- Feb 20, 2010
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Haven't seen this posted yet.
According to this article, the Volta a Portugal this year will be "80-85%" the same as last year (sadly, A Volta is beginning to fall into the pitfalls of the Österreichrundfahrt). Race director Joaquim Gomes explained that due to a lack of finance and the race lasting "just" 11 days, areas such as Bragança, Alentejo and Algarve will continue to go unused, and the organisation had to work very hard to retain the opportunities to use the race's signature mountaintops, Monte Farinha (Alto de Srª da Graça) and Serra da Estrela (Alto da Torre).
The race will start in Castelo Branco and finish in Lisboa (this has been known for some time), and so it remains to be seen whether "80-85% the same" refers to the specifics of the route or just the stage towns, which would give them some opportunities to shake things up (assuming they're not going to put Torre straight away, that would imply an uphill finish in either Gouveia or Guarda on the first road stage heading towards a first mountaintop in Mondim de Basto, leaving Monte Assunção (I'm going to assume they're going to use Monte Assunção) until later on in the race when it can make for more interesting racing like in 2009). Gomes, however, has specified that there will be two new municipalities hosting stages, which will hopefully be somewhere that will enable them to add a bit of interest and utilise some of the terrain that goes unused in the country in recent years.
At the same time, as you can see here, some people just love cycling too much to let a little thing like bad publicity get in their way. José Antonio Sousa, CEO of Liberty Seguros in Portugal, is one of those people. And since his plans of bringing Liberty Seguros back to the Portuguese péloton as a professional team (their amateur teams are still going strong) in 2011 were thwarted by their seniors in America, Liberty Seguros have taken over from Lagos Sports as title sponsors of A Volta and the Camisola Amarela for the next two years.
The Volta runs from the 15th to the 26th of August - a week or so later than usual this year, due primarily to the Olympics. This has positives and negatives, of course.
Chief among them is that this means it will be running at the same time as the first week of the Vuelta a España. This means it is highly likely that the epic Alto da Torre stage will either go head to head with the pan-flat Motorland Aragón stage, or, perhaps more likely, the Andorra Coll de la Gallina stage. This could hurt the Volta's TV ratings, although there is a chance finish times will fall behind the Vuelta due to the times chosen for racing due to the insane heat that is one of A Volta's trademarks. Perhaps a masterstroke is that the most interesting Vuelta stage in that first week - Arrate - will be on the day the Volta has its rest day.
However, while going up against the Vuelta will no doubt hurt the Volta's TV audiences, and mean that Spanish ProContinental teams will not be so likely to put strong teams in (and with the activity in the Italian calendar at the time as well, may mean that for the first time in aeons Lampre are unable to attend - they always try to race the Volta due to a large sponsor presence in Portugal), there is a positive side to it - it means they are no longer going up head to head with the Vuelta a Burgos. This frees up a bunch of Spanish Continental teams and Italian ProContinental teams who have shown interest in the race in the past, or have raced it recently but not been able to due to competition with other races in the last year or two.
This article on jornalciclismo discusses the various potential targets for the race - Joaquim Gomes has said he is hoping for 14 teams to race the event (15 would be ideal, but 14 is the aim). Naturally, the four Portuguese teams (Efapel, Boavista, Carmim and LA-Antarte) are a given, as is a Portuguese national team. It seems that the lack of conflict with Burgos has worked well, with Burgos BH, Orbea and Gios-Deyser all looking to compete (Orbea will be particularly interesting of course), as well as Vuelta offcuts from Andalucía and Caja Rural. Caja Rural's team will likely go all out to win - news emanating from the camp is that Andre Cardoso will race the Vuelta, but because of his lesser recovery, Hernâni Broco - who has finished in the top 5 the last two years - will be their undisputed leader for the Volta. I look forward to seeing this.
Other options are Europcar, now that they are not doing the Vuelta, as their sponsors have a strong presence in Portugal, Acqua e Sapone, who were planning to enter last year's race but were forced to pull out after injuries left them too thinly spread across other areas, Lokosphinx, Itera-Katyusha and Bonitas, who have been doing several races in Iberia lately. It would certainly be interesting to see Evgeniy Shalunov in the race.
Also, not mentioned, Farnese Vini have entered the Volta for the last several years, so unless they obtain wildcards to some of the WT one-day races in the period, I would not be surprised to see them on the startlist. Similarly, Utensilnord could fit right in (especially with Bosisio and Vila...), and perhaps Chipotle again after their success at last year's race.
I had been thinking that the later start date would mean it no longer clashing with the Danmark Rundt, which could have meant Christina Watches, but the Danmark Rundt has also moved to the end of August because of the Olympics.
According to this article, the Volta a Portugal this year will be "80-85%" the same as last year (sadly, A Volta is beginning to fall into the pitfalls of the Österreichrundfahrt). Race director Joaquim Gomes explained that due to a lack of finance and the race lasting "just" 11 days, areas such as Bragança, Alentejo and Algarve will continue to go unused, and the organisation had to work very hard to retain the opportunities to use the race's signature mountaintops, Monte Farinha (Alto de Srª da Graça) and Serra da Estrela (Alto da Torre).
The race will start in Castelo Branco and finish in Lisboa (this has been known for some time), and so it remains to be seen whether "80-85% the same" refers to the specifics of the route or just the stage towns, which would give them some opportunities to shake things up (assuming they're not going to put Torre straight away, that would imply an uphill finish in either Gouveia or Guarda on the first road stage heading towards a first mountaintop in Mondim de Basto, leaving Monte Assunção (I'm going to assume they're going to use Monte Assunção) until later on in the race when it can make for more interesting racing like in 2009). Gomes, however, has specified that there will be two new municipalities hosting stages, which will hopefully be somewhere that will enable them to add a bit of interest and utilise some of the terrain that goes unused in the country in recent years.
At the same time, as you can see here, some people just love cycling too much to let a little thing like bad publicity get in their way. José Antonio Sousa, CEO of Liberty Seguros in Portugal, is one of those people. And since his plans of bringing Liberty Seguros back to the Portuguese péloton as a professional team (their amateur teams are still going strong) in 2011 were thwarted by their seniors in America, Liberty Seguros have taken over from Lagos Sports as title sponsors of A Volta and the Camisola Amarela for the next two years.
The Volta runs from the 15th to the 26th of August - a week or so later than usual this year, due primarily to the Olympics. This has positives and negatives, of course.
Chief among them is that this means it will be running at the same time as the first week of the Vuelta a España. This means it is highly likely that the epic Alto da Torre stage will either go head to head with the pan-flat Motorland Aragón stage, or, perhaps more likely, the Andorra Coll de la Gallina stage. This could hurt the Volta's TV ratings, although there is a chance finish times will fall behind the Vuelta due to the times chosen for racing due to the insane heat that is one of A Volta's trademarks. Perhaps a masterstroke is that the most interesting Vuelta stage in that first week - Arrate - will be on the day the Volta has its rest day.
However, while going up against the Vuelta will no doubt hurt the Volta's TV audiences, and mean that Spanish ProContinental teams will not be so likely to put strong teams in (and with the activity in the Italian calendar at the time as well, may mean that for the first time in aeons Lampre are unable to attend - they always try to race the Volta due to a large sponsor presence in Portugal), there is a positive side to it - it means they are no longer going up head to head with the Vuelta a Burgos. This frees up a bunch of Spanish Continental teams and Italian ProContinental teams who have shown interest in the race in the past, or have raced it recently but not been able to due to competition with other races in the last year or two.
This article on jornalciclismo discusses the various potential targets for the race - Joaquim Gomes has said he is hoping for 14 teams to race the event (15 would be ideal, but 14 is the aim). Naturally, the four Portuguese teams (Efapel, Boavista, Carmim and LA-Antarte) are a given, as is a Portuguese national team. It seems that the lack of conflict with Burgos has worked well, with Burgos BH, Orbea and Gios-Deyser all looking to compete (Orbea will be particularly interesting of course), as well as Vuelta offcuts from Andalucía and Caja Rural. Caja Rural's team will likely go all out to win - news emanating from the camp is that Andre Cardoso will race the Vuelta, but because of his lesser recovery, Hernâni Broco - who has finished in the top 5 the last two years - will be their undisputed leader for the Volta. I look forward to seeing this.
Other options are Europcar, now that they are not doing the Vuelta, as their sponsors have a strong presence in Portugal, Acqua e Sapone, who were planning to enter last year's race but were forced to pull out after injuries left them too thinly spread across other areas, Lokosphinx, Itera-Katyusha and Bonitas, who have been doing several races in Iberia lately. It would certainly be interesting to see Evgeniy Shalunov in the race.
Also, not mentioned, Farnese Vini have entered the Volta for the last several years, so unless they obtain wildcards to some of the WT one-day races in the period, I would not be surprised to see them on the startlist. Similarly, Utensilnord could fit right in (especially with Bosisio and Vila...), and perhaps Chipotle again after their success at last year's race.
I had been thinking that the later start date would mean it no longer clashing with the Danmark Rundt, which could have meant Christina Watches, but the Danmark Rundt has also moved to the end of August because of the Olympics.
- Aug 5, 2010
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I have seen those articles yesterday but to be honest after reading that the volta is still struggling big time with financial issues (which is to be expected in portugal at the moment) i lost any energy i had to post about it due to depression 
Is to be assumed that with those teams racing Rafael Reis, Amaru Antunes, Domingos Gonçalves and Joni Brandão will be racing the volta right?
I am not expecting anything from Rafael but Antunes has been performing well at an international level on the u-23 scene and he is only 21 IIRC and Domingos and Joni showed a very good level at the vuelta last year. From what i remember Domingos rode more conservatively so ended up ahead of Joni on the final GC but Joni was very active and visible on the mountain stages.
Is to be assumed that with those teams racing Rafael Reis, Amaru Antunes, Domingos Gonçalves and Joni Brandão will be racing the volta right?
I am not expecting anything from Rafael but Antunes has been performing well at an international level on the u-23 scene and he is only 21 IIRC and Domingos and Joni showed a very good level at the vuelta last year. From what i remember Domingos rode more conservatively so ended up ahead of Joni on the final GC but Joni was very active and visible on the mountain stages.
- May 15, 2011
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- May 15, 2011
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Bye Bye Bicycle said:Err... no? Not every cycling fan hails to the likes of Garzelli, Contador, Rebellin...
How can you not like Alberto? I mean, he's pretty awesome.
- May 15, 2011
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- May 15, 2011
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Correction to what I posted earlier (1 week ago-ish):
Alberto will ride the 174k long Tourmalet stage of the 2010 Tour on the 16th of May, not the 18th. However, the stage will be streamed online on the 18th of May from 11 am CET
Alberto will ride the 174k long Tourmalet stage of the 2010 Tour on the 16th of May, not the 18th. However, the stage will be streamed online on the 18th of May from 11 am CET
- Jul 16, 2010
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The Hitch said:
Winning San Remo is bigger than winning Pais Vasco. Besides, I think he's taking Gerrans' capabilities into consideration. Not many people would have thought Gerrans would win San Remo, but it's not really that big of a surprise to see Samu win Pais Vasco.
Also, he probably thinks his Tour Down Under win is also important. After all, he did beat Valverde and Contador has good memories from that race. Gerrans wasn't too shabby at Paris-Nice either, think he narrowly lost a sprint against Valverde. I'm glad he thinks the classics are important anyway. It's not all about stage races.
Nibali is also having a better year right now than Samu in my opinion. Won a stage in Oman, the queen stage in Tirreno-Adriatico and the overall, was third in Milan-San Remo and second in Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
Haha, Contador is pretty cool... OK, agree with Boonen, but Gerrans? Well, maybe...
But he mentioned Leipheimer doing a fine season... Well, he would have been second in Nice, but besides that, not much from him.
Contador forgot Wiggins... Wiggins, Boonen and OPQS, the three names for 2012 up to now.
Conti´s better in racing than in analyzing cycling, as it seems. But nice to hear from him.
But he mentioned Leipheimer doing a fine season... Well, he would have been second in Nice, but besides that, not much from him.
Contador forgot Wiggins... Wiggins, Boonen and OPQS, the three names for 2012 up to now.
Conti´s better in racing than in analyzing cycling, as it seems. But nice to hear from him.
- Jul 16, 2010
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He's probably just having a dig at Wiggins or doesn't really care that much for his performances thus far. After all, Paris-Nice and Romandie were stage races determined by the time trials and the racing was very poor. Don't think Berti is impressed too much with Wiggo getting beaten by Lieuwe Westra on Mende.
- May 15, 2011
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RHRH19861986 said:
Of course he didn't forget Wiggins. He just hates Wiggo because Wiggo hates him.
- May 15, 2011
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- May 15, 2011
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Froome19 said:
So? Does that make Wiggins's season impressive? we already know he can time trial.
- Dec 30, 2011
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LaFlorecita said:
a)Knowing something and actually seeing it are two totally different things.
b)Just because Wiggins is already a good TT doesnt mean it isnt impressive, it is like saying Gilbert's Ardennes wins arent impressive because he is a good hill rider.
- May 15, 2011
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Froome19 said:
I'm just saying that just because he won those races doesn't mean he was impressive. Far from that.
- May 15, 2011
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http://www.nieuwsblad.be/Article/Detail.aspx?articleid=DMF20120503_209
Atrocious.
Of course, just act as if the greatest performance in a GT in the last 5 years didn't happen.
I think we can now safely say that Andy is the best stage racer of this generation.
Atrocious.
Of course, just act as if the greatest performance in a GT in the last 5 years didn't happen.
I think we can now safely say that Andy is the best stage racer of this generation.
- Jul 16, 2010
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LaFlorecita said:
Ik zie deze ceremonie als een beloning voor mijn sterke Giro, na een Contador die nog grootser was'
Nobody cares about this paper Giro win, Contador will have always won this one. Perhaps not the 2010 Tour, but definitely this Giro.
- May 15, 2011
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El Pistolero said:
He has won both. Everyone knows this, only haters choose to believe otherwise.
Edvald Boasson Hagen has finally ended his cooperation with his former personal trainer, Fredrik Mohn. A goldsmith with no real connections to cycling doesn't exactly sound like an ideal fit for a talent like Edvald, so Sky has finally forced him to get one of their trainers instead after a disappointing classic's season. It is not yet known who will be his new trainer, but I'm definitely hoping for Julich!
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