The Scott Sunderland Diary 2004

Training (and racing) with the Italians

France, February 12, 2004

G'day all,

New team!
Photo ©: Olympia

I've been a bit busy since my last update, especially with things not going quite according to plan with regard to my contract. You can read about that here, suffice to say that it should all be worked out by the end of the week.

I got into Belgium on the 19th of January and within 48 hours I was on another plane to Padova, a city in Veneto, Italy. It's the home base of my new team Alessio. When I arrived along with everyone else, we had three days of medical checks, which in Italy have been greatly improved over the last couple of years. Not because of doping, but because the government wants to look after the general health of athletes and sportspeople. There have been a few heart attacks recently and it's quite stringent, but due to circumstances, the government says if we can save a life, then that's how it is.

The Italians check for more things than the UCI ask for, nearly double in fact. We had a series of blood tests, X-rays, a cardiograph and so on. From that the doctors made the decision that for 90 percent of the riders, they wanted a 24 hour recording of our hearth rhythms. We had six electrodes and a register strapped to us. We had to wear that for 24 hours and had to mark down when we slept, ate, or went for light training. We had to be careful not to get the electrodes wet! I also had to do a test on a bike, which I just did in sandshoes and underpants. It wasn't a max test or anything - they just go until they see a dramatic increase in your heart rate.

These tests take just on 2.5 days - normally if I'd done these in Australia it would take half a day, but it's now obligatory for foreigners on Italian teams to do the Italian tests.

Southern training camp

Then we headed to Acquafredda, which is below Napoli in the south of Italy. It was quite hilly there but we were pretty lucky in that we avoided the snowstorms that hit the rest of Italy. It was quite a severe training camp too. 75 percent of the team are climbers, so naturally we did a lot of climbing. It would have been nice to have had five days between the camp and Bessèges, but we only ended up with one day. That was pretty heavy.

We're now doing the Tour of Med and it's our fourth week away from home. I think you would just come in a bit fresher not having had 10 days of camp beforehand, but we had to do that, due to the circumstances with our bikes not being ready. Bianchi came on board later than expected...but in a big way! So we had to change from De Rosa to Bianchi at the last minute.

It all worked out well though, and we had a good night out on the last day of our training camp when we went for pizzas. We were very well received, and there were one litre beers, some grappa and coffees afterwards. It was good for morale and the team atmosphere. Everybody seems to be fitting well with the Italians. I find it very easy with all the years I've been racing here - I know what it's like. Everything is done well, we have three soigneurs at a race which means there is time to do everything that needs to be done. Things run smoothly.

Well nearly...

Where to from here?
Photo ©: Olympia

I turned up to the first race and there's no muesli! It was a bit of a concern. I talked to the director Dario Russo and he said "we don't have any, but if you want muesli it's not a problem...just nobody eats it." All the Italians have pasta or rice for breakfast, while the Northerners and myself are used to muesli, cereal, bread and toast. Maybe for a World Cup race I'll have a plate of pasta, but for racing 150 km a day in Bessèges I don't think it's necessary.

Another thing...In previous years, there were always Cokes and Fantas in the eskies after the races. But now it's mineral water or sparkling mineral water. Or tea. Sometimes I'd love a Coke! So everything's cool but there's a few changes. The team personnel make changes to accommodate us, but we do too and add our own bit of "culture" to the squad: We have made our trips down to McDonalds as it was pretty ordinary food in France. We've also acquired some chocolate biscuits and a few cans of Coke. I think the mini-bars will get a workout this week.

On the flip side, there's always wine on the tables.

First racing

Our first race, the GP l'Ouverture La Marseillaise, was almost a win for us. But there was bit of a tangle with the motorbike at the end when the cars got caught up with the breakaways. The leader was only caught with 500m to go. Baden would still have won, but it was only a third for Baldato. A few days later in the Etoile des Bessèges, Angelo Furlan got second behind Kirsipuu and the day after, Magnus was second behind Hushovd.

The team is riding well, and we were up the front in Bessèges on four different occasions. Fabio is pleased that he has more support and strength, as he and Angelo have always been left on their own because of the climbers. With myself, Bäckstedt, Marcus Ljungqvist, Rene Jørgensen...we know what we have to do from working together previous years and we can just get in and do it. For the first race we fitted in really well together.

My program after the Tour of Med includes Haut Var, Het Volk, Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, then to Italy for Pantalica, Tour of Etna, then Tirreno-Adriatico, Milan-San Remo (not sure if I'm doing this) then straight into Waregem, Harelbeke, Brabantse Pijl, Driedaagse van De Panne, Tour of Flanders, Gent-Wevelgem and Paris-Roubaix. Then a break for three weeks!

Andrea Tafi had a bad wisdom tooth and needed an operation to remove it. He'll miss all these early races and will start in Giro di Lucca. From then on he'll be with us until the classics.

That's about it for now. I'll check in again soon!

Scott

P.S. You can also check out my road test (or, what I did during the holidays) of the Anatomic XLR8R Team Pro bike here.