Les Championnats du Monde: Copenhague 2011 (Course en Ligne)

Le contre-la-montre n’est pas une course. C’est une bataille entre les volontés des coureurs, entre la volonté et les pieds de chaque coureur. C’est une opportunité à voir qui peut se motiver le meilleur. Mais un contre-la-montre est court, et c’est individuel. Bien que j’aime la contre-la-montre, je préfère voir les tactiques et la rivalité directe de la course en ligne. Et quand c’est les meilleurs coureurs du monde qui rivalisent pour le prix du maillot arc-en-ciel, c’est la plus meilleure rivalité du monde.

En la première année de la catégorie «Junior», rien spectaculaire n’est venu de la course des femmes juniors. Peut-être l’année prochaine, vainqueur Lucy Garner de Grande-Bretagne rivalisera dans la course des femmes élites ou gagnera une course pro, mais à ce moment-là, les noms de ces femmes ne sont pas familiers. Ce n’est pas vrai pour les femmes élites. En effet, ils sont très familiers, car Georgia Bronzini, d’Italie, et Marianne Vos, du Pays-Bas, se sont placées première et deuxième l’année dernière aussi! Cette année, Ina Teutenberg, d’Allemagne, a complété le trio sur le podium. Un résultat un peu étrange, peut-être, mais c’est très clair qui est la meilleur coureuse dans le peloton féminin.

Les hommes juniors n’ont pas des noms familiers. Ces hommes ont moins de 18 ans, et bien que les hommes ne fassent rien remarquable maintenant, ils sont le futur des courses comme le Tour de France. Donc, sur cette note, faire le guet pour Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier, Martijn Degreve et Steven Lammertink, qui ont gagné les trois places premières avec trois seconds sur les autres coureurs. Et, de façon intéressante, malgré ses bons résultats dans les contre-la-montres, les australiens ne font pas très bien dans les courses en ligne. Même dans les hommes moins de 23 ans, australien Michael Hepburn s’est placé 21ème, et France a gagné les deux places premières et Grande-Bretagne le troisième.

«Garder le meilleur pour la fin» est le proverbe, et l’UCI le fait certainement dans les Championnats du Monde. La course plus intéressante, la plus fortement disputé, c’est la course en ligne des hommes élites, qui est toujours en le dernier jour des Championnats. La course cette année a été décrit par les coureurs comme totalement plat avec plusieurs tours et pas de cols, les conditions parfaites pour un sprint du groupe.

Mais malgré le type de course, il y avait une échappée, quand Lars Boom de Pays-Bas a échappé du peloton et fait la course seulement pour beaucoup de kilomètres. Mais les pays qui ont des bons sprinteurs ne l’a pas permis. En les derniers tours de piste le peloton a attrapé Boom pour avoir une possibilité d’un sprint à la fin. Et bien sûr, il y avait un bon sprint, avec l’équipe australien faisant beaucoup de travail pour son sprinteur, Matt Goss. Même les Brits avec son sprinteur, le porteur du maillot vert du Tour de France, Mark Cavendish, ne peuvent pas préparer son train de sprint. Mais quand «le missile Manx» a les pieds, le missile Manx a les pieds, et personne ne peut l’arrêter. Il a sprinté de la roue arrière de Goss, qui s’est placé deuxième, et gagné son premier titre mondial.

Mais le drame n’a pas terminé là. Il y avait une égalité pour troisieme place! Fabian Cancellara, champion suisse en ligne, et Andre Greipel, le sprinteur allemand, ont traversé l’arrivée au même temps exactement! Après quelques minutes, le médaille bronze a été attribué à Andre Greipel, et Cancellara s’est placé quatrième. Avec cette fin du Championnats, j’attends avec impatience les Championnats 2012 à Limburg, Pays-Bas!

The Media Cycle

This is an old article,  written whilst working as the Press Conference Co-ordinator in the Media Centre at the 2010 UCI World Championships in Geelong, Australia.  Bon appetit!

The Media Cycle

"I'm off to interview Matti now," the Danish journalist says to me on her way out the Media Centre door. "Shall I say hello to him from you?"

She is, of course, talking about Matti Breschel, a cyclist on the Pro-Tour team of Saxobank and one of the top cyclists on the world circuit.  I give the journalist a very enthusiastic ‘yes’ as she pushes the glass door open in front of her and heads off to her interview.

This particular journalist is only one of around 100 journalists and photographers floating around the Media Centre at Deakin University’s Waterfront Campus in Geelong.  Reporters from all over Australia and many more from countries as diverse as Luxembourg, Brazil, Italy and Japan have gathered here to watch the 2010 UCI Road World Cycling Championships, the most prestigious event in world road cycling, second only to the Tour de France itself.  Like all the rest, she has been here since Monday or Tuesday; like all the rest, she won’t be leaving until everything is over and the news has moved elsewhere, late on Sunday night.

The UCI, or l’Union Cycliste Internationale (International Cycling Union in English), is the official governing body of world cycling, both track and road.  Its most well-known role is as the administrator of the Road World Championships, the annual contest of the best riders in world cycling competing for cycling’s second most coveted prize, the Rainbow Jersey.  Though the UCI was founded in April 1900, making its headquarters in Aigle, Switzerland, the Road World Championships were first held in 1927, with the individual time-trial championships being added in 1994.  Since then there have only been 11 winners of the time trial - Jan Ullrich took out two titles in 1999 and 2001, but this year all eyes were on the only two riders who are three-time World Time-Trial Champions: Australia’s own Michael Rogers, for the first time riding the Championships on home soil, and Switzerland’s defending champion Fabian Cancellara, each hoping to secure an unprecedented fourth title for his country.

Rogers certainly didn’t disappoint the home crowd, whipping around to finish his two laps of the course in one hour and 34 seconds and take the leader’s position from Spain’s Luis-Léon Sanchez.  The excitement built a second time as Australia’s final rider, Richie Porte, left the start line two minutes before Fabian Cancellara, but the Swiss proved too fast for the two Aussie boys and showed the world once again why he is the Time-Trial Champion.  Finishing in just over 58 minutes, Cancellara entered the history books as the first rider ever to win four world titles in the time-trial, as well as the first rider to win two world titles back-to-back – twice (2006/2007, 2009/2010).

History is another major aspect of the race for the media.  As the results came through for the under-23 men’s road race, the television commentators became rather confused.  Though the gold medal had undoubtedly gone to Australia’s Michael Matthews, and no-one disputed that Germany had won silver, the bronze medal was a lot less clear.  “We’ll have to wait for the official announcement, but it looks like they have the same time on our screens,” the distinctive voice of Phil Liggett intoned on the live broadcast.  Media directors sent volunteers scrambling for the books as journalists began clamouring to know the last time in world cycling history that a dead heat had been called for a podium position.  Such an event is so rare that even the official Media Guide, a publication distributed to journalists with profiles of the riders and details of the course as well as tables and statistics for all previous years and winners, didn’t have a listing for it.  The USA’s Taylor Phinney and Canada’s Guillaume Boivin made history in under-23 men’s cycling with their identical time.  The following day, the Media Centre had copies of the photo finish available for distribution to the journalists, showing the wheels of the two bikes both nudging the line.

By Sunday morning, the day of the biggest and final climactic race – the Elite Men’s Road Race – the desks in the Media Centre were littered with similar sheets of paper, proclaiming the winners of all the previous races, detailing the histories of the winners, and advising the media of progress in the doping investigations.  Even as the world’s best competed for gold in Geelong, four Spanish cyclists, including current Tour de France winner Alberto Contador, were implicated in illegal drug use, with three riders being suspended and Contador under investigation.  For the journalists who have followed cycling for several years, it was shades of 2006, where the winner, America’s Floyd Landis, eventually admitted to doping in the Tour and was stripped of his yellow jersey, which was instead handed to the runner-up, Oscar Freire Gomez of Spain.  At a press conference the previous day, the president of the UCI, Pat McQuaid, refused to answer questions about Contador’s case.

“There’s an ongoing result management process happening that I can’t comment on; let’s just wait for the result,” he replied to the insistent questions of the media.

Should Contador be found guilty of doping and stripped of his title, the honour of the yellow jersey would fall to Luxembourg’s Andy Schleck, the winner of the white jersey competition for the past three years and one of the favourites for the Tour de France title, along with the 2009 World Champion, Australia’s Cadel Evans.  Winning last year’s World Championships in Mendrisio, Switzerland, barely five minutes down the road from his European home, this year Cadel is back to defend his rainbow jersey, just 20 minutes down the road from his Australian home in Barwon Heads.  Though losing his chance at Tour de France glory this year from a fractured elbow in a crash, his form has otherwise been very good, and for the home crowd excited to see the World Championships on Australian turf, there is but one question on everyone’s lips: can Cadel do it again?

The morning after our first meeting, the Danish journalist passes the Media Centre reception desk again.  “How’d your interview with Matti go?  Was he nice?”  I ask.

“Oh, it went OK,” the journalist replies.  “He was really cool about it.  Matti has a great sense of humour.”  She grins at me, knowing my particular interest in the Danish rider.  “You should have come along!”

I smile.  “Oh, if only I could have.”