DC's new face

While DISCOVERY CHANNEL is registered as an American team, it is actually a Belgian outfit with a motley of multinational riders in its roster. In Europe, the team is based in Belgium and most of its support crews are Belgian starting with director sortif Johan Bruyneel.

The US POSTAL team that Lance Armstrong took with him in his first win in 1999 was composed of six Americans, a French, a Luxemburger and a Norwegian. In LA's 7th and final tour, the team had more Spaniards (3) than Americans (2). This year, only George Hincapie was waving Old Glory in France.

Having been used with having a dominant leader from 1999 to 2005, DC (nee USPS) rode the tour this year with multiple leaders. And just like any team in pro cycling history who applied this formula, it failed. Therefore next year, DC will start with a new slate, letting 11 riders that included old reliables Spaniard Triki Beltran and Portuguese Jose Acevedo go. Russian Slava Ekimov, with 15 tour finishes under his belt, retired and stayed with DC as a director sportif. 2-time Giro d'Italia winner Paolo Salvodelli was also let go.

As of today, DC has signed Portuguese Olympic silver medalist Sergio Paohlino, 21 yo Belgian Gianni Meersman and Slovenian Uros Murn. They will beef up the squad that contains classics rider Hicapie, American hopeful Tom Danielson (who had a disastrous Vuelta) and Vuelta revelation Janez Brajkovic. Earlier, they had signed Levi Leipheimmer, who podiumed in the 2001 Vuelta a Espana wearing the USPS colors.

But what got me surprised was the signing of Chinese rider Fuyu Li! Currently riding for the continental team MARCO POLO, Fuyu Li is the first Chinese rider to ride in a pro tour team and the second Asian after Japanese Fumiyake Beppu to do so. Beppu is also riding for DC.

While this is an important milestone in Asian cycling, I wish I could say the same of Philippine cycling. Just like in basketball or baseball, cycling is so far in the governments depth chart that I don't know that it can ever come up, even for air. To make matters worse, 6 RP team riders were mugged in Malaysia last week after competing and qualifying for the Doha Asian Games. Warren Davadilla, Arnel Quirimit, Santy Barnachea, Frederick Feliciano, John Ricafort and Ericson Obosa were all held up by unidentified men with guns and knives 200 meters from the Grand Continental were they were billeted. They were ordered to strip and to hand over their cash and valuables to the thieves. That wasn't the only bad luck that hounded the RP team last week as Alfie Catalan's 300K COLNAGO was stolen at the Amoranto Velodrome. Talk of a double whammy!

The only good thing to report about RP cycling was the inclusion of Maritess Bitbit I the Asian Games team.

Road Cyclist Of The Month

CEBU CYCLING'S RCM series is clearly heating up during and off the races. Flared tempers and frayed nerves had obviously gotten into some of the participants and their supporters but I believe that it was all due to the competitiveness of these weekend cyclists. Things like these are normal in any competition but what is important is that at the end of the day, we should all understand that we belong to the same community and that we are as passionate as anyone in the sport. And that is what I appreciate a lot about our local riders- their understanding that were all here to enjoy ourselves. Thanks, guys!

Race Notes

Team GEROLSTEINER, a German mineral water company, has indicated that it will boycott the 2007 Tour de France if Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso will be allowed to participate....While the team of Erik Zabel, MILRAM, had denied rumors that they are after the services of banned rider Jan Ullrich, DC and ASTANA are reportedly interested in signing the German, assuming he is cleared by all these doping allegations.

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