Weekend Sports Review: Cycling and Football

Weekend Sports Report

with Negrito

After a short break I'm back with all your Sports news.  As usual it's been a bumper weekend and it's difficult to know where to start.  But Paris is as good a place as anywhere.  Yesterday saw the final day of the Worlds and Britain finished 10th in the medal table with 3 silvers, a long way off the achievements of the previous few years.  In fact this was the worst Worlds since 2001 for Britain and to read some reports online one could be forgiven for thinking that the roof of the world had fallen in!  But nothing so dramatic has occurred I'm afraid.  Shane Sutton, British cycling head honcho after the departure of Dave Brailsford last year, has had a tough time since taking over.  After the runaway successes of the past few years Sutton was always going to be batting on a sticky wicket and without a glut of golds in this, his first WC in charge, was on a hiding to nothing.  But was it really as bad as all that?  

Well, I don't think so.  In reality it must be almost impossible to maintain the elevated performance levels of the past few years.  At some point a period of rebuilding is going to needed.  Many of our top stars have now retired and for the youngsters coming through time and a bit of patience may be the key.  The Olympics are not for another 18 months or so by which time the picture may be much more positive.  Sutton has a long-term plan that is geared towards Rio and I'm sure many of the newbies will by then be pushing for medals.  For the more senior members of Team GB who didn't quite live up to their billing this time round, we need to again have patience.  For any athlete, whatever the sport, there are times when things just don't click; you work just as hard, train even harder, but for some unknown reason sometimes things just don't go to plan.  But with experience comes a degree of wisdom and those who haven't quite been on song this week, such as Laura Trott, Jason Kenny et al, will no doubt bring it back even stronger next time.

For me the star of the show was Francois Pervis, the triple gold medal winner who successfully retaining the titles he'd won the previous year and appears to have taken over as track cycling's newest superstar, filling Chris Hoy's shoes with ease.  And finally special congrats to Australia's Anna Meares who won the Women's Elite Kierin, her 11th World title, amazingly putting her one title ahead of Hoy.   

Froome on his way to victory in the Ruta del Sol.
Pic. from Skysports.com

Outside of the WC's Chris Froome (Team Sky) sealed a dramatic victory on the final day of the Ruta de Sol, in Southern Spain.  A mountainous Stage 3 had Froomey's great rival, Alberto Contador (Team Tinkoff-Saxo), open up a sizeable gap of 27s for a week long race.  But Froomey remained unfazed and the very day he he took his revenge.  Aided by team-mates Roche, Kennaugh and Nieve, Froomey pulled away from an isolated Contador to reverse the losses of the previous day and then some.  This left Froome with a narrow 2s lead over Contador for the final day.  In the event Froome managed to hold on strongly after a largely flat stage finished with a sharp uphill sprint in which Froome put in a fine performance to finish 6th on the day, so sealing a solid early season victory over Contador.  

Whilst this victory will certainly give Froome confidence that his training regime is going well, as a long term pointer to grand Tour success later in the season, it is largely irrelevant.  Any win over a major rival is always welcome, but it's still early days in the 2015 season and the Tour contenders will still be hard in winter training and will only be looking to these early races as indications that things are going well.  Another month down the line, however, things may well be rather more imperative.  March sees several possible outings for Froome, though his presence at any, or all of these races has yet to be confirmed.  Mid-March sees the Paris-Nice, an 8 stage World Tour event and a race Team Sky always put out a strong team for.  The end of March sees the Volta de Catalunya, won last year by Joachin Rodriguez, and where there was perhaps the first indication that Froome wasn't going as well in 2014 as he had been in 2013 when he swept all before him.  But the Volta is always a really tough outing, with long, mountainous stages and weather that is often extremely inclement.  Last year the conditions were particularly tough and Froome didn't seem to enjoy it all.  Given that experience it wouldn't surprise me if Froome by-passed the Volta this year to go for either the Paris-Nice or the Tirreno-Adriatico, another week long tour, which he won in his all-conquering 2013.   

With Contador going all out this year, showing his hand early by announcing his intention to go for both the Giro d'Italia (in May) and the Le Tour in July, it is important that Froome gains as much of a psychological advantage over Contador as he can.  To be honest, it's a tall order for Contador and I doubt whether he will win both, the last man to do 'the double'  being the ill-fated Marco Pantani in 1988.  All 3 of the Grand Tours now are brutal events and I cannot see Contador recovering sufficiently well to be able to take on a fresh and fit Froome, Quintana, Valverde and the rest, just a few weeks after the Giro, no matter how well he might have performed.  

However, one writes Contador off at one's peril.  For me, he has been perhaps the best cyclist of his generation, maybe the best since Indurian, and if he is fit enough to be on the start line then he is always going to be there or thereabouts at the finish.  Having won both the Giro and Le Tour before, and having already announced his future retirement after the 2016 season, Contador will be looking to his cycling legacy and thinking about what he leaves behind.  Of course, like Armstrong, he has had his troubles with performance enhancing drugs and actually had his 2010 Tour and 2011 Giro wins stripped from him.  However, the circumstances surrounding Contador's ban for clenbuterol (a steroid), the same drug infamously taken by shamed sprinter Ben Johnson at the end of the 80's, were controversial and, (I believe) were it not for Armstrong, he may well have garnered a lesser ban than the 2 years he ended up serving.  I like to believe that Contador was a bit unlucky, but either way his cycling pedigree may now be forever linked with that of his contemporary, Armstrong, and that would be unfair and unwarranted. Contador's motivation to succeed one more time before he hangs his cleats up may well be further ramped up by a desire to win over ex-fans and perennial doubters, so don't be surprised to see him pushing hard to equal the achievements of Pantani, but perhaps more pertinently, to beat Froome and the rest.  Can't wait!

Moving on from cycling I have to have a quick word about this weekends footy.  In the Premier League (PL) Chelsea stayed top, but by only 5 points now, having drawn at home to struggling Burnley, with Man City closing the gap on the leaders with a ruthlessly efficient and highly entertaining 5-0 ass-kicking of Newcastle.  The Boss's team, Man United, lost poorly to Swansea, with LVG maintaining they played well and created many chances.  I admit, I didn't see the whole match, but from what I did see I have to wholeheartedly disagree with LVG.  This season MU are struggling.  Their play is too slow, too predictable and too easy to break up.  The cumbersome going forward, clumsy at the back and only where they are because of David de Gea who has saved them more times than can be counted this year already.  They need to move the ball quicker, utilise the space they create to put teams under pressure.  MU have lots of work to do and unless they change things quickly then I can only see them sliding down the table even further.

Back in the week with a mid-week report on the Champions League and we also take a look ahead to the start of the F1 season in just 19 days time.

See you then

Negrito

Weekend Sports Snippets with Negrito

Hey Sports Fans!

Just a quick round-up cos I go into fits of apoplexy if I don't talk about sport at least once every 12 hours!  So this is more of a medical emergency than a sports report....and perhaps you should read it as such!

So here we go!  Firstly, the Bosses team, ManU, who despite a 3-1 win at home over lowly Leicester, they just didn't look convincing to me.  Over 70% possession and it should have been converted to a lot more than 3 goals.  In the second half they were just going through the motions and in the end they almost let Leicester back into the game.  Under Fergie the peddle would have been firmly to the metal for the whole 90 minutes and at NN we are beginning to question whether LVG is the man to take the team back to the top.  But, time is of the essence and he needs that time to ensure that he can be judged fairly.  We shall see and reserve ours till the end of the season.

Down the road at Stamford Bridge Chelsea and ManCity drew 1 a-piece, though Mourinho's Chelsea would have been more happy with that result than ManCity who dominated the play with David Silva again pulling the strings in the absence of Yaya Toure.  Thus far this season, these two sides have been head and shoulders above everyone else in the PL and the title should be between them, though Arsene Wenger's Arsenal are now starting to come on strong (they kicked Villa's butt 5-0 this afternoon)  and may yet have a say.

The 4th and final Champions League spot should be between ManU, Southampton, Spurs and possibly Liverpool, with ManU perhaps being the slight favourites to grab the place because, despite their relatively under par performances, they do seem to have the knack of not losing matches unlike the others.

In Spain La Liga progresses as it does every year with a dogfight between the big three, Barca, Real and Athletico.  Real hold the edge at the moment and remain 4 points clear, though since winning the World Champs just after Christmas they have gone off the boil.  However, the real news here is the possible rift between Messi and Luis Enrique, the Barca manager, and where Messi will be playing next year.  Of course, the Boss would love him to come to United but realistically if he becomes available his most likely destination may well be Madrid.  Watch this space.

Valencia, our local side here at NN, are going well this year for the first time in a few years, perhaps due to the investment of Chinese businessman, Peter Lim, who has given the club liquidity once more, and now they look to be a reasonable bet for the 4th spot in La Liga and the final Spanish Champions League place next season.  

Moving onto Formula 1, this weekend has just seen the first practise session of the year in Jerez, Andalucia, with ex-Champion Sebastian Vettel posting the quickest time of the day, but it was Mercedes' Nico Rosberg, last years runner's up to Lewis Hamilton, who claimed most of the plaudits by completing a phenomenal 157 laps (opposed to just 60 by Vettel) to underline their massive reliability, such a key factor in their success last season.  Hamilton takes over the car on Monday to see what he can manage.

And finally, to Melbourne and an incredible fight for the Men's title between Andy Murray and the unstoppable Novak Djokovic, who ran out the winner in 4 uncompromising sets.  The first 2 sets both went to tie-breaks, Novak taking the opener and Andy the second set, with both players hitting the ball with an intensity and vigour I've rarely seen.  But such was the pace of the match it was inevitable that the standard would drop and sadly it was Murray who faltered first and longest, despite some early physical scares from Djokovic who appeared to injure the thumb on his racket hand, then his ankle and had entered the match (possibly) suffering from the effects of a virus.  But in the end he proved to be the tougher player mentally and eventually steamrollered Murray 6-0 in the 4th, a sad way for Murray to end what had a fantastic match. Huge congratulations to Novak, now an 8 time Grand Slam winner, and commiserations to Murray.  His time in Melbourne will surely come. 

And that's me for today!  Phew!

  

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