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Edited by Jeff Jones
Over the next week or so between Christmas and New Year, Cyclingnews staff will be presenting their impressions of the 2001 season, which has almost come to an end. There were many highlights in what was a very interesting year, and the review commences with a few of them as chosen by the online editor, Jeff Jones. The following week will include stories from the Tour de France, Vuelta a España and Giro d'Italia, MTB and tech highlights and plenty more.
For those of you who observe the tradition, the team at Cyclingnews wishes you all a very merry Christmas and a safe and happy New Year. Ride lots!
Team Telekom's main breadwinner, Erik Zabel, enjoyed his best ever season in 2001, finishing the year well on top of the UCI rankings with 2,387 points. He won a total of 24 UCI races, virtually from the start to the finish of the season, as well as a couple of German Six Day track events late in the year. His wins included Milan-San Remo and HEW Cyclassics Hamburg, both World Cup races; 4 stages in the Tour de France and a record sixth green jersey as the best sprinter; 3 stages in the Vuelta España; and 2 stages in the Tour de Suisse.
He performed all season round in the big races, and thoroughly deserved his position at the top of the UCI table. What's more, he did it in a superbly professional manner, giving a lot of satisfaction to his fans and team colleagues.
Although not quite as prominent as his German namesake, Dutchman Erik Dekker confirmed his status as one of the world's most consistent riders, finishing as number two on the UCI scale. Dekker's main focus this year was the World Cup, and he did not disappoint.
A victory in the Amstel Gold race in front of Lance Armstrong and a second placing in the Ronde Van Vlaanderen helped lay the foundations for his success. In the second half of the season, he placed 9th in Clasica San Sebastian, 3rd in HEW Cyclassics, 5th in Meisterschaft von Zürich, 13th in Paris-Tours, and 13th in the Giro di Lombardia. This gave him 331 points, more than enough to beat Zabel (250) for the World Cup crown.
In 2001, Dekker also collected a stage win in the Tour de France, as well as several other stage races including his own Ronde van Nederland. We will almost certainly see him at the top of the podium more often in 2002.
In women's cycling, one rider stood above the rest in 2001, and that was Australian sprinter Anna Millward. Her first task was to convince the media and the public that she no longer wished to be known as Anna Wilson following her marriage to David Millward! She achieved this by putting her name at the top of the results sheet in the Skilled Bay Classic, Tour de Snowy (3 stages), Canberra and Hamilton World Cups.
She was well on top of the UCI rankings and the World Cup by this stage, with the latter being her main focus for '02. Two 2nd placings in La Flèche Wallonne and the First Union Liberty Classic were followed by a 3rd in the Trophée International and a 7th in the GP de Suisse Féminin. She didn't even have to finish the final round (Rotterdam Tour) to be crowned the overall World Cup winner for 2002.
In between these, Millward competed in the USA, winning enough races to put her at the top of the overall standings in the US Pro Tour and the National Rankings Calendar. Truly a fantastic, season long effort. Millward's goal for 2002 will be the World Championships, where she is trying to win her first ever gold medal. The largely flat course in Zolder, Belgium, should certainly suit her.
The introduction of changes to the structure of UCI professional trade teams in 2002 was a fairly significant revamp of the current system. The UCI decided to cap the number of riders per team at 25, meaning that several of the larger teams had to cull their rosters. For example, Mapei-Quick Step had to reduce from 41 to 25, meaning that most of the younger riders will be put into a development team. Cofidis was another team that had to slim down.
There was some shuffling done of the divisions, with 30 teams being granted division I status in 2002, compared with 22 in 2001. The top 10 of these will be known as the "Top Club", being granted automatic starts in all the major races on the calendar (Grand Tours and World Cups). Division II teams will find it tougher to get into these races, with normally only two being permitted into World Cups, unless one of the division I teams refuses an invitation.
We will be able to see in 2002 how effective this system is in reducing disputes over team selection in the major races.
A significant step in the never ending fight against doping in cycling came in April when the UCI decided to introduce a urinary based test for erythropoetin (EPO), the scourge of cycling for over a decade. EPO may be a little old fashioned now in the drugs arms race, having first been used in the professional peloton in the late 1980's. It was at the centre of the Festina affair in 1998 and is still being used, as evidenced by the number of positive tests this year.
Danish rider Bo Hamburger was the first rider to fall foul of the new controls, after he tested "non-negative" after La Flèche Wallonne in April. His B sample was tested and also reported to be "non-negative" and he was suspended from his team and competition. However it was later revealed that a technical foul-up saw two results reported for his B sample: one negative and one positive. The Danish sports federation subsequently dropped its suspension, but Hamburger was still not free to race, as the UCI did not agree with the decision.
That was a minor setback for the test, no matter who was to blame, but there was worse to come. When Spaniard Juan Llaneras and Italian Massimo Strazzer tested "non-negative" at the World Track Championships in Antwerp, most thought that they would be added to the list of EPO positives once their B samples came back. However, each rider's B sample returned a value well inside the limit set by the UCI, thus the cases against them were immediately dropped. What exactly happened in this case is still unclear, although the matter is reportedly being investigated.
These slight doubts over the reliability of the test recently led the Spanish cycling federation to drop the case against Txema del Olmo, the Basque rider who tested positive for EPO at the beginning of the Tour de France. Both of Del Olmo's samples were positive, and he was sacked by his Euskaltel-Euskadi team, who risked not being invited to next year's Tour if they kept him on. However, the Spanish have claimed that it would be "unconstitutional" to suspend him...
Throughout all this, the UCI has firmly kept its position: the EPO test is reliable and any failures are not because the test is at fault.
Finally, it should be noted that the number of EPO positives this year is still cause for concern, as many thought that the scandal of 1998 had at least some impact in reducing drug use in the peloton. The urinary EPO test is currently only effective for three days after an injection, whereas the effects of EPO last several weeks. The incorporation of a long range blood test as a secondary (or primary) screening method would have a far greater impact in eliminating EPO. One of these has already been developed, but has not yet been implemented fully.
Ex team leader Cees Priem has chosen again to appeal the decision of the courts in the Priem vs Sunderland case. In April this year, he was asked to pay a fine of BEF10,000 (250 euro) after he was found guilty of "unintentionally injuring and wounding" Sunderland during the 1998 Amstel Gold Race. Priem was also had to pay a provisional amount of BEF750,000 (18,750 euro) to AXA/Royale Belge, the insurance company of Palmans-Ideal which has paid the major medical costs, and a similar amount to Scott Sunderland.
He appealed this decision which was heard by the Correctional Court in Tongeren on November 15, who denied the appeal, and reinstated the verdict of the Police Court. Priem has now decided to take his case to the Hof van Cassatie, the highest court in Belgium where he hopes to reverse the decision.
Never heard of Giant Bicycles? Surely not. Giant has been around for almost 30 years, with their inception way back in '72, in Taiwan. The company's philosophy is to cater for the needs of many rather than the few, and it produces approximately three million bicycles per year, from round-town knockabouts to pro quality race bikes like the TCR team and TCR ZERO.
Click here for the full tech review
Major Races and Events
September 7-29, 2002: Vuelta
a España (GT) - Preview, stage list
May 11-June 2, 2002: Giro
d'Italia (GT) - Preview, stage list, photos
July 6-28, 2002: Tour
de France (GT) - Full preview & official route details
December 8: Superprestige
Rd 5 (Cat. 1) - Erwin Vervecken
November 29-December 4: Six
Days of Noumea (6D) - Sassone/Neuville victorious
November 26-December 1: Six
Days of Zurich (6D) - Day
6 - McGrory/Gilmore/Schnider win
December 1: Melbourne
Cup on Wheels (IM) - Scott Moller, Keirin,
Sprint, Support
races
December 2: Cyclo-cross
World Cup #2 (CDM) - Sven Nijs again
November 24-December 3: Juegos
Deportivos Centroamericanos (JR) - Final results
December 8-9: Frankfurter
Rad-Cross (Cat. 2) - Alex Mudroch, UK
National Trophy Series #4 (Cat. 3) - Roger Hammond, Grote
Prijs Industrie Bosduin - Kalmthout (Cat. 1) - Bart Wellens, Int.
Radquer Obergösgen (Cat. 2) - Björn Rondelez, Trofeo
Mamma e Papa Guerciotti (Cat. 3) - Enrico Franzoi, Premio
Egondo (Cat 3) - David Seco, Irish
cyclo-cross championships - Robin Seymour
Results: local racing
Australia - CycleWest
Promotions Omnium Series #2, Eastern
Suburbs Summer Criterium Series, Carnegie
Caulfield Tuesday criterium, Southern
Cross Junior Track Open & Madison Cup, Manly
Warringah CC, George
Town Track Carnival, Carnegie
Caulfield CC, Randwick
Botany CC, Gold
Coast CATS CC, Caesar's
Illawarra CC, Caesar's
Illawarra (track)
Denmark - Danish
cyclo-cross Post Cup #3
Italy - Gran
Premio Città di Bassano
Luxembourg - GP
De Kopstal
New Zealand - Cyco
Criterium series
Spain - Elorrio
cyclo-cross
USA - Georgia
Cross Series Championship, Chimborazo
Grand Prix cyclo-cross, Boulder
Cross Rd 6, New
Mexico State Cyclo-x Champs, Sorrento
Cyclo-x & California State Champ's, Boulder
Cross Rd 5, Verge
New England series, Northampton
CC Cyclo-cross Championships, Chris
Cross International CycloCross
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