News for February 2, 1999
Belgian cross aftermath
Mario De Clercq win the world championship last Sunday has ignited
controversy back in Belgium, given that he chased down teammate
Erwin Vervecken in the last lap. De Clercq has a different spin
on it.
"Naturally I am happy that I won. But I also naturally feel for
Vervecken. I feel a lot for him, but that is the hard facts of
sport. My first concern was that I had the legs to hold onto
second place. But then I say that he was less than 20 metres
in front and faltering. Should I have just remained sitting there
and let him win? I think not. I have my own ambitions, I have also
my sponsors to consider and I also have my supporters. I understand
that he is very angry but he must not get it out of proportion."
He also indicated that events turned his way during the race. "The
whole race there were things that unexpectedly gave me chances to win.
Like if Pontoni hadn't cracked, if Van der Poel hadn't fell, if
Vervecken had not faltered twice on the last climbs then I might not
have won. All these events helped me win the rainbow jersey for the
second time. At each moment though I didn't really think I had a lot
of chance to win. I rode in 4th position just behind Van der Poel. When
Pontoni and Van der Poel encountered bad luck I realised I was only
a small distance behind Vervecken. In the last round I didn't want
Van der Poel coming back. On the second last obstacle I was very
close to Vervecken. I didn't want a repeat of the Belgian Championship.
I tried to be first over the obstacle. I didn't think of anything else.
In the sprint I was clearly the strongest.
I understand the disappointment of Erwin Vervecken. But I cannot understand his
over reaction. All I say in reaction to his anger is that I am a better candidate
for World Champion than he is. I always give my best in every cross race.
Vervecken has ridden two good races this season - the Belgian championship
and the World Championship. That is not what a champion does."
Erwin Vervecken doesn't see it that way at all.
At a brief press conference, with all the Flemish journalists
crowding around, Erwin Vervecken said that he held negative
feelings about Mario De Clercq. "It is a scandal that De Clercq
chased me down on Sunday, especially when I had a 100 metre
gap on the chasers. I cannot accept it!"
"I helped to win last year in Middelfart. He should have acknowledged
that. Now I cannot ever forgive De Clercq. There are bad feelings between us now.
Nothing of good will ever come of it. I hope that De Clercq retires from
racing very soon. Such people are not pleasant to work with. I don't know
what the future holds with the national selecters.
I said to myself during the race that I was feeling good. I thought: all
these people who just say that I am but a small-time rider, yet I have
good legs. So I was convinced that I could have continued on and won
the race. But in the final phase of the race I made a mistake because
I had been leading the race for more than half and hour and I was tiring.
But I am shocked by the way De Clercq behaved at the end. He broke the
code that we ride under. I know De Clercq is a deserving World Champion
and I am just a rider who is 7th on the UCI rankings and who lost the
World Title. I know this is bad to speak like this. But it is coming right from my
heart and I mean every word."
Richard Groenendaal to stop early
Richard Groenendaal has nothing left to do this season. The rider from
Brabant had hoped that he would finish the season well at the World
Championships in Poprad last weekend. In fact, nothing could have been
further from the truth. He abandoned on the second last lap when he
was lapped.
He said: "I was expecting to do better. I realised when I was on the
parcours that I was short of condition. That was it. I suffered.
He will ride the last Super Prestige round in Harnes and a race in
Pijnacker and then stop for the season. He had a very poor season
and failed to win a major event. He said that: "I did not start
the new season quick enough. I have had a very troublesome period."
Tour remains the priority of Telekom
The German Telekom team will focus on the Tour de France and the sprint
classics according to the sports director Walter Godefroot. The team
conducted a press conference at Ingolstadt on Monday.
Godefroot said: "Winning the Tour is probably our major goal." The Belgian
team leader hoped that the team could repeat the success of Dane Bjarne
Riis in 1996 and German Jan Ullrich in 1997. Last year, their sense of
succession in the Tour was broken by Italian Marco Pantani.
The Tour will also be the major objective for Jan Ullrich. He is much lighter
than at this time last year and he is feeling in outstanding shape considering
the stage of the season. He will try hard in the Sprintg classics like Milan-San
Remo and the Amstel Gold Race. He said: "But I will not be riding as the top
man of the team. I will be working for Erik Zabel and Bjarne Riis."
The Telekom team will start the season with 19 riders with 4 newcomers. They will
contest 82 races in 1999 and finish with the Tour of Lombardy in October. They have
excluded the Giro, the Tour of Romandy, Paris-Nice and the Dauphiné Libéré from their
program.
Tour of Mallorca
A total of 17 teams will be participating in the 8th edition of the Vuelta
Internacional a Mallorca which will be held between February 7-11. The teams
that have already registered are: Banesto, ONCE, Vitalicio Seguros,
Festina, Euskaltel-Euskadi, Fuenlabrada-Deportpublic, Kelme, Amica Chips,
Mapei, Deustche Telekom, TVM, Rabobank, Nürnberger, Saeco, Batavus, Post Swiss
Team and Cofidis. There will be important riders like Laurent Jalabert, Abraham
Olano, Jan Ullrich and Michael Boogerd participating, amongst others. The Vuelta a
Mallorca is the first event of the Spanish Road Calendar and there are 35,000
UCI points available.
Mapei at the Tour of Malaysia
Patrick Lefèvre's Mapei-Quick Step team will go to the Tour of Malaysia aiming
to repeat last year's victory. The Tour of Malaysia begins on Wednesday,
February 3 with a prologue and criterium on the Island of Langkawi, which is
to the east of the Malaysian mainland. The rest of the Tour will be on the
mainland. The 12 stages will take the riders over 1,840 kms and will finish
with a criterium in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur. 10 professional teams
each with 6 riders will start. A number of national elite teams are also racing.
The Vuelta will be preparation for the Worlds
In the opinion of Alfredo Martini (National Supervisor of all Italian National
Cycling Teams), La Vuelta a España will be the key for the 1999 Worlds. The
World Championships will be held on October 10 at the Italian city of
Verona. Martini noted that the Vuelta will finish only a week before the
Worlds. He hopes that all Italian riders who are preselected in the
the national team will ride in Spain.
2000 Tour to start in Poitiers
Th Tour de France in the year 2000 will start in the Futuroscope theme park
near Poitiers. The organisers said they had been forced to postpone plans to
stage the start of the cycling classic in the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe
because of logistical problems. Futuroscope has hosted Tour stages eight times,
including the start in 1990.
Michele Bartoli focusing on the Worlds already
Michele Bartoli has been training on the 1999 World's road circuit. He rode
for two hours over the Torricelle circuit in Verona where on October 10 the
best riders will contest the World Championship. His first impressions are
positive: "It is certainly a demanding course. The climbs per se are not super
tough and there are no big climbs, but we will have to race 16 laps, which will
surely test our limits, especially because by October we will be at the end of
the season".
Carsten Wolf tests positive
German 6-Day rider Carsten Wolf has tested positive after being tested
at the Grenoble 6-Days race in October. Both his A-test and B-test confirmed
the presence of banned drugs in his urine. The announcement was made by the
German Cycling Federation on Monday and they said the Berlin professional
will have to face their drugs commission. The German, who is currently racing
the 6-Day race in Copenhagen will have to return to the discipline commission
soon. Wolf still has not reacted to the accusations of his guilt.
French race organisers fear police raids
Tour of the Mediterranean director Lucien Aimar fears drugs raids on teams
during next week's race. He is worried that Tour de France-style hotel swoops
by police and customs would drive away foreign teams. He told the press: "It
would do a lot of harm to cycling in France as we would not see those teams back
in this country for a while." Aimar won the 1966 Tour de France. The early season
five-day stage event starts in Antibes on February 10 and has attracted 15
foreign teams.