Cyclopunk's News Digest 27.03.12

Cav&Wiggo for Romandie - Women's Nocturne will go ahead if 50 riders enter - A Very Belgian Intrigue: Merckx, the policeman and the corruption investigation - Conflicting reports on future of Women's GP Ciudad de Valladolid - No easy win at Dauphine this year

Cav and Wiggo to ride Romandie
Britain's two top living (male*) cyclists Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins are due to line up at the start of next month's Tour de Romandie, rather than waiting for the Tour de France as had been expected, according to the Team Sky website.

With many people still wondering if the two riders will be able to work together, mindful of the fact that they have clashed in the past, all eyes will be on the race.

They'll be joined by Chris Froome, Jeremy Hunt, Danny Pate, Richie Porte, Michael Rogers and Kanstantsin Siutsou at the race which takes place between the 24th and 29th of April.

*Nicole Cooke. 'Nuff said.



Smithfield Nocturne Women's Race
After receiving an "overwhelming response" in support of the event and consultation with British Cycling, Nocturne organisers have confirmed that the women's race will now go ahead - provided 50 riders have signed up by the 30th of April.

The race had been cancelled at the request of British Cycling, which runs a women's race the following day. However, as an enormously popular televised event, riders and fans alike felt that the Nocturne was the more important event, especially with respect to the long term future of women's cycling, and rallied together in support.

New sponsorship has inspired a name change to the Rapha Women's Elite Criterium. The race is open to members of female pro teams who are able to satisfy conditions relating to recent results and category. More details - and entry form - here.

...and it'll be on Channel 4
Channel 4 have secured rights to broadcast the Smithfield Nocturne live on the 9th of June, and say they will also make it available on their 4OD catch-up service. This is an interesting development and, if successful, could potentially encourage Channel 4 - who gave up their right to broadcast Tour de France footage in 2001 to make more room for cricket and hasn't shown any cycling since -  to consider showing more in future.


A Very Belgian Intrigue

(image credit: Nationaal Archief, public domain)

Eddy Merckx has become embroiled in a corruption investigation surrounding a Belgian police commissioner.  It appears that Merckx's company had supplied one consignment of bikes for use by officers on duty and was due to supply another when police chiefs decided to switch to a new supplier because officers argued over who got issued a Merckx bike each day and who got one of the older, non-Merckx ones. The case is part of a larger investigation into police procurement of vehicles, including the purchase of between 60 and 80 cars from Toyota.

It is alleged that Commissioner Philippe Boucar then supplied details concerning the supply of 48 bikes by one of Merckx's competitors, including cost, thus allowing his company an unfair advantage and opportunity to respond by lowering their rice to secure the contract - corruption, in other words, which has led Magistrate Jean-Claude van Espen in Brussels to indict Boucar, Merckx, another police commissioner, a police procurements officer and an accountant. In return for supplying the details, Boucar is said to have been permitted to purchase a carbon fibre Merckx bike for himself at a massively reduced price.

Merckx's indictment was delayed in order that the five-time Tour winner, widely considered the greatest cyclist of all time and Belgium's favourite son, would have time to go to Paris where he was inducted into the Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur, the highest honour in France, by Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysée Palace.

Conflicting reports on Spanish Women's World Cup Round
Following an announcement by the Spanish National Federation (RFEC) that this year's GP Ciudad de Valladolid would not go ahead this year, the UCI have released a press report saying it will look at ways in which it can help ensure the event takes place. No reason was given for the suspension, but with many races experiencing financial problems and the Spanish economy currently in a dreadful state, it's probably safe to assume that withdrawal of sponsorship was at least the main cause. This means that until the UCI deems the time fit to tell us, we can only guess at what sort of assistance they'll provide - though a cash injection seems most likely.

Meanwhile, Dutch website NOS says that the UCI have now announced the official cancellation of the race; leading to some confusion over what is actually going on.

"We bear the [women of] cycling a warm heart and are therefore concerned about the deletion of this contest," said Pat McQuaid in an official press release. "I hope that we can offer a helping hand." It's not clear if they have since decided they cannot help the race or if NOS is reporting older news - however, as the loss of the race would reduce events in the Cup to just eight - the lowest since 2000 - it seems unlikely that a decision would be made so soon after the press release.

Vos plots course in Flanders
Dutch megastar Marianne Vos says she has set her sights on victory at the Ronde van Vlaanderen, which is due to take place on Sunday the 1st of April. "So far, I've failed to win this race," says the 24-year-old. "I would like to change that. I have been close a few times, but each time I had to let others win" - she has twice come third and once second in the prestigious race.

Now riding with a Rabobank team assembled largely to support her and having already won the first two rounds of the World Cup right after dominating the cyclo cross season, there's every reason to expect this is her year.

Stage profiles and route, Criterium du Dauphine

Col de Joux-Plane has featured in seven editions of the Tour
de France, most recently in 2006.
(image credit: Jambon CC BY-SA 3.0) 

The ASO have published stage profiles and a map of the route of the 64th Criterium du Dauphine, immediately sparking widespread opinion that it will be a spectacular race. A challenging selection of high mountains, shorter climbs and time trials ought to provide a competition in which no rider will be able to gain a decisive upper hand until near the end of the race, leading to plenty of battles along the way.

Stage 7 is the Queen with two Cat 1 climbs (1,173m Col de Plainpalais and 1,613m Col de la Colombiere) followed by an Hors-Categorie ascent of the 1,691m Col de Joux-Plane - 11.7km in length with a maximum gradient of 10%. Stage 6 comes close with 1,501m HC Le Grand Colombier. Stage 4 is a 53km time trial.

Stage: 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8. Stage 1 is a 5.7km prologue to be held in Grenoble - the profile is not yet available.

LeopardTrek HQ raided by police

Frank Schleck was connected to Eufemiano
Fuentes in the past, but subsequently
cleared of all doping charges
(©Noel Reynolds CC2.0)

News is emerging that the headquarters of Andy Schleck's team LeopardTrek was raided by Luxembourg police on Tueday morning. Early reports state that the home of team owner Flavio Becca was also targetted. At first, the obvious reason appeared to be an anti-doping investigation, but it has since transpired that Becca is subject to a financial investigation.

In a press release, representatives for Mr. Becca said: "Until now [meaning "at present"] nobody has been charged. The companies and Mr Becca have collaborated with the judicial authorities and intend to continue to do so. We wish that the authorities do their job quickly and that they show that the allegations are groundless."

It should also be noted that Becca, a businessman who developed a small masonry firm into one of Europe's most profitable construction companies, has wide-ranging interests outside professional cycling and as such it's likely that the investigation is linked solely to him rather than to his team.

LeopardTrek, which does not conduct internal anti-doping controls since it believes that the UCI conducts sufficient tests to make it unnecessary,  has not been involved in any doping scandals since its formation earlier this year. Police raids are quite a regular feature of professional cycling and as such should not be seen as evidence that anything untoward has been taking place. The raids have since been confirmed by police prosecutor Henri Eippers, says the wort.lu website.

Flavio Becca

The team is also home to Jens Voigt, riders' representative on the UCI ProTour Council - a position he has used to speak out against doping. In fact, the team's roster is one of the most clean-cut in the sport, with few of the riders ever being caught up in any sort of doping issue - Stuart O'Grady was a part of Cofidis during 2004, when David Millar's positive sample rocked the team whereas Frank Schleck, following an accusation made by a German newspaper, was shown to have made a mysterious payment into a bank account owned by the notorious Eufemiano Fuentes in 2005. Both riders were later cleared of all charges and have not since faced any serious accusations.

Valentin Iglinskiy

Valentin Iglinskiy

News is coming in that Valentin Iglinskiy and his brother Maxim were stopped for speeding by French police at around 9pm on Tuesday night. According to initial reports on French RTL radio, Tests showed the 27-year-old Team Astana rider Valentin to be over the legal driving limit for alcohol and positive for cocaine. Maxim, who rode in this year's Tour de France which finished on Sunday, was arrested and taken into police custody, says French website Cyclism'Actu. However, police later stated that the rider did not provide a positive test result for cocaine.

The Kazakh-born brothers, who now live in Monaco, are said to have been travelling in a Volkswagen Golf at 203kmph in a 110kmph limit on the A8 motorway.

Cyclism'Actu also claims that the Iglinskiys was returning home from a party at the home of Alexandre Vinokourov, the Astana rider who was banned from professional cycling in 2007 after failing an anti-doping test at the Tour de France. Vinokourov announced his retirement at the time, but later returned to the sport and competed alongside Maxim in the Tour this year until being forced to abandon following a crash in Stage 9. He announced his second retirement shortly afterwards.

Maxim Iglinskiy

According to Nice Matin, Valentin paid a fine of 1800 euros and is likely to be banned from driving in France.

Astana has confirmed that the rider was stopped for speeding and that while the roadside breath test showed he was over the the alcohol limit, the saliva test did not prove positive for cocaine - this has subsequently been confirmed by police. The team has categorically denied that the Iglinskiys had spent time with Vinokourov during the day and also stated that anti-doping inspectors had carried out tests on Wednesday morning. Cocaine is banned from competition, but the UCI cannot institute sanctions against a rider who uses it recreationally when not competing, though it remains a criminal offence and as such may result in police prosecution.

Astana also said that Valentin, who speaks French very poorly, signed legal documents without being able to understand what they said - in which case, the police will have some questions to answer too. We'll bring more updates when we get them.

A Day Away Update

Hello, it's me again,

So I went down to the police station 15 minutes early, announced my presence and took a seat in the waiting room among about 30 rather amusing Chinese students who were being ripped off to the tune of £34 each for the right to renew their education visas in that charming the way this government of ours has. After 20 minutes, the copper on the desk called me over and informed me that he'd tried to get hold of the relevant officer and she was nowhere to be found. "I don't know how long you want to wait," he said. "I'll wait as long as it takes," I told him, "I don't particularly want her to show up two minutes after I've gone so I end up getting done for jumping bail." Then I went and sat down again.


After an hour he called me over again. "I've tried again and I still can't get hold of her, mate," he said, "as far as I'm concerned you can go and get on with your day."


"Fair enough," I replied. "But I want to be assured that my presence here is recorded just in case she does show up." What I really meant was, "Please give me a signed document stating that I was here because one thing I've learned during this investigation is that you can Never Trust The Police."


He began writing out the details on a bit of special Police headed notepaper when the officer on the desk next to us asked if he'd looked up by details on some record or another, which with typical police inefficiency he had not. She did so, and it turned out I've been rebailed until the 10th of August. Apparently, they don't bother informing you of these things. "That's not too bad actually," I said, "at least it's after the Tour de France, so I won't miss anymore stages."


"That it is," he said, and winked. "Enjoy it, mate." So he seemed a fairly decent copper, anyway.


And with that I went round to watch it with a friend, who happens to be a Breton, and we drank quite a lot of crème de cassis mixed with cheap Breton wine.


I suspect the delay is due to the fact that they're having a bit of a problem coming up with any evidence - and I hope my naive belief that if you are innocent of a charge you will not be prosecuted for it proves to be true, but I wish this could be over and done with. Right, now let's get back to bikes.

Cheers people,


John Orbea.

Cyclist cut up by police officer

Paul Brown was knocked off his bike by a car two months ago. His helmet was smashed and he suffered some minor injuries - so, perhaps inspired by the various "look what we put up" videos on YouTube these days, he bought himself a miniature camera and fitted it to handlebars of his bike. Not such a bad idea really, doing so could prove invaluable if an insurance firm wants to be difficult (and they always want to be difficult).

That's how he managed to get footage of the latest incident to have involved him. As he approached a junction in his home town Hull, he was aware that a car was coming up behind him. It then overtook and pulled into the junction, cutting him up and forcing him to slam the brakes on. Boy racers? A old dear? Nope - a police car.

This still, taken from Mr. Brown's footage, shows the police car as it recklessly turned just in front of him. He was able to brake just in time and save himself from being injured.

"I couldn't believe it," says the 42-year-old father of two. "No one expects to be cut up by a police car. It was only luck that I was not hit. The car just sped off as though nothing had happened."

Humberside Police say that as they have not yet received a formal complaint nor had a copy of the video made available to them, they are unable to comment. However, Mr. Brown does plan on making such a complaint and we wish him all the best with that because our experience of the police is that they will simply close ranks, probably claim it's impossible to prove which officer was driving the car at the time and do anything else they can to prevent him getting anywhere with the complaint.