My name is Elin - A pro cycling lover's reflections

And the winner today...

Category: Cycling

Tour of Qatar. Stage 5. And the winner today was... Danilo Napolitano. And guess what. It was his birthday and could he have got a better birthday gift? Possible not. He outsprinted Tom Boonen for the first time in his career. Congratulations.

Sometimes I think so hard I can't remember how your face looked

Category: Cycling

Tour of Qatar has, I think, continued today but no results have arrived yet, so I have decided to write about the news that the Dauphine Libéré stage race in Southern France (yesterday's news) might only invite ProTour teams to this year's edition of the race. If so then last year's winner, Christophe Moreau, will be unable to defend his title. The race organisers indicated, yesterday, due to finances, they may only be able to invite ProTour teams. And therefore Moreau, who this year races with the Professional Continental Team Agritubel, would be excluded from the important race Dauphiné Libéré, after all many riders use it as a preparation for the Tour de France.

Christophe Moreau says himself that he doesn't "care whether it's the 12th or 13th Dauphine of his career", but that it would be worse for younger talents like Romain Feillu, "who would miss out on a great race and will not be able to prepare the Tour de France in the best possible way."

Well, if you have economical problems then it is hard to do something about it. I personally think it is very important to have many doping tests, but of course it is sad that a French team he would care about the race may not be there. There is a couple of things about UCI ProTour, which is extremely annoying, and one how does is visible in a situation like this. Many team's will not care too much about winning or do good results, they just use it to become fit before the Tour de France. I think Agritubel would try to make a couple of results because it is home soil and most riders want to show themselves then. It is sad, but if they really can't find a solution then I think it is better than skipping the doping tests. In the same time, as Christophe Moreau said too
  "If the problem is in fact a financial one and concerns [the fight against doping], it should be possible to find a solution."
And yes, hopefully a solution will come soon.

Was it just a dream?

Category: Cycling

Emmanuel Lizé sings L'enfant qui voulait etre un ours. Isn't he totally fabolous?

I still wonder when Team Collstrop will have their team presentation. According to Swedish rider Lucas Persson (http://www.lucaspersson.se/ ) they will start racing at Etoile de Besseges at the February 6th. At this moment I want to know how Sergey Lagutin feels and make sure he hasn't hurt himself too much this winter. It was long time since I heard some news about him and it makes me uncomfortable as I really want to know that he is fine. But c'est la vie (that's life). You can not always get what you want, but you can always get what you deserve. Okay, so soon enough I will find out how Cycle Collstrop's jersey will look like. I hope it is beautiful and not baby blue like Gerolsteiner's jersey. The colour can look good at some riders but mostly I just feel shocked because even the tiniest person looks fat in it. No, of course the colour won't be baby blue. Anyway, I am not interested in the colour but I want the cycling season to start again. Love

It should be illegal to deceive a woman's heart

Category: Cycling

Today's stage of Tour of Qatar was not won by Tom Boonen, but by the Italian rider Alberto Loddo (Tinkoff Credit Systems) who won. Second was Tom Boonen and third the German Skil-Shimano rider Sebastian Siedler. Loddo has now been taking the first win of the new season for Tinkoff Credit Systems and they are all happy in the Italian-Russian squad. I can tell you too that Loddo is used to the roads in Qatar, after all he won the race in 2003.

I'm amazed by all your patience

Category: Cycling

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Hi, it's me again and I must say that I have been busy today. My head has, once again, been full of things and now I need to relax. So I am sitting here for a while and saw that Tom Boonen won yet another stage at Tour of Qatar. As I said yesterday, he is in a good form right now. He, of course, still leads the race and wears the leader's jersey. What do you think, will he win the race this year, like he did in 2006? It is most riders first race this season so most of the riders are actually out of form, which you can easily notice by how much time some of the cyclists have lost. But of course these races in the beginning of the seasons are good for all riders who has still not made themselves a big name. But this time Tom Boonen is not a new cyclists, but have been around for years and he proves that he is surely something to count on. Maybe he can even win the green sprinter jersey in the Tour de France this year.

I'll be there waiting on you babe

Category: Cycling

Tom Boonen (Quick Step) outsprinted six other riders to win the second stage of the Tour of Qatar today and he now leads the race. He is almost always strong and a great rider so nobody is really shocked. Somebody who doesn't seem to be in the same form as Boonen is the French rider Sébastien Minard, Cofidis Credit Par Telephone, who has already lost 14.56 to the leader of the race. It is not easy being pro cyclist, especially not during the first race of the year. Tom Boonen use to do good in the beginning of the season so I wasn't very surprised about the Belgian's good result. He has done results in the competition every year since 2006 and actually he won the general classification in 2006 at Tour of Qatar. So clearly he is in good form in January / February or really, I think he is good - always. Surely sprinter wins more races than mountain specialists but this guy is clearly good almost all over the season - just like Laurent Jalabert was. Why couldn't I be as good as he is?