Cyrille Guimard

Is French cycling suffering from a severe case of complacency? This is what Cyrille Guimard, the Phil Jackson of cycling in the 70’s and the 80’s, said.

Its been almost a quarter of a century since a homeboy Bernard Hinault won the most coveted tunic in the cycling kingdom. The best they could do was a 2nd place finish courtesy of confessed doper Richard Virenque in 1997 and that was it. For a country who has the most number if wins (36, Belgium is 2nd with 18 and the US is 4th with 10) in the history of the TdF, being 0-24 since 1985 is an embarrassment, at least to the people who used to have their way in this race.

Who is Cyrille Guimard?

He is the second winningest director sportif (head coach) in the TdF, after Johann Bruyneel. While the latter had 8 wins (and counting) courtesy of Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador while the former has seven, not from 2 riders but four- Hinault, Lucien Van Impe and Greg Lemond, which make his record more compelling. He was the first director to teach “periodization”, where cyclists takes a break or two during the season.

While Guimard started out as a cyclist and winning stages in the TdF, he forged his reputation as a no-nonsense director. His strong personality sometimes led to differences with his riders. But this personality became useful in the 1976 TdF stage to Alp d’Huez when he screamed at van Impe, a good rider who had a soft underbelly, that he was going to run him off the road with his car if he wasn’t going to attack. Van Impe would go on to win the Tour.

But why is a dinosaur like Guimard back in the limelight? That’s because he wants to be president of the French Cycling Federation and lead French cycling out of its deep slumber after being overtaken by the non-traditional cycling countries lie the US, Great Britain and Australia. He bemoans the lack of character in the current crop of French cyclists and wants to change their attitude. Guimard says that Hinault’s version of a “fun” race was running everybody off his wheels while today’s generation has fun meant finishing in the pack. Another interesting thing that Guimard pointed is the high rate of broken clavicles during crashes these days compared his time. He says current cyclists don’t know how to crash and he is going to change that if he gets elected.

24 years is a long drought for cycling in country proud of it heritage. How Guimard will fit in and change a laissez faire culture to winning one will be interesting to watch.

Mark Cavendish and Milan-San Remo

Cavendish, a 23yo Brit riding for COLUMBIA-HIGH ROAD, won Milan-San Remo, the first one day classic of the 2009 season. It was a spectacular win for the rider from Manx, whose climbing was suspicious at best. Cavendish was just hanging on at the back of the leading pack in the last climb of the Poggio but thanks to good bike handling and teammate George Hincapie, he found himself at the front when it mattered most.

Henriech Haussler (CERVELO) started the sprint with 350m to go and got 3-bike length gap on the rest of the field right away. Cavendish, who owns the most explosive sprint in the business today, was the only one to reach Haussler, but was caught between the barriers and the German with the line getting close. Fortunately for Cavendish, Haussler swerved to the right, giving him just enough space to punch through and beat Haussler by a mere 3 inches!

Arc Gabrielle Araw-Araw

Congratulations to Ar-G, son of my good friend Grace and Ariel Araw-araw, for making it to the 2008-09 Jr. NBA Philippine Team. Ar-G will make up a 6-man team who were rewarded a trip the Big Apple and New Jersey to watch a live NBA game and to play with their American counterparts.

I know that were still a long ways to go for a local boy to play in the NBA. I’d guess he’d be as popular as Manny Paquiao especially if he plays for the Lakers. - THE FREEMAN