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World Time Trial Championships Diary |
| Austria - birthplace of Adolph Hitler... |
It was a 04.00 alarm job to get ready to leave at 06.00 and I hadn’t had time to pack the night before.
It’s always the same driving to Prestwick – you think you are making great time until you get to Stepps and the vast car park that is the M8 during the rush-hour.
Check-in at Prestwick wasn’t too bad but the Colgate had to go – I wouldn’t mind but it drives me crazy not knowing how to convert it into an explosive device.
I had a long wait at Stansted for my connection to Salzburg but had committed to writing a preview of the elite time trial for Pez. I thought I would have nothing better to do than grab one of those trendy ‘buy time’ computer stations, but at a quid per ten minutes I thought better of it.
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| ...and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart |
They’ve thought of everything; there isn’t a USB on any of the terminals so you can’t produce your copy on the laptop, transfer it to memory stick then attach it to an email.
It was a BlackBerry job then -That's a great wee tool for keeping in touch with your emails, but for high word-count it’s quite hard work if you have big paws - so is the unpalatable fact that despite your vanity your eyesight isn’t what it used to be.
I guess I’m going to have to do something with the results from that eye-test soon. Reviewing the test got me thinking about who is going to win. Way back when Fabian Cancellara first signed with Riis at CSC I remember thinking: ‘that’s the World Test Champs won then!’
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| Dave Miller's Scott Carbon |
Despite David Millar’s past I have soft-spot for him. I know all about his past but he has come back with dignity and most people cannot imagine how hard it is to win a pro race, never mind a major Tour stage. That Vuelta test win was sheer class but I couldn’t help but think he shouldn’t have gone all the way to Madrid. The Vuelta finished on Sunday and the test is Thursday with a lot of traveling in between. I still thought he could get a medal though and my top three are Cancellara, Millar and Gonchar.
The check-in queue was horrific; the security queue was dire and it took almost two hours from first joining the throng to sitting down in the departure lounge. The flight was grim, full of Austrian school kids who were out of control, their teachers huddled at the back hitting the trolley bar hard no doubt. It was such a stramash at Salzburg that it was easy to slip to the head of the immigration queue and I sprinted-out through the ‘nothing to declare’ door. I could see the customs guys behind me trying to get a handle on the little horrors with no success. I couldn’t face any more mass transportation and grabbed a cab.
The driver was a chatty, eccentric lady who recognised my Scottish accent. It transpired that she loves the place and a map of old Scotia quickly appeared from her glove box. I had to dutifully point-out Kirkcaldy on the map as we drove through the streets of Salzburg. The hotel was basic but clean and the bed looked great. I needed some fresh air and a beer so I slipped-out into the cool air, a hotdog and a beer at a stand over-looking the floodlit city was just the job.
It must have taken all of one minute to fall asleep.
Day 2 - Thursday 21st September, 2006
The alarm went at 08.00 and I hobbled out of bed. The shower room was occupied so it was the full wash in the sink routine – hope nobody filmed it. It has to be the most unfriendly breakfast room in the world - nobody speaks so it was quick bowl of muesli and out the door.
The accreditation centre was on the other side of town; another taxi ride but fortunately the fares here aren’t too brutal. Despite friendly exchange of emails in the weeks before with the UCI guy, there was no pass waiting for me - “It’s not unusual”’ said the girl as she rolled her eyes. I had to take a seat and wait – waiting is a big thing in journalism, but I’m not very good at it; I recall my mother saying that I had, ‘a glass arse’. Anyway, they took my picture, gave me my creds and a ‘goody bag’ complete with wine and a ‘Salzburg World Championships 2006’ laptop case – I can’t wait to take that to the Mid 10.
The taxi driver who drove me back to the start/finish entered into conversation and when I told him why I was here he gave me his views on pro cycling. “It’s not how good you are at riding a bike, it’s how good you are at not getting caught taking the drugs.” It’s maybe not that simple, but he does have a point.
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| Alexandre Vinokourov's bike |
Old Pez pretty much leaves it up to me what I produce and I had two targets for the day; to follow a rider in the test and to do the ground work for a piece on the ‘men and machines’ who would win the medals in the race.
I got myself down to the pits in plenty of time and started mooching and snapping. I had a clear idea of which bikes and riders I wanted to photograph – Rogers (Giant), Millar (Scott), Cancellara (Cervelo), Bodrogi (Look) and Gonchar (Giant).
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| Andreas Kloden's bike |
I have to admit that I didn’t consider Zabriskie but fortunately I took a pic of his Cervelo as it sat in the US tent.
The T-Mobile guy told me that Gonchar wasn’t riding so that cut-down my list.
I asked the Canadian guys what the chances would be of getting in the car behind theirguy Svein Tuft – “pretty slim”. “Cheers boys.” I then approached Sean Kelly Academy Manager, Kurt Bogaerts, who is looking after the Irish squad for the Worlds.
What would be the chances of following either Dave McCann or David O’Loughlin? “No problem, you come with me behind O’Loughlin.” That’s more like it! I continued my snapping brief but with one eye on my watch – there was no way I wanted to be late.
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| Kurt Bogaerts |
David rides for the American Navigators outfit and isn’t a bad rider.
I saw him win the Shay Elliot a few years ago; he’s been Irish road champion and is current Irish Time Trial and Criterium champion.
If you want a full description of his ride then check-out www.pezcyclingnews.com. It’s up there now.
The course surprised me; very technical – just a little ‘boulevard blast’ but a heck of a lot of hills, descents and bends of all types; a roadman’s as much as a specialist’s course. Because David was an early starter I had time after his ride to go to the start area to take some pictures. I didn’t see Davie Zee go-off, he was eighth from last, but I saw Bodrogi, Millar. Vino, Gutierrez, Cancellara and Rogers await their fate. Bodrogi didn’t seem to fussed by it all, sprawled in a chair.
Millar was tense but smiled when Vino sat down beside him and shook his hand; Vino does the ‘inscrutable East European’ thing so well. Gutierrez was just gong through the motions; he knew his form wasn’t up to this.
Cancellara seemed relaxed, riding his Cervelo round the tiny area beside the start house to check-out something with his gears; Rogers arrived late and sat on the turbo until the last gasp.
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| Miller gets into the zone before his start |
I took some final bike shots for my ‘men and machines’ piece and noticed that Millar isn’t riding the machine he was on in the Tour Time Trials - the sponsors probably cottoned-onto that much of it wasn’t what it was supposed to be – like the Oval ‘biplane’ instead of Scott forks and the custom ‘biplane’ - tri-bars which weren’t Ritchey.
I left before Rogers took off and went straight to the press centre, I would have liked to stand at the finish to watch it live, but if you are on a deadline then every minute is precious. I won’t bore you but it was the usual big-production getting the laptop kindled-up; at least wi-fi is free here, not like at the Tour and Giro. First-up was write-up following David then I had to transfer all the pictures I took from my camera to the laptop, edit them and then email them with explanations if what they relate to.
Talking to famous guys and snapping nice machines is only the tip of the iceberg, it takes hours on the laptop to turn all your words and pics into something worthwhile. I always know when it’s time to finish, my brain just stops working properly, it happened around 9.15 pm.
I went for the Neapolitana Pizza and had two beers – I felt I deserved them.
Day 3 - Friday 22nd September, 2006
Not much exciting so far and its gone 2.00 pm. I awoke to the bells at about 7.30 and was first in the shower room. Breakfast was fine, but there’s still no small-talk n there; it’s not a bad thing I guess – you are out the door pronto. I was sat in the press centre immediately it opened at 9.00 and I’ve been writing ever since. I did my piece about Vino, Zabriskie and Cancellara plus their respective bikes and since then I’ve been getting the old Veloresults dairy up to date. I’d better get some pictures off to Bill now then think of what I’m going to write about today – maybe an interview or two.
Fast-forward to 8.55 pm, back in the press room, just after I wrote the above the wi-fi went down, it’s still down now, I’m on a hard-wire connection just now. Believe it or not it’s a T-Mobile gig – it’s like Ford saying we’ve no cars available. After I had sussed-out what was up (because I’m a computer novice I always think that it’s my fault when things go wrong) I decided to bolt and get some work done then return here later.
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| Max Sciandri |
I rang Max Sciandri (name-dropping I know) and asked if we could meet-up to talk about his new role with the GB squad.
The team hotel was up at Anthering, a lovely spot at the foot of the hills near the time trial course. I had to get a cab but it was a nice run and the fare wasn’t too sore.
When I arrived Max was outside chatting with the other team officials, as we walked to the hotel for a coffee David Millar strolled-out. ‘Hi-there how are you?’ says he to me. I don’t know if he was just being polite or he remembered me from the Tour but I’m going with the latter!
Max is a nice guy and articulate to boot and if you want the full interview check-out www.pezcyclingnews.com What’s not on Pez is the closing part of our conversation when he told me about the day he quit cycling.
The last days of his career were spent with CSC and don’t forget that despite the fact that the Linda McCartney team (with whom he spent his last full season) was a disastrous scam, he won the Tour of Lazio (a BIG race in Rome ) for them just the season before he signed for Riis. " I had been riding the Tour of Georgia and we had won the team points prize. I was standing on the podium with my bottle of champagne, looking-down at the huge crowd and I just got this feeling of satisfaction. I decided to go down to Miami to see my brother, I remember Lance (Armstrong) saying to me; 'if you go to Miami that’ll be the end Max'.
I said: 'No, no man I’ve got the Olympics in Athens'. But he was right, my motivation had gone and I never raced again. I’ve got no regrets though, maybe I could have been a bit more dedicated but like I say – no regrets."
It was a taxi back here after that to write-up my interview and email it and the pics off to Pez world HQ in Vancouver. Next-up I got some pics off to our editor, Mr. Myerscough; then I wrote this.
It’s 9.25 pm and my brain is crashing – must be all those faulty T-Mobile micro-waves in here.
Talk to you tomorrow.
Day 4 - Saturday 23rd September, 2006
I was up before the bells, showered, washing done and on the street. Even at 08. 00 it's buzzing. The first rider I saw was from Brazil, then the Russian team - looking good in their Itera kit on white carbon Looks. 177 riders from all over the globe; 47 nations. I just saw the Mexicans sign-on.
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| Cav gets his gear sorted for the training ride |
Mark Cavendish of GB looks relaxed, no GB team Trek for him - a shiny new T-Mobile Giant is his mount for the day. Team mate Greenwood is introspective, not a good sign, but we'll see.
It’s a bit of the old organised chaos at the start here.
It’s supposed to be a choreographed, nation by nation roll-out but the Belgians ignored this, of course, and arrived in their own time. To add insult to injury they burst-open the crowd-control barriers to get on to the course instead of coming through a gap in the barriers like the other 46 teams had done.
No sooner had they arrived than they left again to do a spot of synchronised team-peeing just off the street. Dominique Cornu who won the under 23 time test looks more like a pro than most pros. He’s a big guy and I can just imagine him riding the bunch off his wheel in the kermesses.
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| Dominique Cornu |
Once the show is on the road it’s time for my main gig of the day - a course review, with pictures.
I grabbed a lift from one of the shuttle-buses which lap the circuit to put-down and pick-up the photographers and any journalists who can be coaxed out of the free bar and catering.
By the time you read this the full piece should be up on pezcyclingnews, but briefly it starts in the city, runs out of town on big, wide fast roads past the pits to the first climb. This is a long, wide, fast, snaking job which hangs a left into the back roads at the top for a little more pain. The second pits are at the top, then it rolls over a lumpy, twisty plateau to where it drops fast and short into a little valley where the second and main climb of the day rears-up.
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| Entries from all over the globe |
This one is different, steep, sinuous and narrow - not a good climb to be stuck at the back on.
There’s another plateau then a really fast but well-surfaced descent to the suburbs of Salzburg then a fast run-in on wide, urban tarmac and a finish that is straight and wide.
I left my pal, Gerard the bus driver and headed for the press centre.
Having had my fill of the wi-fi in here I marched right into the photographer’s area, they have hard-wired, high-speed internet connections to cope with all those pixels.
The speed of access on this system is great and I was smugly congratulating myself on my astuteness until I tried to log-on to Hotmail. It wasn’t having any. Furthermore my mobile had decided to pack-in. There’s much fun and satisfaction to be derived from doing the Pez thing but when you are an electronic Neanderthal like me and things go wrong then it’s stressful.
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| Italy's under 23 lads - these boys look more like Pro's than the Pro's |
I mucked-around with my Hotmail but just couldn’t get-in, as the tears formed in my eyes I remembered that I have my Pez mail as a favourite on the laptop. I was back in business. I stripped the BlackBerry down to the SIM card then re-assembled it. Miraculously it picked- up a T-Mobile signal and I was back in the race. It’s a while since I’ve used the attachment facility on the Pez mail but it seemed to be OK _ fingers crossed!
The under-23 road race was running its course as I was going through all this electronic opera, that’s the thing about doing features-type pieces, you don’t actually see much of the racing. The most notable aspect of the race was that it ended in a bunch sprint, those two climbs didn’t break it up - remember Boonen says the Elite race will end in a bunch finish.
Gerald Ciolek (Wiesenhof & Germany) won. He took a stage in the Tour of Germany and was second in the Henninger Turm this year so the Pro Tour teams will already be after him; it should be a tasty contract now.
Best British rider was Mark Cavendish in 11th place, Ben Greenwood was eight minutes back in 127th place.
The ladies race is on just now, 136 starters and it has to be said that it doesn’t look like the processions we used to get.
I’ll draw a line just now and get back to you later – there’s work to be done..
Day 5 - Sunday 24th September, 2006
It’s Sunday now and Paolo Bettini is World Champion, Erik Zabel’s last chance of a rainbow jersey is surely gone, Valverde has another Worlds medal and I’d better try to get this diary up to date. I left you yesterday as the women’s race was running its course.
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| Phillip Deignan |
I was supposed to be doing interviews with young Irish riders Phillip Deignan and Nicholas Roche, son of legend, Stephen Roche yesterday afternoon, however it didn’t come off and it was back to the drawing board.
As I think I said, I installed myself in the photographer’s part of the press room so as I could go hard-wired instead of wi-fi (wee-fee as they call it over here).
Who sits down beside me? Photo-legend Graham Watson,that’s who. There’s my other story for the day, I thought to myself.
He was easy to talk and you can read the interview on Pez this coming Tuesday.
Sitting beside him is an education, his pictures are amazing and his hands flash across the key board as he crops, edits and emails his shots.
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| Italian coach Franco Ballerini explains the win |
Most of the photographers and many of the journalists use Apple Macs; I’ll need to look into that, they all seem to have a bigger screen too and I like that.
I heard one of the photographers say that it’s well nigh impossible to get viruses on a Mac. If anyone out there reading this can tell me if that’s true and what the other benefits of a Mac are, I would be most grateful.
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| Luxemburg fans back Frank Scelke |
It was another late one, I would have loved to have a good stroll round Salzburg’s bustling night life but I wanted to be on top of my game for the big one.
I did a real-time BlackBerry diary of Sunday on pezcyclingnews so rather than me write and you read the same thing twice I’ll try to cover stuff that’s not up there.
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| Spectating in style |
I was up early and on the street for 8.00, I couldn’t face breakfast at the digs, I was high and didn’t want to be dragged down by the wax work dining room.
The streets were already hotching with fans and officials and I decided just to wander up and down the finishing straight, taking it all in and popping pics.
I decided to do the running diary thing plus settled on my two pieces for the day for Pez - who the cool guys are at the worlds and a photo-based piece on the various fans here.
There were Boonen fans everywhere plus a huge number of deranged Dutchmen who went absolutely bonkers after the Dutch girl won the ladies race. They have an oom-pah band who were giving it big licks after her win. There are flags from all over the world and I thought we could make a good piece if I got enough shots.
I got good shots of fans from Belgium (easy _ there are thousands of them) Slovenia, Holland, Finland, Norway, Brittany and more I can’t remember just now.
From left: Italian coach Franco Ballerini explains the win, Luxemburg fans back Frank Scelke, Spectating in style.
Out of the blue the Belgian team just appeared and I managed to rattle-off a few shots; Boonen is just so charismatic.
After that I headed up to the sign-on and likewise got a load of good pics of the riders before the rabid guys with the big lenses appeared. It’s real paparazzi stuff, they just barge you out of the way.
They all shoot on motor-drive or whatever you call the digital equivalent, they’ll maybe shoot ten to get one and they edit down from hundreds of shots back at the press room.
Bjarne Riis was there saying hello to all his guys - he was surprisingly warm with them all, especially Zabriskie. I tried to pin him down to an interview about the success of his CSC riders in the Time Trial Champs (three of the first four) but he can fob-off better men than me with ease.
After a while I bolted up to the start and was right in among all the riders, nobody seemed unduly bothered and I was there right until the start snapping-away, which wasn’t quite as chaotic as the under 23 one.
I had a load of pics to edit, so it was back to press room and head-down. On the way back I practically walked-into Mario Cipollini.
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| Cipo - coolest man on the planet |
The man has an aura, he looks as slim as he did when he raced and could have walked straight out of GQ Italia.
I managed to resist the temptation to touch him but rattled of a quick shot which fortunately turned-out fine.
Back at the press room you have to set-up shop then transfer your pictures from the camera to the laptop, ditch any bad ones, rotate any that need it then email them with a note of what they are, Pez doesn’t like you to label them.
That done I was back on the street, like I said you can follow my progress round the circuit on Pez. I have to say it was a wonderfully well organised event; despite a few volunteer officials being on a power-trip. The hilly part of the circuit was just one huge party-zone and it would have been great just to be a spectator, it was baking up there, with glorious views to the mountain.
I watched the finish on TV back in the press room and it was good to see Millar in the thick of the action; I think he’s a changed man - for the better.
I wasn’t surprised by the Italians win, sometimes they get it right for most of the race then lose control in the finale but Franco Ballerini, the team coach has done a great job of forging them into a cohesive unit. If you check-out my Pez diary of today you’ll see that I reckoned it was going to be their day.
I had thought Paolini was the man; Cioni and Backstedt were both waxing lyrical about his form when I spoke to them for Pez during the Vuelta - watch for him in the late season classics though.
The first thing I did after the race was to just press send on the BlackBerry, I wasn’t sure if they would use it or not but it was on the site within minutes along with a lot of my pics. I had taken another batch of pics, mainly of fans on my travels so I had to do the needful with them and then write-up my cool article. I gave the award to Di Luca by the way, mainly for having his Bianchi colour-coded with his jersey, it looked the absolute biz. That done, it was veloresults time.
It’s 9.00 pm now and most of the photographers have bolted. I obviously made a great impression on Graham Watson, he just got up and left without so much as a cheerio. Next-up I’m going to see if I can get you some pictures to go with these words.
Talk to you tomorrow and thanks for reading.
It's 3.45 pm CET. I've been doing the tourist thing today. Salzburg is beautiful no-doubt, but it's a tad de-caffeinated, a good place to come with your girl but lacking that real-life' edge of say a Gent or a Lisbon. It's hard to find a proper bar but this one seems OK, complete with busty barmaid.
Opinion is pretty-well unanimous that Bettini is a good World Champion. He has good palmares, a human personality, is a real pro who races a full season and was no, 'sit in and sprint' winner.
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| Alessandro Ballan |
The only thing I'm worried about is what horrors will unfold bicycyle-wise. His Time, complete with gold saddle and tape - to commemorate his Olympic road race win (not forgeting the gold crash hat and shoes) still makes me feel faint.
As with most things to do with posing, Cipo did it so much better. I've never been a big Zabel fan; tad too uncontroversial for me, but you must respect the man - the pro's pro.
The Worlds are in Stuttgart next year, so maybe he'll make me eat my words about: 'his last chance to win the Worlds is gone.'
Valverde is a class-act but he was up against two of the fastest men alive when it's a sprint at the end of a long shift.
I think Sanchez may just be better than him one day though.
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| Kevin Hulsmans |
Much as I'm an Euskaltel fan, Samuel has to move-on now to see how far he can go.
It was gone 10.00 last night when I stumbled out of the press centre and I needed a beer.
Twee though Salzburg may be, it is civilised and there are caravans dispensing every type of sausage known to man - and cool beer - open until the wee small hours.
I bumped into two well wrecked Belgian guys: “What happened to Tom?” I ask.
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| Phillipe Gilbert signs on |
The tall one took a final slug of beer, a long drag on his Marlboro, then covered me with sausage as he explained: “Bettini, Quickstep, he goes and Tom must put on the brakes, eh?”
“In vino veritas“ as some Roman boy once said. I asked my new found buddies if they were driving home in the morning: “no, no, tonight.”
After us all agreeing that kermesse-king Guy Smet was a God, we shook hands and they Lurched-off to find their car.
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| Vino's turn to make his mark |
David Millar, love him or hate him, he's back. I didn't realise until I spoke to Max Sciandri the day after the test that Millar punctured seven kilometers into his ride.
At that level where seconds can make the difference; after the flat his head was gone. In the road race he played a key role in the finale; I'll stick my neck-oit and say he'll be road race champion one day.
Britain came out of the Worlds with one bronze, courtesy of Nicole Cooke, a decent ride by Cavendish (11th) and some classy riding by Millar.
'Plus sa change’ . . . as we say in Dysart.
And a 'thank you' to Adam and John for the beer, your good for the cabins on any six I'm on boys.
Trossachs next, see you there. Did I say this was a gay bar?
Mobile: 07751
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Email: editor@veloresults.co.uk