Cycling in 2006

Cycling in 2006!

This was an important year for road cycling, didn't follow much the MTB, it also marked a different year in my personal cycling, more pointed towards road than MTB. Not that I changed my preferences, I like them both, but I got a road bike this year so it tasted more like "new toy" kind of stuff :-)

Back to the professionals!

First year without Lance, even though he was only racing the tour and the preparatory races to it, it was weird not seeing him there.

The "Operacion Puerto" shacked the whole scenario of road with a doping scandal and preventively suspending one day before the beginning of the tour: Jan Ulrich on his "promised year", the first without Lance Armstrong, Ivan Basso, who after winning the Giro in a very brave fashion, was one of the favorites and the whole Team Astana (previously Liberty Seguros - Wurth).

After this whole mess, Landys wins the tour and is accused of doping in his phoenix style rebirth at the 17th stage, after the terrible stage where he lost time enough to all the specialists to say his tour was over. Now he's defending himself also based on some mistakes the tour organizers and the UCI made during his prosecution.

The black mark on all this is that only the riders are being punished, actually "pre-punished", since the investigation still didn't prove anything against anyone.

The riders supposably involved in the "Operacion Puerto" are all suspended, even though most of them were already cleared by their own federations. That is the case of Basso, who signed with Discovery Channel and the other ProTour teams are trying to prevent him from racing, even threatening to exclude the DSC from the ProTour.

On the other hand, Manolo Saiz, who's in the very heart of the whole scandal got back his ProTour license and is puttinga new team there. So, riders get pre-punished, directors keep their privileges and do whatever they wanna do, making clear who runs the whole thing.

In my personal opinion, while the directors and physicians don't get punished, only riders, the doping problems will always be an issue. Not that the riders are not guilty, but not the only ones.

Bright side of the year.

Victory of Basso in the tour, the amazing duel between Vinokurov and Valverde in the Vuelta and the great year of Paolo Bettini.

Never been a fan of Bettini, but this year I became. Always had a bad impression of his behaviour, too conceded for my taste, but all I saw this year was "good behaviour", with the fans,with the press, with the other riders. He's got the sprinter jersey (maglia ciclamino - my favorite) in the Giro, got the World championship in a impressive victory against Erik Zabel, and had a good performance in all the other races. According to him, he already won all he wanted in cycling! I got impressed with his victory in the first stage of the Giro 2005, with avery well calculated attack taking Petacchi and the Fassa Bortolo train totally out of action!!

Of course Valverde, who won the ProTour white shirt as first inthe ProTour Ranking and finished third in the World championship.

For further comments I'd remark the terrible year of Petacchi with the fall in the Giro that broke his knee cap and after with the stupid angry punch that broke his finger in the Vuelta. I really hope he recovers mentally to the next year, he's still my favorite sprinter! I had the pleasure of being in the finish line when he won the Niedersachsen Rundfahrt (Tour of Lower Saxony, the region I live in Germany), actually he won 5 out of 5 stages!

Another good performances were the one from Carlos Sastre, who helped Basso to win the Giro, and had good performances at the Tour and Vuelta. 2007 he's the CSC captain! And Pereiro, the second place in the tour (winner if Landys get banned), even though some friends think it was a careless move of the peloton! Least but not last, Zabel in his almost retiring year, he's gonna stay one more year to be world champion :-)

So! That's my biased view of the whole thing, the view of someone that's just starting to appreciate that sport, hoping that 2007 will be a cleaner and more organized year to the sport! Also hoping for the best regarding our brasilian riders, at leastfor Pagliarini and Fisher!