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General News Thread

Page 136 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
May 6, 2009
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Fundertaker said:
The thing is... they should have at least let it be televised this year, otherwise it won't get ANY exposition at all. Yeah, diehard cycling fans may know about it and it's one of those great small stage races in the beggining of the year that has a bit of everything (so many WT teams want to race there) but the promoters and the tourism association make absolutely no effort to promote for years. No TV, barely registers on sports newspapers (and it doesn't register on the regular ones), no internet promotion, nothing.

It's a big shame though, as it would be the one Portuguese race that I could see eventually going to the WT. Now we'll get a bunch of mediocre races with our Conti teams all year. The spectacle!

I have never understood the attitude in cycling. How are people going to get exposure for their race and keep getting sponsors to cough up cash if there is nothing in it for you? Why spend money if your band won't be on TV. Same with RAI with Emilia, Piedmont etc., never any decent coverage or stream? WTF.

No wonder they are ****ed financially.
 
craig1985 said:
I have never understood the attitude in cycling. How are people going to get exposure for their race and keep getting sponsors to cough up cash if there is nothing in it for you? Why spend money if your band won't be on TV. Same with RAI with Emilia, Piedmont etc., never any decent coverage or stream? WTF.

No wonder they are ****ed financially.

The other thing is that, as Portuguese cycling goes, this is one of the very few opportunities (now that the GP CTT Correios is no more, and the others like the GP Paredes Rota dos Móveis and Volta ao Alentejo have dropped from 2.1 to 2.2) for foreign professional names to show up in Portugal; it's the one time in the year to showcase the likes of Alberto Contador on Portuguese roads (unless somewhere is willing to cough up for the Vuelta, which I would LOVE as it might help reignite the Portuguese spark for the sport), especially with the Volta's fields suffering so heavily in the last three or four years or so, mostly due to the death of many Spanish pro-Continental teams that used to contest it (Relax-GAM, Fuerteventura-Canarias, Xacobeo-Galicía, Spiuk and their ilk).

Maybe shortening the race, or doing some circuits around the host cities, could be a solution to make it more appealing. But it's not the best time of year for the public's consciousness to be on cycling I guess, since the demise of the very strong Liberty Seguros team the national teams do little but get in the break of the day each day, and if RTP aren't showing it it's tucked away on Eurosport at best, so it's not exactly surprising.
 
Sep 30, 2011
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Libertine Seguros said:
The other thing is that, as Portuguese cycling goes, this is one of the very few opportunities (now that the GP CTT Correios is no more, and the others like the GP Paredes Rota dos Móveis and Volta ao Alentejo have dropped from 2.1 to 2.2) for foreign professional names to show up in Portugal; it's the one time in the year to showcase the likes of Alberto Contador on Portuguese roads (unless somewhere is willing to cough up for the Vuelta, which I would LOVE as it might help reignite the Portuguese spark for the sport), especially with the Volta's fields suffering so heavily in the last three or four years or so, mostly due to the death of many Spanish pro-Continental teams that used to contest it (Relax-GAM, Fuerteventura-Canarias, Xacobeo-Galicía, Spiuk and their ilk).

Maybe shortening the race, or doing some circuits around the host cities, could be a solution to make it more appealing. But it's not the best time of year for the public's consciousness to be on cycling I guess, since the demise of the very strong Liberty Seguros team the national teams do little but get in the break of the day each day, and if RTP aren't showing it it's tucked away on Eurosport at best, so it's not exactly surprising.

I believe the promoters even had a proposition from Eurosport to air a "highlights" of the day for Algarve, but they even rejected that. I mean, sure, it would probably be on the wee hours of the night and would be passed by the general Portuguese population, but even the Volta gets that treatment nowadays. Other thing is that they used to have Algarve on national TV. It's probably the one other Portuguese race I remember seeing on TV other than the Volta. And now this happens. And I wouldn't be surprised, between RTP's privatization and cuts, that the Volta actually gets shafted from national TV this year.
 
Oct 17, 2010
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I believe Volta ao Algarve was on national TV this year...although it was one week later, in an highlights package.:eek:

It all depends on the public channel to be privatized (RTP1 ou 2) and on the direction the remaining channel will take. But I also don't have much hope of seeing Volta a Portugal keep his spot on the schedule. It might be just the last throw of the dice for the competition (as we know it).

Volta ao Algarve has managed to atract some of the best teams and riders of the sport along the way. It would be a shame to let it go and loose such a great opportunity for the region.
 
Sep 30, 2011
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canyonball said:
I believe Volta ao Algarve was on national TV this year...although it was one week later, in an highlights package.:eek:

Yeah, in the 4th most seen national TV channel (out of 4) smack dab in the middle of a multi-sports programming that barely anyone sees nowadays with the advent of sports-oriented cable channels. And those don't usually reach the half-hour mark. If 1000 people saw that, I would be surprised :p
 
According to a conversation Eisinga (from Rabobank) had with Velonation Gesink is already back on the bike and did 200km in 5 days recently. Too early to say if he can go to the training camp in december but it's clear his recovery is going way faster than the predicted 6 months.

If he keeps this up he will probably be in good shape by the time the important spring races start, and reaching the Tour in good form will not be a question
 
Dekker_Tifosi said:
According to a conversation Eisinga (from Rabobank) had with Velonation Gesink is already back on the bike and did 200km in 5 days recently. Too early to say if he can go to the training camp in december but it's clear his recovery is going way faster than the predicted 6 months.

If he keeps this up he will probably be in good shape by the time the important spring races start, and reaching the Tour in good form will not be a question

its really great to hear that :)
 
Dekker_Tifosi said:
According to a conversation Eisinga (from Rabobank) had with Velonation Gesink is already back on the bike and did 200km in 5 days recently. Too early to say if he can go to the training camp in december but it's clear his recovery is going way faster than the predicted 6 months.

If he keeps this up he will probably be in good shape by the time the important spring races start, and reaching the Tour in good form will not be a question

Wow, from what I gathered on here it looked like he might not be at the Tour even. Good news.
 
Norway will only get 3 riders in the 2012 Olympics. Before Tour of Beijing we had 5, but France could pass us with a top 7 in the overall which they obviously got. Ok, no problem, still 4 riders, right? There only possibility of getting less than 4 riders, was if someone from Switzerland should win Lombardia. Without Cancellara there, surely that was not going to happen...but no, Oliver Zaugg (insert trollface) came out of nowhere to get one of the most surprising monumental victories of this century, thus reducing Norway's quota from 4 to 3...
 
Feb 22, 2011
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Zinoviev Letter said:
Interesting interview with Dan Martin about his season, hopes for the future, allergies, tactics etc. He's quite amusing about what he describes as his tendency to attack first and think later.

http://www.youtube.com/user/VeloNationCycling#p/a/u/0/xGf2j4jlLd8

Yeah I love that about Dan, just attack attack and think later..makes for entertaining riding.

The second part is up now, http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/1...nd-Tour-podium-finish-a-realistic-target.aspx
 
maltiv said:
Norway will only get 3 riders in the 2012 Olympics. Before Tour of Beijing we had 5, but France could pass us with a top 7 in the overall which they obviously got. Ok, no problem, still 4 riders, right? There only possibility of getting less than 4 riders, was if someone from Switzerland should win Lombardia. Without Cancellara there, surely that was not going to happen...but no, Oliver Zaugg (insert trollface) came out of nowhere to get one of the most surprising monumental victories of this century, thus reducing Norway's quota from 4 to 3...

I wouldn't worry about it. Norway only sent 3 riders to the 2010 Worlds.