All Work And No Gain?

It’s always been a part of professional cycling, but it’s a phenomenon that’s come under fire lately – the question of who chases versus who wins.

It’s very much a question of the sprinters. Traditionally, when a team has a sprinter that they believe can win the stage, the onus is on their team to chase down the breakaway as they’re the team who’ll benefit. When a team does it well, the rewards are obvious – a stage win for the sprinter and a morale boost for the whole team.

But what about when they don’t win the stage? It was an ever-present concern for Australian outfit Orica-GreenEDGE during the Tour de France. The team often spent more than 100 kilometres leading the peloton in an attempt to reel in the day’s breakaway to set up a stage win for sprinter Matt Goss. Belgian outfit Lotto Belisol would jump on the front with 10 kilometres to go, still fresh after the day’s stage, and lead German sprinter André Greipel out for the win. It happened more than once. So is that good strategy and clever riding from the Belgian team, or are the others teams taking advantage of Orica-GreenEDGE?

Peter Sagan is another recent example of the issue. The Slovakian doesn’t have a leadout train – at least, nothing on the scale of Orica-GreenEDGE, Lotto Belisol or at times even Team Sky – yet the 22-year-old still claimed three stages of the Tour de France ahead of Greipel and Goss, as well as almost every stage of the Tour of California. Sagan usually tacks onto the end of the nearest sprinter being towed to the line and jumps out when everyone is least expecting it, using the work of Goss, Greipel or Cavendish’s teams. Again, is this a remarkably canny move on the part of the youngster, or are Sky, Lotto and GreenEDGE being deprived of their just rewards?

Cavendish certainly seems to think so. The ‘world’s fastest man’, a title verified by his stripey rainbow jersey of the reigning World Champion, recently hit out at Australia over the lack of effort they put into the chase during the Olympic road race – despite the fact that Australia had a rider in the breakaway, six-time Olympian Stuart O’Grady. Cavendish was highly critical of the other teams for failing to help pull back the breakaway, conveniently forgetting that, like Australia, almost every other country capable of helping had a rider ahead of the peloton with a chance at the gold medal. There was another reason Great Britain was on their own – everyone knew that if it came down to a sprint finish, there was no-one who could beat the Manx Missile, Mark Cavendish. If Great Britain wanted the win, Great Britain had to do all the work – and even then, they knew everyone else would be racing them to the finish. It really was them versus the world.

So are the times changing? Is it now professionally acceptable to let another team or rider do all the work so you can take the win? Has the sport of cycling abandoned the ‘no guts, no glory’ ideal that brought about some of the greatest cycling victories we’ve seen in favour of a ‘end justifies the means’ approach to racing? What remains to be seen is this: who will do the work if they know there’s nothing to gain?

Play Sport, Not Politics

Our sporting rivalry with the Brits is famous. The Ashes, on the track, the road…whenever we can, we go up to bat against the Mother Country in the hopes of returning home victorious.

So it seems odd that the Australian Olympic Committee has knowingly handicapped the Australian cycling team’s chances of a gold medal, in either the time trial or the road race. The road race course is billed as a sprinter’s course, and the best sprinter in the world is, of course, Britain’s Mark Cavendish. The race for second is always heated, but Australia’s Matt Goss is always up there giving it his best shot. The obvious choice for the road race would therefore be Goss, and the obvious choice to lead him out would be Mark Renshaw, billed as the best leadout man in the world – and conveniently Australian.

Well, the selectors got Goss right, but it seems to have somehow slipped their minds that Renshaw was available to take ‘Gossy’ to the finishing line. Renshaw was left out of the Australian World Championships team for 2011 as well, sparking speculation that Renshaw is being deliberately shunned. The 29-year-old is known for being a bit explosive and controversial – he was sent home from the 2010 Tour de France after a well-publicised headbutting incident with Kiwi Julian Dean. It has also been posited that Renshaw’s signing with the Dutch team Rabobank rather than the new Australian team Orica-GreenEDGE is the reason the sprinter has been left out of the Worlds and Olympic teams. Interestingly enough, of the five riders selected for the Olympic team, Stuart O’Grady, Matt Goss and Simon Gerrans all ride for Orica-GreenEDGE, Cadel Evans is the first Australian winner of the Tour de France, and Michael Rogers is an all-around Australian favourite. In saying that, almost half of the Australian pros are signed to GreenEDGE, so a certain amount of GreenEDGE-domination is to be expected.

But there’s another glaring omission in the Australian roster – and a GreenEDGE one at that. Luke Durbridge is the reigning Australian time trial champion, and in particular the only Australian to have beaten Bradley Wiggins in a time trial while Wiggins has been in his current brilliant form. 21-year-old Durbridge won the time trial prologue of the Critérium du Dauphiné just prior to the Tour de France ahead of riders like Wiggins, World Time Trial Champion Tony Martin, French National Time Trial Champion Sylvain Chavanel and, yes, Cadel Evans. Granted, Durbridge is young, but his time-trialling abilities speak for themselves, and he’s proven himself as a domestique throughout his debut season with GreenEDGE.

So why aren’t Renshaw and Durbridge on the team, then? In fact, why is there only one pure sprinter on the team – Gossy – when Australia boasts a pretty good arsenal of sprinters like Heinrich Haussler or Adam Hansen who could help Gossy give Mark Cavendish a run for his money? Australia’s team is simply not geared towards winning a gold medal; rather, each appointment to the team was a political move to pacify and acknowledge Australian cycling’s heads of state. It’s a noble intention, certainly, but someone needs to tell the AOC and Cycling Australia that the Olympic Games is the wrong place for playing politics.

Tour Down Under - Stage 5

This was it - the queen stage.  The one all the riders had been waiting for.  The one everyone said would be the decider - Willunga Hill.

The break went fairly early, and by the time it reached the township of Willunga, which the race would pass through five times during the day, nine kilometres from the depart, the six riders - Stuart O'Grady, GreenEDGE; Nathan Haas, Garmin-Barracuda; Thomas de Gendt, Vacansoleil-DCM; Andrew Fenn, Omega Pharma-Quickstep; Takashi Miyazawa, Saxobank; and Kristof Goddaert, AG2R La Mondiale, had a minute on the peloton.  O'Grady in particular was popular with the Australian crowd, eliciting a loud cheer as he rode past in his GreenEDGE jersey.  They continued picking up time on the unconcerned peloton, building up a lead that continued increasing as they made their way around the first lap.

The other teams were taking turns on the front of the peloton, BMC prominent in protecting the ochre jersey of Martin Kohler, as well as Movistar, clearly setting up their man Alejandro Valverde for a stage win and boost in the GC, and Rabobank.  The teams were having a minimal effect, though, as the six leaders raced through Willunga again with a lead that had ballooned out to seven minutes.  BMC clearly wasn't happy with this and put their collective foot down, stringing out the peloton as they reached Willunga and turned towards the beach on lap two.

Meanwhile, the leaders were reaching the first sprint point, but no-one was particularly interested in taking the points, Goddaert leading the break across the line to take first place with Fenn and O'Grady filling out the top three.  Despite the lack of sprinting at the sprint point, the gap to the peloton was still increasing, by now eight minutes ahead.  The peloton let it get out to almost 8:30 before they finally put the pedal down and started bringing the break in, Team Sky also joining the work at the front of the peloton, and by the time the leaders reached the feedzone in Willunga on lap three the gap had come down to around six minutes.

The leaders racing through their final lap of Willunga and McLaren Vale, Rabobank set up shop on the front of the peloton and increased the pace so much there were riders falling off the back.  Lampre-ISD had a small scare when their GC contender, Matt Lloyd, who was also a chance of winning the day's stage, fell off the back with the other riders, and his teammates had to drop back to help return him to the peloton.

There were only five in the break by the time they reached the second sprint point, Goddaert having fallen off the back with a mechanical problem, and this time it was Thomas de Gendt who rolled over the line first, again no-one in the break interested in contesting.  As O'Grady and Fenn agained clean up the top three points on offer, the gap continued going down, the only respite when the peloton swept through the feed station.  It was down to about 2:30 as the breakaway started up Willunga Hill for the first time, the race finally getting exciting as the peloton tried to catch them in time to set up the showdown that everyone was anticipating between the major GC contenders.

It was Nathan Haas who made the first move, attacking the break on the way up the hill and holding a lead of a couple of hundred metres as the peloton entered Willunga for the first ascent of the hill.  Thanks to the high pace-making from teams like BMC and Rabobank the peloton was now in two with a gap between and Steele von Hoff in no man's land between thanks to a crash.  On the front of the peloton Movistar's David Lopez attacked, taking GreenEDGE's Simon Gerrans and Lampre's Matty Lloyd, amongst others, with him as he tried to bridge the gap to the breakaway.

Lopez and entourage managed to catch the four poursuivants, Haas remaining defiant off the front of the bunch and claiming the maximum points for cresting the first King of the Mountain point in the lead, his chasers 50 seconds behind.  Still refusing to give up as the peloton rippled and shifted into groups behind him, Haas kept fighting until the nearest group of 30 riders, including Gerrans, race leader Martin Kohler and other favourites for the stage finally swamped him.

Then it was back around to Willunga for the final race up the hill, UniSA's Rohan Dennis making a storm as he escaped from the front group in a breakaway with Sky's Danny Pate, Radioshack Nissan Trek's Hayden Roulston and Movistar's Jose Ivan Gutierrez.  The breakaway soon dissipating on the slope, it was Dennis and Radioshack's Tiago Machado leading the way on the final climb up Willunga, before the front group of eager stage contenders caught them just as Simon Gerrans made his move, shadowed by Movistar's Valverde.

The two were neck and neck as they turned the final corner, the home crowd cheering enthusiastically for National Champion Gerro, only to have their hopes disappointed as Spanish sprinter Valverde's bike wheel pipped Gerro's by half a length.  Sky's Michael Rogers, trailing the pair since they left the group, chased them across the line for third.

But the real enigma of the win was the times of Gerrans and Valverde.  While Gerrans began the day four seconds ahead of Valverde in the GC, Gerrans only received a time bonus on the finish of six seconds, four seconds less than Valverde.  As such the two were on equal time at the end of the day's stage, but the ochre leader's jersey will go to Gerrans, as Gerrans placed higher than Valverde within the bunch on the previous days' stages, and Valverde must outplace Gerrans to take the jersey.  So the question rests for tomorrow's final stage at the crit in Adelaide: will Valverde attack in the hopes of gaining a few more seconds tomorrow, or will GreenEDGE's defence of Gerran's ochre prove too strong?

Tour Down Under - Stage 1

Today was, for Australian cycling fans, a rather exciting day - the beginning of new Aussie ProTour team GreenEDGE's first World Tour race.  The Adelaide suburb of Prospect's streets were gratifyingly full, and the crowd was two or three people deep along the fence as the race started, some of cycling's big names rolling off as Eddy Merckx fired the starting gun.

It was a horribly hot day - Marcus Burghardt's description of its effect on human beings was 'boiling' - and as such sitting in Clare waiting 5 hours for the peloton to arrive didn't seem advisable.  Instead I offer a selection of photos from today's stage as well as the elite men's road race at the National Championships last weekend.

 

(In case you don't recognise them, the photos above are: with Stuart O'Grady from GreenEDGE at nationals; Mick Rogers from Team Sky signing on at nationals; GreenEDGE leading the peloton to the KOM at nationals; with Jeremy Roy from FDJ-Big Mat at TDU; with Jens Voigt from Radioshack-Nissan-Trek at TDU; with Hayden Roulston from Radioshack-Nissan-Trek at TDU; with Jesse Sergent from Radioshack-Nissan-Trek at TDU; with Geraint Thomas from Sky at TDU; with Mathew Hayman from Sky at TDU; Jens Voigt and Linus Gerdemann from Radioshack-Nissan-Trek prepping for stage one at the TDU; the beginning of stage one at TDU.)

Keep your eyes peeled for tomorrow's post from the stage two finish at Stirling!

The 2012 Australian National Championships - Elite Men's Road Race

Warm sun, a hint of rain and bagpipers under gum trees. It was classically Ballarat, and we couldn’t have had a better day for the Elite Men’s Road Race at the Australian National Road Race Championships.

The day’s action began long before the race. Riders began registering and signing on from around 11am, and astute fans packed the area by the start line to meet their heroes. GreenEDGE stars Stuart O’Grady and Matt Goss were heralded with cameras and autograph pens before making a graceful escape onto the track for their warm-ups, DS Matt White watching attentively nearby.

The journalists were also gearing up for the day. With a live broadcast of the race in the afternoon, the SBS broadcast van was already setting up for a busy Sunday, the day’s commentators, Phil Liggett and Matt Keenan, drifting quietly around the course.

It was extraordinarily exciting to see the peloton take off at the firing of the Sovereign Hill redcoat’s musket, ProTour team jerseys mixed in with local colours and the ever-present green of Australia’s own ProTour team of GreenEDGE. They raced away up the hill and around the corner towards the King of the Mountain banner, full of an enthusiasm that was destined to wane some time later.

Within a couple of laps the peloton had shrunk considerably, many of the local riders falling back on the hills. The European pros certainly weren’t being idle, with GreenEDGE’s Jack Bobridge launching an attack on the very first climb. Teammate Luke Durbridge and Garmin-Cervelo’s new recruit Nathan Haas were game to join, and they held off for a lap or two before the peloton came back. Then GreenEDGE team leader Stuart O’Grady decided to stretch his legs, and took former Leopard Trek teammate Will Clarke with him. Local boy Patrick Shaw put on a show for the hometown crowd and soon joined them. Garmin’s Heinrich Haussler didn’t like this scenario much, and put in the work that saw the break rejoined to the peloton.

By the fifth or sixth lap Mt. Buninyong, small though it was, had sorted the men from the boys and reduced the ‘peloton’ to a handful of riders chasing 20 or so big names that had gone off the front, never to return. Two or three laps later all the riders who would finish the race had migrated forward to join them, and soon enough the games began. Pat Shaw, Will Clarke (now riding for Team Champion System) and Luke Durbridge went on the attack again with new Rabobank sprinter Mark Renshaw and GreenEDGE’s Wes Sulzberger and Matt Wilson, and the six were soon joined by 2010 National Champion Cameron Meyer. Wilson and Meyer attacked and built themselves a lead of over a minute on their pursuers, before Wilson tired and dropped back after a lap. Then began the time trial that held the spectators spellbound.

Cam Meyer launched himself into a solo ride that lasted for 40 or 50 kilometres, building a gap of over two minutes back to the poursuivants of Heinrich Haussler and Luke Durbridge, and three minutes back to the main peloton. Back at the GreenEDGE tent, directeur sportif Matt White was instructing his riders in the peloton to keep the pace low to give Meyer’s stunning breakaway the best chance of success.

Of course, solo rides were not limited to the pro peloton. One of the spectators leaning on his bike near the King of the Mountain point had ridden from the eastern suburbs of Melbourne yesterday all the way to Ballarat just to watch today’s race. “It was hard,” he said with a grin of his 120-kilometre ride. But he immediately agreed that the effort was worth it to watch the top cyclists in Australia compete. “Oh, yes,” he said appreciatively as a few more riders made their way up Mt. Buninyong.

Back on the road, Meyer had an ‘explosion’, as he later described it, and was caught and later dropped by the peloton riding through. Simon Gerrans immediately took over the attack, Lampre-ISD’s Matt Lloyd and Sky’s Richie Porte following. Next it was the turn of Baden Cooke (GreenEDGE) and Will Clarke again, Richie Porte chasing that attack too. The attacks fading, the peloton regrouped as it hit the final two laps, but GreenEDGE was soon on the aggressive again, Stuey O’Grady leaping out the front, trailed by Sky’s Mathew Hayman. After the pair was pulled back into the fold on the climb, Matt Lloyd went again, Simon Gerrans following closely. The two pulled away, soon caught by the chasers of Porte and Bernie Sulzberger, while Baden Cooke and Garmin-Chipotle’s Steele von Hoff bridged the gap. It was another short-lived breakaway, and the 18 leading riders were back in a bunch as they began the crucial final 10-kilometre lap.

Team Sky’s four Australian riders appeared at the head of the peloton, suddenly looking very organised and very dangerous despite their small numbers. Though GreenEDGE started the race with 16, a number of those pulled out around halfway, including defending champion Jack Bobridge. The numbers were beginning to even up, but in the end neither of the big teams made the move. Matty Lloyd attacked on the final climb, Gerrans following him, and Porte chasing them both. Lloyd and Gerrans managed to keep around 30 seconds between themselves and Porte as they scooted around the final half of the course, the tension in the air palpable as 20,000 people watched to see how it would play out.

Ever a good time-trialler, Porte closed the gap on the leading pair and joined them with barely a kilometre left in the race. The three played coy with each other all the way down the final 500 metres, eyeing each other as they danced on their pedals, until Gerrans, tipped as the best sprinter of the trio, shot out from behind Lloyd and bolted across the line to win his first elite national title. The crowd, cheering ecstatically as Gerrans rode triumphantly past chased by a scrum of journalists, offered the same acclamation to the handful of riders trickling over the line to finish the race shortly after, including silver medallist Lloyd and bronze medallist Porte.

Gerrans' national title becomes the first victory on the GreenEDGE men’s team; the women opened their championships account on Thursday with two golds and a silver. With any luck this will be a propitious start to the season for Australia’s first home-grown ProTour team.

Green Team, Seasoned Riders

So yes, it's about time for another GreenEDGE update.  No matter how hard I try to keep up, they're always one step ahead of me, signing up every rider they can find, particularly the Aussies.  There are, quite literally, only three Aussies in the ProTour peloton not riding for GreenEDGE, and about 10 or 12 who are!  Because it's simply easier in the sheer numbers with which I'm now working (credit to Shayne Bannan and Andrew Ryan for getting my fingers this run down), I'll list the riders joining Australia's new national team:

AUSTRALIANS

Jack Bobridge                                                 (Garmin-Cervelo)

Simon Clarke                                                  (Astana) 

Baden Cooke                                                   (Saxobank-Sungard)

Allan Davis                                                      (Astana)

Simon Gerrans                                               (Sky)

Matt Goss                                                       (HTC-Highroad)

Leigh Howard                                                 (HTC-Highroad)

Brett Lancaster                                              (Garmin-Cervelo)
Robbie McEwen                                             (Radioshack)

Cameron Meyer                                             (Garmin-Cervelo)

Travis Meyer                                                  (Garmin-Cervelo)

Stuart O'Grady                                               (Leopard Trek)

Wes Sulzberger                                               (FDJ)

Matt Wilson                                                     (Garmin-Cervelo)

OVERSEAS

Michael Albasini                                              (HTC-Highroad - Switzerland)

Fumiyuki Beppu                                             (Radioshack - Japan)

Jens Keukeleire                                              (Cofidis - Belgium)

Sebastian Langeveld                                      (Rabobank - Holland)

Jens Mouris                                                     (Vacansoleil - Holland)

Daniel Teklehaymanot                                   (neo - Eritrea)

Svein Tuft                                                        (Spidertech-C10 - Canada)

Tomas Vaitkus                                               (Astana - Lithuania)

Pieter Weening                                               (Rabobank - Holland)

The updates are coming in from GreenEDGE HQ thick and fast - every couple of days now.  There are even mock-ups of the team jersey floating around the ether, though it's unlikely to remain unchanged.  The big news on which everyone is now waiting is the announcement of whether GreenEDGE has a corporate sponsor in the wider community.  It's almost surprising, given how ready this team is looking, that someone hasn't already snaffled up the opportunity to put Oz well and truly on the world cycling map.

The Team with the EDGE

The more I hear, the more I'm convinced: this is certainly Australia's year in cycling.  Despite being all the way "Down Under", we're following up a maiden Tour de France win with our own first-ever ProTour cycling team - and what a bloody good team it's shaping up to be!

Despite the transfer season still not having opened, news is filtering through the cognoscenti of the line-up of the new Aussie team, which since the last update seems to include every Australian rider on the ProTour circuit.

Rumours were floating about the two big Aussie names the team was looking to sign - Robbie McEwen and Stuey O'Grady.  While not a peep has been heard from the Radioshack sprinter, Leopard Trek's O'Grady has indeed signed to GreenEDGE and is probably looking forward to riding in his national team for the first time ever.  As suspected, young Tassie rider Richie Porte has re-signed with Team Saxobank Sungard, and as expected BMC's Cadel Evans has also renewed his contract there.

But almost every other Aussie in the professional peloton seems to be jumping on board.  Two of my three top picks of the young Aussies were announced as being headhunted by GreenEDGE, and to my utter delight all three of them have been signed!  Jack Bobridge and brother team Cameron and Travis Meyer, who have more world titles between them than I can remember anymore (four, I think - two to Cameron and one to each of the others) have all jumped ship from Team Garmin-Cervelo to GreenEDGE, where I'm hopeful at least one of them will be given the chance to make their debut in a grand tour.

While all these signings were foreshadowed if not expected, a new name has appeared on the radar - Simon Gerrans!  Team Sky's 'Gerro' is returning to home soil with his national team.  As for the other Aussies, Mark Renshaw has left the folding HTC-Highroad team to join Dutch team Rabobank but there is no word on the rest, meaning riders like Matty Goss are still up for grabs.

There are of course a few international riders who've also been signed.  Promising young Eritrean neo Daniel Teklehaymanot was the very first rider to join the team, while Dutch talents Pieter Weening and Sebastian Langeveld have both left their national team to help boost GreenEDGE's Spring Classics profile.

Ironically enough, in their guide to rider transfers for this season, Cycling News had to retrospectively add GreenEDGE to the list of teams signing riders due to the large number of riders they were pinching from the other teams.  All bar one of these teams are ProTour teams who rode the Tour de France this year.  Is it just me, or is this a very promising omen for EDGE?

The Edge of News: GreenEDGE Cycling

Though the transfer season doesn't officially start until September 1st, most riders have their contracts for the following year sussed by the end of the Tour de France, as do most teams with their roster.  This year there was another team on the hunt in France - GreenEDGE, the ambitious Australian cycling team looking to get off the ground for next year.

The project's management team were scouting all the Aussie talent on the WorldTour circuit at this year's Tour, with the intention that Australians make up 80% of the team's cyclists.  Much to the delight of eager fans, word is already beginning to leak of the potential team roster prior to the official announcements in September.

The biggest win for the Aussie team is the signing of the Luxembourg team Leopard Trek's 2011 Tour road captain, Stuey O'Grady.  Acknowledged as one of the smartest and most experienced heads in the peloton, the Tour de France and WorldTour veteran has been named as the head of the Australian National Team for the London 2012 Olympics and will likely be team leader or road captain at GreenEDGE.

The other big name tipped to be lining up in green in Australia's own triple-green jersey.  Though having denied it for the past few days, Robbie McEwen of American team Radioshack is said to be switching to the Australian team as well.  McEwen is more likely to join in a management role, having announced 2011 to be his final professional season.

A disappointing hit and miss for the team has been young Tasmanian Richie Porte.  The 26-year-old, who made his Tour de France debut this year, has shown increasing skill in the individual time trial, coming fourth to World Time Trial Champion Fabian Cancellara in last year's  Road World Championships, and bettering that in this year's Tour de France individiual time trial stage by coming 5th ahead of Cancellara's 8th.  Alas for GreenEDGE, Porte has renewed his contract with Danish team Saxobank-Sungard.

Word is also spreading of the untested young blood that GreenEDGE is seeking.  Of the number of Australians signed to WorldTour teams, not all are racing at the highest level yet, and of these GreenEDGE has two of my top three young Aussie picks in their sights.  Jack Bobridge is a former under-23 world champion and Cameron Meyer is Australian national time trial champion, while his younger brother Travis, despite not being in GreenEDGE's radar, is the former national road race champion.  All three ride for Team Garmin-Cervelo, and none have yet made their debut at a grand tour.  There has also been mention of Garmin's Australian directeur sportif, Matt White, who could be persuaded to follow his young countrymen across to their new national team.

The closer we get to the beginning of the transfer season and a new season of cycling, the more exciting and real it becomes that Australia is finally beginning to ruffle its feathers on the world stage of this beautiful sport.  A Tour de France winner and a potential national team all in one year - who would have thought?