via lynelamoureux.com

In his/her wonderful preview of the Tour of Ireland, fmk said this about Team Type 1, and I quote "who-the-hell-are-they". While the team has put out a (good) press release  that was picked up and published by cyclingnews & velonews, nothing beats a PodiumCafe-inspired overview of the Ireland-bound team.

It's an interesting story. Two friends, Phil Southerland and Joe Eldridge, both with Type 1 diabetes, got into bike racing in college and learned to manage and live with diabetes so they could improve as cyclists. But that wasn't enough for them, in 06, they put together a Race Across Amercia (RAAM) team and won. And repeated again, in 2007, with a team made up of only diabetics. And that put an idea in their heads: To get a diabetic cyclist into the Tour de France.

The duo approached Tom Schuler, one of the original seven members of the 7-Eleven Cycling Team and Team Saturn DS from 1996 'til 2001. More info on his wikipedia page  (one day, I too will have a wikipedia entry, but I digress). And Schuler signed on as General Manager.

Meanwhile, well a lot of meanwhile, for the past 15 years of meanwhiles, Ed Beamon had been directing a successful Continental Pro team, Navigators, which raced all over the world including the Tour of Ireland. Last year, the team podiumed on the last stage with David O'Loughlin, who now rides for the Ireland Pezula Racing squad. But, at the end of 2007, the sponsor Navigators Insurance  got out of the cycling business and Beamon was  doing the networking thing at Interbike when he got into a conversation with Southerland. And then later with Schuler, et voilà, Beamon signed on as the DS. If you enjoy talking cycling and exchanging smartass (or smart arse) comments, then Beamon is your man, he does live in Jersey after all.

And then, in a few months, Schuler & Beamon recruited riders to form the new team that included four riders with Type 1 diabetes. And they have committed to always have at least one diabetic rider in every race they participate in (as a team).

Onto the Ireland squad. While the US riders are skipping the trip to focus on the upcoming Nationals, the squad going to Ireland is made up of breakaway artists such New Zealander and Olympian  Glen Chadwick and Ukrainian Valeriy Kobzarenko or Kobza.

The other Olympian on the team, climber  Moise Aldape from Mexico, rode for the Italian Ceramica Panaria-Navigare last year and finished third overall at the Tour de Beauce this year. Team captain  and former Australian national road champion Matt Wilson also has an interesting story. He was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease and for 2 years fought the disease and returned to the sport in 2001. He has participated in two, and finished one Tour de France.

Sprinter Emile Abraham may be the only Trinidad & Tobago professional cyclist in the North American cycling scene. Ukrainian Kobza has been racing for Beamon for 3 years, moving over from the Acqua & Sapone team. And that brings us to young, 21 years old, and well small Fabio Calabria, another Australian and a Type 1 diabetic. Fabs was tagged as quite promising by Beamon earlier this year and has been slowly introduced to the rigors of professional stage racing.  The last rider, Aleksandr Surutkovych, is an unknown to me. According to the team, he is a former Ukrainian junior road race champion.

So watch for the riders to initiate and go into breaks and play the opportunity card whenever possible.  I'm not sure if Assistant DS Vassili Davidenko will be joining the team, but one thing to know is that he likes Enya.... yes, I spent hours in a team car listening to the same CD, over, and over, and....

The American guys on the team also have a pretty interesting story, maybe another time. Btw Drew, cross guy Chris Jones rides for them...