équipe neo GreenEDGE Cycling Team, Katusha Team, Lampre–ISD, Liquigas–Cannondale, Lotto Cycling Project, Movistar Team, Omega Pharma–Quick-Step  Cycling Team, Rabobank, amalgamation RadioShack–Nissan, Saxo Bank Sungard, Sky Procycling et Vacansoleil–DCM Pro Cycling Team.  Si les détails administratives sont bien, ces équipes sont assurés les licences ProTour pour le saison 2012.

Mais ces sont 15 équipes, et il y a 18 licences.  Il y a cinq autres équipes qui veulent être ProTeams l’année prochaine.  AG2R La Mondiale, 17^ème équipe ProTour cette année, équipe Basque Euskaltel-Euskadi, 15^ème ProTour 2011, équipes d’éléments imprévisible du Tour de France 2011 Français des Jeux et Europcar et équipe de niveau ProContinental Geox-TMC rivalisent maintenant pour les trois autres licences.  Il reste une possibilité d’une invitation d’élément imprévisible aux courses ProTours pour les deux équipes qui n’en reçoivent pas, mais ce n’est pas le même.  La décision appartient aux questions administratives maintenant, et on attend l’annonce officielle le 1^èr novembre.

Jayco Herald Sun Tour 2011

The Jayco Herald Sun Tour is the oldest stage race in Australia and is even among the oldest in the world.  The UCI Oceania Tour race travels around Victoria over five days and attracts not only the Australian Continental teams, but even some ProTour teams as well.  Previous winners include riders like Aussie pros Baden Cooke, Stuart O'Grady and Simon Gerrans, as well as British rider Bradley Wiggins, who won the last Tour in 2009.  The JHST was put on hold due to the UCI Road World Championships being held in Geelong last year, but it was back with a bang for 2011 and certainly attracted its fair share of attention.

Stage 1 - Whittlesea to Ballarat included a pair of sprint points at Riddells Creek and Creswick and some categorised climbs in Woodend and Daylesford.  By the time the race reached Creswick, around 20 kilometres out of Ballarat, a group of six riders including Drapac Cycling's Rhys Pollock had an eight-minute lead on the peloton.  They raced into Ballarat, blowing away the Mocka's predicted arrival times at each check, where Pollock sprinted away to take the stage and the yellow jersey of the leader ahead of Australian National Road Race Champion Jack Bobridge and Team Genesys' Nathan Haas, amongst others.

Stage 2 stepped back in time briefly, with the stage start in the main street of Ballarat's 1850s-era replica gold town Sovereign Hill.  The riders crossed the line at the firing of the redcoat soldier's musket and made their way out of the tourist park and onto the main road towards Geelong, by which time the peloton was already losing riders.  Two sprint points, a Category 3 climb and a Category 4 climb later, two riders finally got away at 50 kilometres to go, only to be caught five kilometres from the end of the stage in Geelong.  The consequent bunch sprint cleared the stage for South African Team MTN Qhubeka's Reinardt Janse van Rensburg to take the stage win, while Drapac Professional Cycling put in the hard yards to keep Rhys Pollock in yellow.

Stage 3 took the riders on a beautiful loop from Geelong down to Lorne and then back up the spectacularly scenic Great Ocean Road towards Port Phillip Heads.  The peloton was about 30 kilometres out of Geelong before they let a breakaway of four go, none of them threatening enough in the general classification to warrant a chase.  The peloton and particularly the breakaway battled the crosswinds as they rode along the Victorian coast on the world's longest war memorial, but the quartet was caught just 20 kilometres from the stage finish in Drysdale.  By this point ProTeam Skil-Shimano had joined Drapac on the front in the pace-making, Drapac protecting their yellow while Skil-Shimano was hoping for a stage win.  Both teams got their wish, with German Skil-Shimano rider Marcel Kittel sprinting to his 16th win of the season and Rhys Pollock finishing with the bunch to maintain his overall lead.

But Pollock lost hope of keeping his lead any longer on Stage 4, the 'queen stage' beginning in Sorrento and finishing with a triple lap up and over the Category 1 climb of Arthur's Seat.  An early break, aggressively led by Genesys' Patrick Shaw looking to put teammate Nathan Haas in yellow as well as defend his lead in the sprint classification, went off the front and defended an advantage of around three to four minutes until Saxobank-Sungard, Drapac and Garmin-Cervelo banded together and brought the break back into the fold on the second ascent of Arthur's Seat.  As the climbs took their toll on the riders it was left to a select few to race for the finish.  Russian Katusha rider Egor Silin took his first pro victory with a stage win, while up-and-coming Genesys rider Nathan Haas pipped Jack Bobridge to the line and claimed the yellow.

The final day of the race saw the riders bring it home to Melbourne for the final criterium around Lygon St.  The threat of poor weather didn't keep the fans away, and Melbourne's cycling enthusiasts crowded Argyle Square to see the local heroes and overseas legends before the start of the day's racing.  By 3pm the women's crit had finished and the crowds began lining the street as the starting gun went for the final time and the riders began racing north up Lygon St.  The flat crit-style stage wasn't conducive to breakaways, and though Cameron Wurf, Wes Sulzberger and Adam Phelan, amongst others, did try, the peloton made sure they were back in the bunch coming up on the final finish.  Despite the bunch sprint, Skil-Shimano's Marcel Kittel was first over the line easily to take his second victory at the Sun Tour and bring his season total up to 17.  Nathan Haas, meanwhile, was completely overwhelmed at having won the general classification, sprints classification and young rider classification, while his team of Genesys Wealth Advisors won the teams classification.  Talk about rainbow jerseys!

And as a happy ending to a happy tale, Haas has since received a two-year pro contract to ride for Garmin-Cervelo, who seem to love snaffling up good young Aussie talent.  If this year is a precedent, he'll be riding for GreenEDGE soon enough.

Jayco Herald Sun Tour - A Fangirl Perspective

The best part about having a crit-style final stage is that the riders treat it differently to a normal stage in a stage race. When your day's racing is 10 laps of the same circuit your warm-up seemingly doesn't need to be as intense as for six hours through small towns in country Victoria, because for until 10 minutes before the start of the race nearly all of the riders were relaxing in their team tents in the small square beside Lygon St and mingling with the fans.

Of course, for the true GreenEDGE fan-in-waiting, the number of Australian riders was brilliant. The number of ProTeams there was also pretty awesome. Needless to say, until such time as the racing started I was having the absolute time of my life running around amongst all the team and sponsor stalls, having my photo taken with every rider I could find.

   I was stoked to see the Garmin-Cervelo team scoot past me, so I stopped for a quick photo with larrikin-esque Aussie Heinrich Haussler, as well as current Australian National Time Trial Champion Cameron Meyer. Unfortunately I was too slow to grab his brother Travis riding behind him. Both brothers are riding for Australia's Team GreenEDGE next season.

  

But the fun didn't stop there. I found Cameron Wurf, who was an absolute darling with a lovely smile and quite happy to stop for a quick photo with me.

 I also found Team Garmin's legendary Jack Bobridge, current Australian National Road Race Champion and former World Under-23 Road Race Champion, who recently broke the world record for the 4000m on the track by a full three seconds.  Needless to say, he's also been signed to GreenEDGE next year.

Adam Hansen is, unfortunately, still riding for Omega Pharma-Quickstep, as it's now called, next year. Despite being a very popular rider when I found him he still had a big grin for the cameras.

 Jonathan Cantwell rated a photo because he's Australian (though not WorldTour), but also as the winner of a crit in Ballarat last year.  He beat both Meyers brothers, which annoyed me at the time chiefly because I'd never heard of Jonathan Cantwell.  Can't say that anymore!

 Naturally I eventually tracked down Nathan Haas, the rising star that shone brighter than all others at the JHST this year, taking home all bar two jerseys.  The 22-year-old has been snaffled up for next year's pro season by none other than - guess who - Garmin-Cervelo, who seem to love snaffling up all the rising Aussie talents (until GreenEDGE snaffles them back, of course).

 Steele von Hoff, who like Heinrich Haussler has an awesome European name but looks as ocker as can be, comfortably won the Tour of Gippsland and didn't mind me gatecrashing the 'we're waiting to go onstage and receive our jersey' boy's room to get a photo.
 

 Taswegian Bernie Sulzberger is the older brother of ProTeam FDJ rider Wes Sulzberger.  Had I been able to find Wes, I'd've asked him to pass along a message to Jeremy Roy from his Australian fans.

  Pat Shaw is a Ballarat boy and hometown hero, thus warranting a photo.  But it's not our mutual origins that are the cause of our grins.  No, we're laughing because Pat is hiding the GreenEDGE Cycling cap he stole off my head behind his back.  No need to tell you which team he's NOT riding for next year, then.

I got so excited when I saw this fellow's name on the start list. Marcel Kittel has ridden the Vuelta a Espana and won a stage this year - How to Win Fans and Excite Fangirls. Speaking of stage wins, he took out Stages 3 and 5 of the JHST too - as a cool-down from the Vuelta, I expect.

 It wasn't just individual riders I found floating around, either.  As a non-ProTour team and an international team, none of the cycling aficionados there had any idea who these boys were.  As such the MTN Qhubeka were relaxing together in their tent and all jumped up and joined the circle when I asked for a photo.  Second from the left is current Namibian road and time trial champion Loto Petrus, hence the unusual maillot.
 

Despite having a Russian best friend, I've rarely been so excited over anything Russian as when I saw this uniform riding around.  A real-live ProTour team riding around with Tour de France vets?  I was stoked, even though Giro, Vuelta and Tour rider Vladimir Isaichev was nowhere to be seen.  I did, however, get the above photo taken with Nikolay Trusov on the left, and I was almost speechless to be in the presence of Egor Silin in the centre, who was on this year's Katusha team for the TdF.  The Colossus on the right is, oddly enough for the pro-home-nation team, Belgian Stijn Vandenbergh.

I did ask if I could take the sign-on board home as a souvenir, but apparently Lord Mayor Robert Doyle got first dibs on behalf of the city of Melbourne.  Sigh.  The perks of power.

 In the meantime, I was tracking down the SBS journos - Anthony Tan, SBS Cycling Central columnist and post-stage dissecter for the Tour de France.

 

Even cooler - Matt Keenan commentates the first half of each Tour de France stage, before Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen bring it home.

 This familiar face first appeared to me in my press room at the Road World Championships in Geelong last year.  Mike Tomalaris, fresh off the set of a live edition of SBS Cycling Central at the Jayco Herald Sun Tour.  Is there a higher aspiration?

 

Saved the most special for last...that GreenEDGE Cycling cap goes remarkably well next to the fellow who's bankrolling the whole venture - Gerry Ryan, owner of Jayco Caravans, has promised funding for GreenEDGE for the next three years.  Three years of sheer delight and excitement for me.  He more than deserves a photo for that.

The Tour of Britain 2011

The Tour of Britain is just a baby on the ProTour circuit, a mere eight years old, but given the rise to prominence on the circuit of the British riders - think Brad Wiggins, Geraint Thomas, Mark Cavendish here - and, of course, the quality of the riders racing it, the course is worthy of a mention.

It was only a week before the beginning of the Tour that Mark Cavendish announced that he would be riding his national tour for his ProTeam of HTC-Highroad.  Such an announcement probably struck fear into the heart of his competitors, and with good reason - Cavendish took an easy win on Stage 1 from a bunch sprint with Aussie teammate and lead-out man Mark Renshaw second.  Of course, the other perk of taking a victory on the first stage of a week-long tour is taking the leader's maillot as well, leaving Cav in the yellow at the end of the first day.  He was lucky enough to keep it the next day as well, but through less clement circumstances.  Due to dangerously strong winds along the coast generated by Hurricane Katia the stage was cancelled, and instead the riders took part in a ceremonial two laps around Kendal, the starting town of the stage.

Though the cancellation of stage two meant Mark Cavendish had to forego the honour of finishing his 'home stage' in Blackpool, the beautiful sunny weather of the following day meant the race was back on!  Even with the still-windy conditions the riders were up to all the usual games, but thanks to the hard work and steep pace set by American team HTC-Highroad, no-one who left the peloton could stay away.  This set the stage for Rabobank's Michael Matthews to springboard Lars Boom to a sprint win on the uphill finish, taking the yellow jersey from Cav in the process.

Day 4 was not much of a surprise, to be honest.  If I say it was a bunch sprint at the end of a stage with mountains, who springs to mind?  If your answer is the God of Thunder Thor Hushovd then yes, you would be right.  After the three-man breakaway was reeled in with a few kilometres to go, Hushovd stormed home, with Lars Boom tight on his wheel.  Though Boom missed out on a second stage victory, he increased his lead on the yellow jersey by 12 seconds over local boy Geraint Thomas, the home-country favourite.

Stage 5, not so expected.  There are really only two names that jump to mind when you think of bunch sprints.  But when it came to this bunch sprint, you'd be a day late if you said Hushovd, and wrong if you said the Manx Missile.  The 12-man breakaway was reeled in a little way out, and when it came down to a bunch sprint, Mark Cavendish came second to his own lead-out man, Mark Renshaw.  The rider famous as the world's best lead-out man was keeping mum afterwards about why him and not Cav.

Lars Boom must have been happy on Day 6.  He seemed a little miffed about coming second to Thor Hushovd on the fourth stage to Caerphilly, despite the fact that Boom was, you know, leading the GC and all, but an outright victory in Wells probably helped improve his mood.  The peloton can't have been impressed, though, after letting Boom slip through their fingers early on and jump ahead to the breakaway from which he was later able to springboard his win.  The stage didn't go so well for home favourite Geraint Thomas, though, dropping down the GC leaderboard following a crash.

The theme of successful breakaways continued onto Stage 7, when virtual unknown, Lithuanian Gediminas Bagdonas, took the stage honours within the breakaway of six and Mark Cavendish led the peloton home in seventh place.  Little change in the GC, but for Lars Boom, still in the leader's maillot, the game was still on for Day 8, the double-doozy combo of a short time trial followed by a 10-lap crit on the same roads.  Boom showed he could hold his own in the time trial, coming in just five seconds behind winner Alex Dowsett, who was resplendent in his lovely new white skinsuit of the British time trial champion.

But of course Cav had to have the last word, especially in his national tour, and promptly pipped everyone else to the line to take the last stage victory, clearly wanting the matching set of first-and-last-stages for his trophy cabinet.  Lars Boom played it safe and finished comfortably in the bunch, securing his nice yellow jersey as he enjoyed his first trip to Britain.  Leopard Trek had two top-ten finishers, Australia's Michael Rogers took out 11th and Cav finished a respectable 13th, right behind Geraint Thomas in 12th.