As tiny nuggets in the annals of cycling history go, winning a stage of the Giro d’Italia as world champion actually isn’t that uncommon. Cavendish’s wins means this is actually the 22nd year in which this has occurred. As it’s only been possible in 79 different years, it’s better than a one in four chance that any given world champion will win a stage of the Giro.

Cadel Evans won a stage of the Giro in the Rainbow Jersey in 2010

The last rider to do so before Cavendish was Cadel Evans as recently as 2010 in that famous mud-strewn stage over the white roads of Tuscany to Montalcino. Evans crossed the line caked in pale brown slime, but had his wits about him enough to wipe his rainbow jersey slightly before puffing a big sigh of relief as he crossed the line.

The last rider to win multiple stages of the Giro as world champion, as Cavendish has now done, was Mario Cipollini in 2003. It was also the year where he famously equalled and broke Alfredo Binda’s record of 41 stage wins in the Giro d’Italia. It was the 13th year that Cipo had started the Giro, and it was the 13th time that he had won at least one stage, but his record-breaking 42nd win was to be his last.

Regardless of whether he completes the three week race this year, Cavendish is likely to win more stages, but he will find it near impossible to break the record of the most Giro stage wins as world champion. This record is shared between two riders and stands at a massive seven stage wins.

Alfredo Binda - Won the Giro twice as world champion

The most recent rider to have won seven Giro stages while in the rainbow jersey is the Belgian Freddy Maertens who did so in 1977. Even more remarkably he did so within the first eight days of racing (which included a couple of split stages). He abandoned during Stage 10.

The other rider to have achieved this feat went one better. In 1928, having become the first ever road world champion in Germany the previous year, Alfredo Binda won seven stages of the Giro and won the race overall. Binda is one of three riders along with Eddy Merckx (1968, 1972) and Giuseppe Saronni (1983) who has won the Giro d’Italia as world champion. Binda, like Merckx, also did so twice, achieveing this rare feat for the second time when he won the Giro for the fifth and final time in 1933.

The following is a breakdown of the world champions who have won stages of the Giro d’Italia:

Cycling fans, for the most part don’t support teams, they simply have a selection of favourite riders. Even if a cycling fan was to build up an affinity with a particualr team, that team may be called something different next year, or it may be based in a different country or it may be gone altogether.

Football on the other hand is very different. It is the quintessential team sport where fans exude a tribal loyalty. Football fans have a favourite team, just one. They pay exorbitant amounts of money to follow their team and cheer them on to victory.

Football vs. Cycling?

And it is a game that can be watched with or without knowledge of the wider context of who the teams or players are. Unlike cycling, there are no players on the pitch who are aiming to peak for a different time in the season and there are no players who actually have no interest in performing well in any particular match. Both teams are just trying to score more goals than the other, simple.

And of course there’s doping. Cyclists dope and footballers don’t, right?

All of these topics combined lead to what are fascinating parallels and differences between the world’s most popular sport and a sport which is trying to emerge globally and attract new fans and new sponsors.

Ned Boulting off of ITV

Ned Boulting is a presenter for ITV for both football and cycling and he was kind enough to talk to me at considerable length about these topics.

I half thought of transcribing the whole thing and writing an article around it but it went on for much longer than I thought (and transcribing takes ages!).

So after a couple of Skype-related false starts and an interruption in the middle in which Ned becomes loud and I become less-so, the following is the chat that we had about cycling and football.

Hopefully, there’s some people out there that will enjoy it. It’s also available to listen to directly on the SoundCloud website.

The young American looked to have seriously hurt his ankle in the fall and actually didn’t cross the line with his bike to finish the stage. But he did climb out of an ambulance at the stage finish to collect his third Maglia Rosa of this year’s race. It remains to be seen whether Phinney will recover sufficiently to take part in the Stage Four team time trial. The rest day tomorrow will be of great benefit to him, but on viewing the pictures from the finish line, it does not look good.

Should Phinney be forced to abandon the race as a result of his injuries, the pink jersey would pass to the second placed rider on G.C., Geraint Thomas. It is not the way Thomas would ideally like to wear his first Grand Tour leader’s jersey but it seems the most likely outcome.

Phinney after his crash in Stage Three of this year's Giro

A similar series of events took place in the 2005 Tour de France when race leader David Zabriskie crashed during a team time trial and was forced to abandon. Lance Armstrong was the Geraint Thomas this time, sitting as he did in second place overall. In one of his more noble gestures, the Texan offered not to wear the yellow jersey the following day, but the race organisers insisted.

Regardless, of the decision of the race organisers this time around, because the first three days have all taken place in Denmark, Phinney is facing the unlikely scenario that he will have worn the leader’s jersey during the Tour of Italy but will have never actually gotten to wear it in Italy. So, attention all cycling nerds, has this ever happened before?

This year is the tenth occasion where the Giro has kicked off outside of Italy, the previous nine provide the most likely setting for this oddity to have ever occurred before.

1965 – San Marino
The first stage began in the tiny principality of San Marino and ended in Perugia. The winner was Michele Dancelli, but by the time he was awarded the Maglia Rosa, the ace had already reached Italy…nothing to see here.

Michele Dancelli - Winner of the first stage of the 1965 Giro

1966 – Monaco
A similar story to the previous year. Monaco being too small to host a road stage of any significant distance, Stage One in 1966 finished in Diano Marina. This time the honours fell to Vito Taccone, but again he received the jersey once the race was back in Italy…moving on.

1973 – Belgium
The 1973 edition didn’t just begin in Belgium, in a remarkably international first week, over the first five stages the Giro visited Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, France and Switzerland before finally crossing into Italy at the end of the fifth day of racing. But Eddy Merckx led the race from start to finish, so again, there was to be unfortunate Rider in Pink who was denied the chance to parade the jersey in Italy

1974 – Vatican City
Again, the stage finished in Italy, this time in Formia where the pink jersey was adorned by the Belgian Wilfried Reybrouck.

1996 – Athens
The first three stages of the 1996 Giro all took place in Greece. Silvio Martinello won the opening stage and held the pink jersey before losing it to Stefano Zanini as the race travelled back into Italy for Stage Four. But Martinello is not the rider we’re looking for, as he regained the jersey from Zanini the following day.

2002 – Holland
The only other Giro that comes close to rivalling the 1973 edition for its international flavour. Starting with a prologue, the race included stage finishes in Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and France before returning to Italy for Stage Five. It is here where we find our winner.

Juan Carlos Dominguez - Led the Giro in Holland, but not in Italy

The prologue was won by the little known Spaniard Juan Carlos Dominguez. He lost the jersey the following day and never wore it again in his career. Dominguez became the first Giro leader never to lead the Giro in Italy.

Two other riders also wore Pink that year before the race returned to Italian soil. Stefano Garzelli and Mario Cipollini. But Garzelli wore the jersey in Italy during two other years, 2000 and 2003, winning the millennium edition of the race. Cipollini has worn the Maglia Rosa in five separate Giri, the most editions of any rider who has never won the race.

2006 – Belgium
The first four days of the 2006 Giro were all raced in Belgium and the race leader for the entire sojourn was the defending champion Paolo Savoldelli. ‘The Falcon’ did lose the jersey before the return to Italy but he had worn the Maglia Rosa previously on home soil in both 2002 and 2005, winning the race on both occasions.

Bradley Wiggins - Also led the Giro in Holland but not in Italy

2010 – Holland
Here we found ourselves another unfortunate. The first three stages of the 2010 edition all took place in Holland. The prologue was won by Bradley Wiggins who promptly lost the lead the following day to Evans before the jersey returned to Italy on the shoulders of Alexandre Vinokourov. Evans had worn the jersey before, when he famously capitulated in 2002. But Wiggins has not worn the jersey before or since.

Consequently Juan Carlos Dominguez, Bradley Wiggins and Taylor Phinney are currently the only three riders who have ever led the Giro but who have never led it in Italy.

For the sake of completeness, there have of course been stages throughout the Giro which have been entirely self-contained in countries other than Italy (i.e. not necessarily at the very start of the race). This has happened on a surprisingly few five occasions.

The first was in 1958 when Stage 14 consisted of a time trial held in San Marino. Agostino Coletto lost the jersey in the test against the clock but he had worn it for the previous two stages in Italy.

The other four occasions took place in either Switzerland or Austria in the years 1989, 1990, 1994 and 1998. On each occasion, the leader coming into the stage was also the leader after the stage end which meant each of them certainly had the opportunity to wear the Maglia Rosa in Italy. Respectively, these riders were Laurent Fignon, Gianni Bugno, Evgeni Berzin and Marco Pantani and each of these riders would go on to win the Giro overall that year.

Of course, we all hope that Phinney will be declared fit to continue so he can wear the Maglia Rosa in his adopted home country of Italy. But if he doesn’t, he will join the bizarre list of riders, alongside Dominguez and Wiggins who led the Giro but never in Italy.

Rather than the usual blind denials and wacky excuses that we have become accustomed to as cycling fans, Galimzyanov made the decision yesterday to confess and apologise:

I recognize a fact of banned substance usage. I fully realized what I did. I deeply regret about what happened, and I apologize to the whole team and my teammates, along with my fans whom I disappointed. I am ready to suffer an appropriate punishment.

He has waived the right to have his B-sample analysed which confirms that he has tested positive and he will probably face a two-year suspension.

Denis Galimzyanov

In the wake of Galimzyanov’s positive test, former German professional cyclist Erik Zabel and current employee of Galimzyanov’s Katusha team, decided to air his view via his twitter feed:

I wish Denis, that he’ll find rest and that his family and good friends are strong enough to help him out in the next months! Good Luck and dont comeback!

The final sentence is incredibly hypocritical, coming as it does from a rider who confessed to taking EPO during his time at Team Telekom. Zabel’s teary confession came only after many of his former team-mates had also owned up to doping.

Zabel’s admission that he doped for the 1996 Tour de France came almost 11 years after the fact. He also tested positive for a banned substance in 1994.

When he confessed to taking EPO he was still a professional cyclist with the Milram team and he was allowed to continue racing despite his drug-fuelled past.

While Zabel lied for 11 years about taking EPO himself, Galimzyanov’s admission yesterday is refreshing. The act of taking performance enhancing drugs remains deplorable of course, but the fact that the Russian has confessed immediately saves everybody time and hassle.

Erik Zabel

Many months on from the conclusion of the Alberto Contador case, most would agree that the most damaging aspect of the whole scenario was the ridiculous amount of time it took for an ultimate decision to be reached. Galimzyanov, although a doper, has at least saved us the tiresome charade of claiming innocence.

Zabel, who has been employed in cycling ever since his confession has now asked a rider he is employed to help, to never come back.

I can’t help but think that there may be an element of this that has been ‘lost in translation’ or that it was simply a typo on Zabel’s behalf. The tweet that Zabel had sent directly before the one asking Galimzyanov not to come back was as follows:

Sad news about Katusha’s Denis Galimzyanow’s positive test! He confessed, regrets, apologized and say sorry! End of story!

This message is not in keeping with the tweet only minutes later that would oppose the idea of Galimzyanov ever returning to the team.

Perhaps the next time Zabel decides to talk to us on twitter we will learn more, but until then, judgement will be reserved.

He won the latest edition of the Hell of the North by attacking with more than 50km to go and soloing the entire way to the finish. Nobody could get close to him. It was a stunning display of strength and confidence despite of (and quite possibly because of) the fact that without the presence of Fabian Cancellara, he was the outstanding favourite.

But some people are not impressed.

Another record which Boonen set last Sunday is that he has now won four editions of Paris-Roubaix. This is a record he now shares with Roger de Vlaeminck. But the one they call the Gypsy has been less than kind in his reaction to Boonen raining on his cobbled parade.

Tom Boonen - Four time Paris-Roubaix winner.

I hope Cancellara participates next year – then we see another race….Tom can not help it that this time he had no opposition. They were not second but third-rate riders. The competition were no obstacles to him in the race…they could probably not be any better.

De Vlaeminck continued by actually complimenting Boonen, saying that he is the best Spring rider of the last twenty years. In fact, by taking 17 wins combined in the E3 Prijs, Scheldeprijs, Ghent-Wevelgem, Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, Boonen is the most successful cobbled classics rider of all time. But De Vlaeminck’s message seems to be that Boonen’s latest win was second rate and not as deserved as his own wins back in the 1970s.

In the March edition of Pro Cycling magazine, Herbie Sykes recounted an interesting story about one of De Vlaeminck’s own wins, the 1977 Tour of Flanders. It was the only monument classic which De Vlaeminck had yet to win and the story involves one of the greatest classics riders who never won any of the monuments, Freddy Maertens.

Freddy Maertens - Never won a monument classic

The Koppenberg was in the race for only the second year. The climb was considered so steep that riders wanted to change bikes at the foot so that they could tackle it with a more appropriate gear ratio. But the race organisers, eager to avoid a bottleneck of bike-changing riders, decided that no rider would be allowed to change bikes throughout the race unless there was a genuine mechanical problem.

But Maertens decided to try and change bikes on the sneaky anyway. As the race unfolded, Maertens and De Vlaeminck ended up at the front of the race in a trio along with an ageing Eddy Merckx.

But a UCI commissaire, Jos Fabri, had seen the illegal bike change and pulled up beside Maertens during the race and told him that he was going to be disqualified. Maertens claimed innocence and said he would appeal. Bizarrely, Fabri allowed the current world champion to continue riding but said that once he got to the finish he would be disqualified and removed from the final results.

Merckx had previously been dropped which left Maertens on his own up front with De Vlaeminck. Knowing that he couldn’t win himself, Freddy did the only thing that seemed reasonable given his current predicament, he asked De Vlaeminck for 300,000 Belgian francs in return for a tow to the finish.

The Gypsy, desperate for a win in the race that had eluded him for so may years, agreed.

Roger de Vlaeminck - Bought the Tour of Flanders?

So Maertens pulled De Vlaeminck to the finish for two hours. The latter didn’t do one turn on the front for those final 80km and then he nipped past Maertens in the final straight.

As Sykes put it in the Pro Cycling piece, ‘Roger had committed the cardinal sin of Flemish cycling, he’d pilfered the Ronde van Vlaanderen’.

De Vlaeminck crossed the line to a chorus of boos and jeers from the local fans. They knew he had not done a tap of work.

After the race, Cycling Weekly reported the following about the events that unfolded:

“I told Freddy that I couldn’t work with him, but I did not promise to let him take the sprint.”

The reason for this comparative lack of chivalry lies in last year’s Paris-Roubaix when Roger lost the sprint because he had worked too hard before it. He wasn’t going to have that happen again.

“Even so, I would much rather have won that fourth Paris-Roubaix last year than won my first Tour of Flanders like this” he confessed. “You know, if Maertens attacked me just once, I would have been able to do nothing about it”.

As it happened, De Vlaeminck would win that fourth Paris-Roubaix the following week and ridiculously, Maertens tested positive for Stimul after the race (which meant he was disqualified twice!)

De Vlaeminck has never admitted paying off Freddy Maertens that day but the circumstances of the victory make it very hard to accept any other explanation.

So before De Vlaeminck poo-poos Boonen’s latest win as undeserved, perhaps he should take a look at himself and decide whether he deserved to win the 1977 Tour of Flanders.

She emulates her compatriot Harry Reynolds who won a bronze medal at the amateur sprint event at the World Track Championships in Glasgow in 1897.

But the year before, Harry Reynolds won gold.

In the sprint event in Copenhagen in 1896, Reynolds defeated local favourite Edwin Schraeder and the Frenchman Charles Guillaumet. Reynolds crossed the line just three inches ahead of Schraeder to become Ireland’s first ever cycling world champion.

There is a great article about Reynolds which was written by Michael Killeen and published in a journal called the Dublin Historical Record in March 1988. Unfortunately, it’s not available online in its entirety, however it was rehashed somewhat by Ger Cromwell and published on IrishCycling.com in 2000.

Caroline Ryan

There is some fantastic detail provided on Ireland’s first ever cycling world champion. But there’s one story that stands out more than most. It refers to the medal ceremony in the wake of Reynolds’ victory in Copenhagen:

Harry was approaching the Royal Dais to be presented with his Gold Medal by the King of Denmark when the Union Jack was hoisted and the band began to play “God Save the Queen”. Reynolds threw down his bike, called the officials, pointing out that he was Irish and would not have his victory credited to England. At his demand, the Danes lowered the Union Jack, replacing it with a green flag and the band played an Irish tune.

A stubborn display of patriotism, but there was to be an infinitely worse encounter in store for Reynolds. In 1920, all of his notes, journals and scrap books were destroyed in a fire when his house in Balbriggan was burned down by the Black and Tans during the Irish War of Independence.

Accompanying most reports of Ryan’s success in Melbourne today have been details of the relatively paltry funding Irish cyclists receive along with the fact that Ireland does not have an indoor velodrome.

Ireland's premier cycling track in Sundrive

Unsurprisingly, there was little difference back in 1896. Upon Reynolds’ return to Ireland from Copenhagen there was a welcome reception at the offices of the Irish cyclists association on D’Olier Street in Dublin where the following formed part of a congratulations speech to Reynolds:

A notable performance under any circumstances, the capture of this most coveted distinction acquires special significance when the disadvantages under which you laboured in preparing for the event are taken into account.

Denied the opportunity enjoyed by your opponents of training on a suitable track, and handicapped still further through not being in a position to devote to your training the time at the command of the majority of those against whom you had to compete, your victory was indeed a notable performance, and one of which Irishmen all the world over are justly proud.

In bidding you “Céad Mile Failte”, on your return, we beg to tender you our sincerest congratulations and to convey to you the good wishes of those whose sentiments we voice, and for whom you have won a great honour by your memorable achievement.

The exact same passage could be applied today to Caroline Ryan who has made Irishmen and women proud of her achievement.

Before Michelle Smith’s success* at the Olympics in Atlanta, Ireland did not have an Olympic sized swimming pool, now we do.

And before the likes of Caroline Ryan and Martyn Irvine proved successful on the boards, Ireland also did not have an Olympic standard velodrome. But thanks to their dedication and efforts, there are now plans afoot to build a velodrome up in Tallaght so that young Irish cyclists can follow the path paved by Ryan and Irvine, the foundations of which were laid by Harry Reynolds in 1896.

The now legendary Belgian began racing at the top level in the midst of World War II. Because Belgium was still occupied by the Germans at the time, he had to forge a German identity card in order to turn professional.

He won the Belgian national championships in his first year as a pro, and in 1944, he took part in his first Tour of Flanders. This was the last edition to ever finish in a velodrome as the finish line came after 224km in the Kuipke Velodrome in Ghent.

Rik van Steenbergen

Nine riders made it to the velodrome together just behind the lone leader Georges Claes. But a problem with directions, caused Claes to crash at the entrance to the velodrome. Van Steenbergen was fastest out of the group of nine and won the Tour of Flanders aged just 19. He remains the youngest ever rider to win a monument classic.

This was the first major win of an incredible list of career wins which Van Steenbergen racked up in a career which spanned 24 years. He won the Tour of Flanders again in 1946 where he again won the race as Belgian national champion. He also won Paris Roubaix and Fleche Wallonne twice each and Milan San Remo.

But he is perhaps most famous for being a triple world champion, a record only equalled by Alfredo Binda, Eddy Merckx and Oscar Freire. But not only was he prolific on the road, he was also a master on the track where he won a total of 1,591 races.

To find out more about this edition of the Tour of Flanders and more about Rik van Steenbergen check out the Velocast – This Week in Cycling History podcast available now on iTunes. We also discuss Tom Simpson’s Tour of Flanders victory in 1961 and Bradley Wiggins’s first ever stage race victory way back in 2001.

I am a big football fan. I watch a football match most days of the week. This is primarily because there is a football match on the telly most days of the week. There are also countless shows about football on, even when there are no live games to show – weekly round up shows, interview specials, highlight reels. The big clubs like Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea even have their own TV channels.

There is more football on telly than I have time to watch even if I had absolutely nothing else to do. The same is most certainly not true of cycling.

The number of races which Eurosport cover is increasing every year. The Tour of Taiwan and the Tour of the Algarve are new additions already this year, to add to the dozens of other races for which they have coverage of. But besides the live coverage, there are no shows about cycling. There is no regular panel of guests who roundup the week’s action and provide in depth analysis. There are no cycling phone-in shows on the radio to listen to on the commute home. And needless to say, there are no dedicated cycling TV channels.

This is where cycling podcasts can fill the void.

Over the last couple of years I’ve gotten my fix of cycling related chat and news via podcasts such as Flammecast, Velo Club Don Logan, Real Peloton and the Velocast. But there are also several others, most of which have been reviewed on the Inner Ring blog.

Last year, I was fortunate enough to be approached by John from the Velocast to contribute a few snippets to their show every week entitled ‘This Week in Cycling History’. I happily obliged and I’ve been a feature on the show for more than six months now. My contribution consisted of delivering three pre-recorded soliloquies referencing cycling stories over the years which (tentatively) relate to this week in the calendar.

But over the past few weeks, Scott and John suggested the idea of creating a new show altogether which focuses solely on This Week in Cycling History.

So this is what we’ve done and it’s available now on iTunes. Instead of slotting in three sections into the existing Velocast show, there is an entirely new podcast. I still deliver the three snippets, but following each one now, myself and John have a bit of chat back and forth which hopefully colours the events a bit more than talking on my own could ever achieve.

We’ve done four shows up until now and are due to sit down and record the fifth tonight. Here’s a mashup of the type of stuff you’re likely to find. Why not give it a listen? Sure there’s no football on the telly tonight anyway….

But there was another notable statistic which emerged as a result of Zaugg’s victory.

Since the last Italian victory at the Tour of Lombardy, by Damiano Cunego in 2008, the race has been won twice by Phillipe Gilbert of Belgium and most recently by Zaugg of Switzerland. Three barren years without an Italian victory in their own race is compounded by the fact that the last three winners of their other monument, Milan-San Remo, have been an Aussie, a Spaniard and a Brit.

This is the first time ever that no Italian has won either Milan-San Remo or the Tour of Lombardy three years in a row.

Damiano Cunego - Italy's last monument winner

If we widen the net to also include the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and Liége-Bastogne-Liége, no Italian rider has won any monument classic in the last three years, since that Cunego win in 2008. Zaugg’s victory for Switzerland made it 15 barren monuments in a row for Italy. This has also never happened before.

The Italians have gone 14 monuments in a row without a win a number of times previously, but not for a long time. The last two times this abomination occured were between the years 1968 and 1973. Throughout these years, the classics were utterly dominated by Belgians. Eddy Merckx, Roger de Vlaeminck, Walter Godefroot and Eric Leman left very little opportunities for anyone else to sneak a win.

But as the 2012 Milan San Remo approaches, the Italians have reached a new low as they continue to flounder in the classics.

In the figure below, the red plot line indicates Italian riders in the pro peloton who have amassed at least one ranking point according to cqranking.com. The blue bar chart indicates the number of top Italian teams in the peloton.

The most interesting point indicated by the graph is that both the number of Italians with ranking points and the number of top Italian teams have both taken a sharp drop in the past three years. This would translate into the contention that there are simply less Italians out there now capable of a victory.

It’s perhaps also worth pointing out a similar graph I’ve used before. It’s related to Grand Tours so is less appropriate than the graph above, but it nevertheless shows a decline in the Italian influence on the pro peloton. The graph below shows the number of Italians who finished in the top 50 of the Tour de France since 1970:

This graph shows a serious decline in the number of Italians who were competitive for the G.C. at the Tour de France. From their peak of 13 in the mid-90s, they’re now down to just two riders in the top 50 in 2011, Damiano Cunego and Ivan Basso.

The last two Italian winners of Milan-San Remo are Filippo Pozzato and Alessandro Petacchi in 2006 and 2005 respectively. The latter finished third as recently as 2010 but Ale-Jet certainly has his best years behind him and the prospect of a 298km slog is becoming more and more daunting.

Filippo Pozzato - Not the force he used to be

Pozzato is a strange case. He was truly feared throughout the spring classics in 2009 where he won the E3 Prijs, took fifth at the Tour of Flanders and was beaten only by a rampant Tom Boonen at Paris-Roubaix. Despite finishing fifth in Milan-San Remo last year, Pozzato has regressed dramtically since 2009, choosing to follow wheels and scupper the hopes of others rather than ride his own race and take risks. The only race he has won in the past 18 months is the modest GP Beghelli.

But as the old guard of Italian prospects have faltered over the past few years, there is a new wave of young sprinters who have been breaking rank over the same period.

Andrea Guardini

Sacho Modolo finished fourth in Milan-San Remo in 2010 aged just 22. He seems to be approaching decent form having finished fifth behind Cavendish in the bunch sprint at Tirreno-Adriatico yesterday. Manuel Belletti is a similar kind of rider albeit a couple of years older and coincidentally finished fifth in today’s bunch sprint at Tirreno-Adriatico.

But on a level above Modolo and Belletti are Elia Viviani and Andrea Guardini. These two Italian powerhouses are perhaps the country’s best chance of breaking their terrible losing streak at the monument classics. Viviani has just turned 23 and has won five times already this year while Guardini is just 22 and has six victories to his name (even if they were all at the Tour de Langkawi).

But regardless of the expectations that will be heaped on their shoulders, both will face the extremely difficult task of defeating the favourites for the race, all of whom graduated from the school of HTC-Columbia – Andre Greipel, Matt Goss and Mark Cavendish.

The Italians regularly win the Giro d’Italia and prior to the past three years, actually enjoyed many wins in the monument classics too thanks to the likes of Cunego, Paolo Bettini, Michele Bartoli and Andre Tafi.

So if we’re feeling sorry for the Italians, spare a thought for the French, who quite apart from their Grand Tour woes (they haven’t won one since Laurent Jalabert won the Vuelta in 1995), haven’t won a monument classic since Frederic Guesdon took a surprise win in Paris-Roubaix…12 years ago.

Jonathan Vaughters is the president of the AIGCP which is the association which represents the interests of professional cycling teams. As Matt over at The Inner Ring has pointed out before, the AIGCP are somewhat mysterious. Although Vaughters himself has a large online presence and is very accessible, the AIGCP itself does not have a website. If nothing else, it would provide a platform from which they could outline a clear agenda and the reasons for their existence.

Jonathan Vaughters - Head of the AIGCP

Instead, the only disclosure we get with regards to the goals of the AIGCP are through articles on the likes of Cycling News and Velonation when Vaughters gives an interview or through Vaughters’s own twitter feed.

But yesterday, I stumbled across an interview with the head of the AIGCP, who is also the directeur sportif of one of the most successful teams in the sport. This is an article which you may not have read before. Again, it only outlines end goals and doesn’t provide details on how or why these goals may be achieved, but it does give some insight into the AIGCP itself. Here are a few snippets from that article:

Cycling’s top teams and race organisers could be on a collision course, as longstanding disagreements over the funding of the sport threaten to escalate. The debate over the future structuring of the race season and distribution of television money has been sparked by the head of the teams association, AIGCP.

“The rights holders are not getting as much television revenue as they should. Cycling is the second most popular sport in Europe in terms of hours and audiences. It gets high viewing figures, so it is profitable for broadcasters. That profit must be shared with the teams”.

“All sports now make changes to their calendars to cater for television schedules. But cycling’s calendar is the same as it was 50 years ago. We need to eliminate the boring stages in the major tours and cut down on the number of events outside the tours”.

A re-structuring of the season – bringing it down to a skeleton schedule of big events, built round the three major tours, five or six single-day races and the world championships – would also help solve the sport’s long running doping problems.

“It would give riders more time to recuperate, meaning that they won’t have to resort to doping simply to keep up. We need more quality and less quantity”.

If you’re thinking ‘same old, same old, sure there’s nothing new in those quotes‘, you would be correct. These are the essentially the same points which Vaughters and the AIGCP have been making for months now. But the interesting thing about this article, which appeared in Pro Cycling magazine, is that those aren’t the words of Jonathan Vaughters.

Those are the words of Manolo Saiz, the directeur sportif of the ONCE team and the head of the AIGCP when the article was written, in December 1999.

Controversial directeur sportif - Manolo Saiz

What seems to be new on the agenda since then is actually splitting from the UCI and forming a breakaway league. But Drastically altering the cycling calendar and teams receiving a share of TV revenue are not new ideas.

Back in late 1999, Vaughters was swapping his US Postal racing jersey for a Credit Agricole one, while his partner in crime in the breakaway league notion, Johan Bruyneel, was waving goodbye to Vaughters having just finished up his first year as directeur sportif of US Postal.

So before you go pointing the finger of blame for these fanciful ideas at the likes of Jonathan Vaughters and Johan Bruyneel, remember that the AIGCP and the thirst for money and power has been around long since before either of those two came to prominence in the sport of cycling.