Somewhere over the rainbow.

Genius, pure genius.

Oh, look, some cycling other than 'The return' has taken place. I really should mention the worlds, shouldn't I.
Unlucky on Ben Swift, 4th in the U23 is no disgrace, especially when the winner shouldn't actually be riding, still if you get caught doping it's nice to have a friendly National association to say it's OK to carry on riding. Oh look Duarte Arevalo's case is making a come back, what are the chances of a bronze for Swifty before the years out?
Over on the Womens race - brilliant, there is no other word. Olympic gold and rainbow jersey in the space of a few weeks, wow, The final selection was impressive and to win from Vos, Arndt and Worrack is amazing. You would have thought the Germans would have had the edge and indeed tactically they did all they could, but Nicole was the epitome of cool waiting until the final 100 and thank you very much, a pure joy to watch. The addition of a team to back her up has paid massive dividends for Nicole. It's been an unbelievable psychological boost for her and she's now riding with so much more self belief she's almost unstoppable. Tactically as well she seems more relaxed, playing the waiting game, when a few years ago she might have done too much work and lost out. Like Cav, Nicole is quick to praise and thank her team, in my opinion a mark of not just a great rider, but that of a fine human being as well. It will be a pleasure to watch Nicole race in the rainbow jersey next season.
Take those victories Nicole has had, TdF twice, tour of Italy, 2 World cups, Flanders etc etc and give them to a man and the world would say here's one of the all time greats, so maybe it's about time certain cycling mags featured Britain's greatest rider a little more eh?

The bad, the sad and the return.

Having spent a week away from all internet related activity and therefore any cycling news the only thing I have found out is that Ricco has had a two year ban slapped on him, still on the plus side I bet he's already training hard for his comeback, it'll be interesting to see where toxic boy goes. July 30th 2010 - stick it your diary folks. There was a rumor that he'd spilt the beans, grassed up his dealer or whatever, but as yet no news on that front. I'm waiting for the French police to put the boot in and chuck him in the slammer for six months with a big burly Parisian called Claude who has a thing for skinny climbers, which of course will stand him in good stead on his return and any future out of the saddle action.

Good to see Puerto has been closed, again, now by my reckoning that's four times it's been officially closed. That's the trouble these days, everything is making a comeback, I'll predict that by mid July the Festina affair would be on the comeback trail.

Now, that young Lance Armstrong, he may well have pronounced that he thinks it's time to 'move on' but guess what? Yep, no one else thinks so. His return was referred to as "embarrassing", to which Lancey responded "Not to mention that my team of 25 riders over those seven years was also never found to be positive." indeed so, but since then some have been caught drinking from the fountain of eternal youth (so to speak) and some have 'fessed up (as I believe Americans call it) to doping, that's the embarrassing bit, surely, or maybe not.
Meanwhile Jan Ulrich, remember him? thinks Lance can win the tour, er.... well he didn't have much trouble against the pie master when he was racing did he....

Toxic Waste

The US government is resolving the world economic crisis by buying up toxic investments. This is quite similar to the operation of several cycling teams that seem to be buying up toxic riders. Rock Racing (here to stay, yeah, right, I'll give it another year)springs to mind here, but there are others, I'll let you form your own list.