Report from Belgium


Latest UCI and Comment

Kindly sent by Ben Bosmans from Belgium
Hereby the new official U.C.I rating of  May 1th 1996.

The results of the last classics race Henninger Turm (1.1)  were NOT
included, as it was held on the 1 of May.

 1. Laurent Jalabert	(Fra)		2654 Ptn.
 2. Miguel Indurain	(Spa)		1899
 3. Tony Rominger	(Sui)		1660
 4. Johan Museeuw	(Bel)		1306
 5. Francesco Casagrande(Ita)		1107
 6. Alex Zulle		(Sui)		1045
 7. Lance Armstrong	(US)		1015
 8. Abraham Olano	(Spa)		 997
 9. Andre Tsjmil	(Ukr)		 919
10. Stefano Zanini	(Ita)		 824
11. Melchor Mauri	(Spa)		 818
12. Vlatsjeslav Ekimov	(Rus)	         806
13. Pascal Richard	(Sui)	 	 802
14. Richard Virenque	(Fra)		 765
15. Claudio Chiapucci	(Ita)	         702
16. Gabriele Colombo	(Ita)	         700
17. Evgueni Berzin	(Rus)		 685
18. Rolf S=F6rensen	(Dan)		 672
19. Michele Bartoli	(Ita)		 646
20. Mauro Gianetti	(Sui)		 641
21. Fabio Baldato	(Ita)	 	 637
22. Frank Vandenbroucke	(Bel)	         630
23. Chris Boardman 	(GBr)		 615
24. Beat Zberg	         (Sui)		 610
25. Alexandre Gontsjenkov(Rus) 	         609
26. Maurizio Fondriest  (Ita)	 	 606
27. Fransesco Frattini	(Ita)	 	 600
28. Eric Zabel		(Ger)	 	 598
29. Adriano Baffi	(Ita)	 	 586
30. Wilfried Nelissen 	(Bel)		 573

As the classics season closes and the pro-riders are taking a holiday of two to three weeks, the lesser gods will have a chance to pick up some points in the first half of May.

With the Giro coming up and the Tour the France following up, other names will score in the next three months to come.

For those interested. See the UCI listing at the beginning of this year and look who advanced most in the classical races. My tips are Colombo and Gontsjenkov.

By the way, the so called Italian superiority is NOT so evident in this rating-system.

11 nationalities are represented:

Italy 9 - Switzerland (5!) - Spain 3 - Russia 3 - Belgium 3 - France 2 and one each for US - Germany - Denmark - Ukraine- Great Britain

Ben's personal votes for the first half of the classics season: