Cycling News
Dec 11th, 2009 by admin
I loved watching Brad Wiggins last year at the TdF, and now the UK has its first-ever elite-level cycling team, Team Sky.
Now Wiggins has left Garmin for Team Sky, which is a great signing for Britain’s fledgling team. Wiggins might find it harder next year since he’ll be a known factor – teams will mark him closer. But I’d love to see him do well.
Lance Armstrong’s new team, Team RadioShack, has had some news recently. First, the team’s kit was announced. It looks…well, I’m not really a fan.
I don’t know if I’d call it ugly, but impressive/bold it ain’t. Actually, I can’t believe someone got paid to design this; the only part I like is the yellow band around the left arm sleeve.
More interesting, however, is the roster. First, as expected, Lance was able to lure some top riders that used to ride with him in the past: Popovych, Kloden, Leipheimer, Chris Horner. In fact, almost half of the riders were formerly with Astana – am I the only one surprised by that? I can see some of Lance’s old lieutenants deciding to go with him for another couple of years – besides, there is a good chance that they could well be the team leader. But for some of the younger riders, I’m surprised that so many decided to ditch Alberto Contador, since he certainly looks more likely to win a few more TdFs in the next few years. Maybe he was more to blame for the division within Astana last year than we knew.
Even more interesting – Team RadioShack includes two Asian riders: Fuyu Li, from China, and Fumiyuki Beppu, from Japan – we all remember Beppu from last year’s TdF, after he was one of two riders from Japan to complete the TdF for the first time (Arashiro was the other one, also in last year’s race).
For a US-based team, there are surprisingly few Americans on the squad – only six, and most of ‘em are old farts: Lance is 38, Levi is 36, Horner is 37, McCartney is 36. The rest of the squad is very international, and young – the average age is about 29, but if we remove the old US riders, the average age comes down to a bit over 27.
So lots of exciting developments next year, and I’ll have two more teams to pull for - Wiggins for the UK factor, and RadioShack for the Japan & US factor!