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Picking a La Primavera winner
A pre-race interview with Australian Matt Goss before the 2011 Milan – San Remo is still one of the most vivid of my career to date.
I can’t recall any of the media hype in the build-up to that race - just Goss’s response when I asked him at the end of a telephone interview if he could win La Primavera.
“I don’t know,” he offered before hesitating briefly again.
Cadel is Aussie cycling's Great White Shark
Euphoria for Cadel Evans and his historic win at the 2011 Tour de France has gripped the nation.
My colleague’s children on Monday morning rode to school in cycling kit inspired by the Australian’s achievement.
Images of Evans in the maillot jaune are splashed across every major metropolitan daily in Victoria, as well as the national newspaper.
Transparency the best policy in the fight against doping
Shortly after Philippe Gilbert secured his Ardennes Classics hat-trick a friend of mine sent me a text message. “Gilbert must be on a sh*t load of drugs,” it read.
I can’t recall a month that has gone by this season where doping hasn’t been on the news agenda in one way or another. Hence, my friend’s cynicism, even if it was light-hearted, is somewhat understandable.
But the prominence of the issue in cycling’s world media invites a certain transparency that doesn’t exist in other sports. The downfall is cynicism and doubt but the benefits, in the long-term, will surely outweigh that and as a new generation takes to the stand.
Legends never die
It may be two years since team HTC-Highroad celebrated six Tour de France stage victories but people will still pay to see the documented feat writes Sophie Smith
It may be two years since team HTC-Highroad celebrated six Tour de France stage victories but people will still pay to see the documented feat writes Sophie Smith
I don’t want to say it in the event it’ll set a precedent but setting the alarm clock at an obscure hour for an interview with a cyclist is fast becoming habit as the European summer heats up.
Good timing
Sophie Smith fell into cycling journalism when she was moved to the sports round in her cadet year at the end of 2008. It was a steep learning curve.
My mother tells me, as a kid, cycling was the only thing I was naturally better at than my three younger siblings.
Thanks, mum.
