#tbt: DerailedUK at the 2006 Worlds
Rather incredible that we have MARIANNE VOS winning her first Worlds preserved forever on Cyclry with the headline “Dutch child sneaks onto course, wins Women’s Road Race.”
In honor of a different child winning the Men’s Road Race, we’re sharing our full coverage of the 2006 Worlds. It was sponsored by a betting company, which paid for the site’s domain and hosting for ten years. The mid-2000s were built different.
DerailedUK “at” the Worlds
Published on September 19, 2006
According to an e-mail we got sent, the site was down yesterday. We didn’t notice because we were too busy not thinking about cycling, but you can rest assured that we won’t let the whole situation affect our not-quite-daily update schedule for austere cycling “news.”
Anyway, the World Championships are here! Which means the cycling season is almost over! Which means we have to find something interesting to fill the website with for the next five months! Cripes!
Still, let’s enjoy it while it’s here. Tomorrow is the Women’s Elite Time Trial and the Men’s U23 Time Trial. That’s good, because a whole day of watching time trials is bound to be interesting, right? And apparently grown women are still not as good at sports as little boys either — the time trial distances being 26km and 40km respectively. Please, Jeannie Longo could beat any one of those kids riding the Men’s U23 event, and we all know it.
Nicole Cooke is the big hope for the women’s time trial, but we’re expecting her to do much more in the road race. So we don’t know who’ll actually win this one, largely because there’s absolutely no coverage of women’s racing whatsoever, but we’re betting on someone from a Slavic country. You heard it here first.
Tomorrow:
A better, less hastily written update, with actual funny bits and everything.
Next season:
We’ll be writing lots more about women’s cycling. Yeah!
Worlds: Bloody Americans win some medals
Published on September 21, 2006
What’s going on here? Not only did Nicole Cooke prove that we can be correct in our predictions, American riders also took first and third in the Women’s Time Trial. Americans aren’t supposed to win at the Worlds, they’re supposed to display poor form all season then lap the field in the Tour de France.
It’s been a bit of a torrid time for the Americans of late, but this looks ominously like an omen that they’re all going to come good in the Worlds. Today’s course must be too hilly for Zabriskie though, right? In fact, Rogers’s reasonable climbing ability could mean that he takes the rainbow jersey AGAIN today. And he’s not even very good at time trialling! Vino could also be up there today, if he hasn’t spent the whole time since winning the Vuelta just drinking Rioja (or possibly a more expensive wine, we’re not sure what kind of a budget he’s working on) in celebration.
Anyway, we’re very pleased with this year’s Worlds course. The road race on Saturday should be a very satisfying watch.
Later:
We might do a wrap up of the time trial. Might.
Worlds: (time) trials and tribulations
Published on September 21, 2006
With a performance destined to disappoint any people pathetic enough to habour hopes of America doing the double on the time trial gold medals, Fabien Cancellara won the Men’s Time Trial with ease. It prompted an in-depth discussion amongst the commentators as to whether the Paris-Roubaix and World Time Trial Championships are similar events (their verdict: no) and we were treated to the opportunity to listen to Switzerland’s not-very-interesting national anthem, so he was a reasonably popular winner at the DerailedUK camp.
Dave Zabriskie, with his strangely animated eyebrows, gained second place and Vinokourov third. We predicted Vino would do well, and we were totally right.
Sadly, we weren’t right about Michael Rogers. Despite the fact that we don’t like him all the much, we played up his chances for today’s race. Then he finished eighth. Well done Mike, you lost your rainbow jersey and took our reputation with you.
Dave Millar watch:
Millar finished… somewhere. In case you were bothered. He was probably saving himself for the road race. Yeah.
Tomorrow:
We’ll have stopped writing things for other people and spending 90% of our time in Chinese restaurants, so we should be able to return to full, hilarious, service.
Rhyming Worlds odds: Austrians full of dope, Spaniards full of hope
Published on September 22, 2006
This year’s Worlds has already been quite interesting, a feat made all the more remarkable by the fact that so far only the often eye-gouglingly dull time trial events have taken place. We’re blaming the course for this shift from normality — they’ve had the radical notion of including bits that go uphill this year.
Kristen Armstrong won the women’s time trial, sparking the single greatest catalyst of cognitive dissonance ever to have graced the cycling media. “Hooray, a young, English speaking World Champion,” they say, “this will keep us going with interviews for years.” Whilst at the same time, they must’ve been thinking something along the lines of, “Poosticks, now she’s made it to the big time, we can’t write headlines that say things like ‘Armstrong takes time trial win’ just so we’ll get a billion people hoping to read something about Lance.”
Fabien Cancellara won the men’s event, proving that people with big noses and rubbish haircuts can still win important things. His victory celebration on the podium was literally a two fingered salute to Bjarne Riis, whilst he screamed like a derelict about not being picked for the Tour de France. Not really, of course. Whether he’ll get to wear his rainbow jersey in an event anyone will watch is one of those questions that’ll probably keep him up all night throughout the off-season.
He won’t be staying up all night thinking about winning the road race, that’s for sure. So who will be?
Paolo Bettini
The Cricket has had a bit of a quiet year compared to normal. But he’s still been up there in the single day races, won a stage of the Vuelta less than a month ago, and has the support of a talented Italian team. Bettini might be suave, but is the really suave enough to be able to get away with a gold AND rainbow decorated bike/kit/helmet/everything? If we were him, we’d be considering gifting the win the Danilo Di Luca and sticking with the simple Olympic Gold colour scheme.
Odds to win: 9/2
Alejandro Valverde
If there’s one thing Valverde does more graciously than win, it’s lose. He had so many kind words for Vinokourov at the end of the Vuelta that we were wondering whether he thought they were both on the same team. In the last three Worlds, Valverde has taken two second places and led out Freire for his win, so he’s got plenty of experience. Will he get to wear the stripey jersey, or just look thoroughly contented to be stood on the second step of a podium again?
Odds to win: 6/1
Take advantage of these odds at ■■■■■■■. Go on. Winners always welcome at ■■■■■■■!
Tomorrow:
The odds for Vinokourov and Boonen to win, and something about the Women’s Road Race.
Worlds odds: Dutch child sneaks onto course, wins Women’s Road Race
Published on September 23, 2006
Jeannie Longo was prominent for so long that we never thought any youngsters would come through in women’s cycling. Then a 19 year old goes and wins the World Championship Road Race. Typical, bloody typical.
On route, Nicole Cooke made her usual tactical error of deciding to take on the work of three full strength teams, dragging every other rider along in the process. We’d have been stomping our feet in disgust that someone could let her do all the work and then outsprint her, but Marianne Vos put in enough work and attacks to make her victory acceptable. Plus she’s Dutch, which is exactly what we like in a woman.
Here’s the rest of the odds for tomorrow’s Men’s Road Race:
Alexander Vinokourov
Vino is popular amongst cycling fans, despite the fact that he’s the most disgustingly selfish and aryan person since Nikki from Big Brother. If you’re in a breakaway group and Vino wants to win, he’ll chase you down whether you’re in the same team or not. Kashechkin and company are unlikely to do anything other than work selflessly for their leader, however, so we should at least be spared that tedious part of Vino’s dubious “tactics”.
Odds to win: 8/1
Tom Boonen
Is Tom Boonen the largest world champion ever? He’s a gladiator on a bike, not to mention being DerailedUK’s most favouritest rider. Certain gold-plated Italians say that this year’s course is too hard for Tornado Tom, but we know that the Ronde Van Vlaanderen and Paris-Roubaix are much harder. Besides, Boonen has to win — he wears the rainbow jersey like he was born in it.
Odds to win: 17/2
Do you think that Simon Gerrans will win the Worlds, rather than one of the four fantastic riders we’ve profiled? Well then you’re an idiot. But you’ll make a lot of money if you’re right. Follow this link and join up now, you know it makes sense. Winners always welcome at ■■■■■■■!