clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Track, MTB & women's cycling - video, news & live racing

A Thursday collection of recent videos, links to this weekend's live racing and some women's cycling news - including doping news. But we start on a different kind of positive, with a little video on life in the women's peloton. Add anything else you've seen into the comments!

By Sarah Connolly

If you liked Katie Colclough's Specialized-lululemon kit in that little UCI video, and have been looking for an excuse to buy some, here's an incentive:

Have a look at the team shop, and follow the team twitter for that magic code

***

La Route de France

That video also features ORICA-AIS riders Sungeun Gu, Shara Gillow, Jessie Maclean and Gracie Elvin - and moving to different forms of media, Elvin has been blogging about the Route de France that's running right now. Read her blogs on her site, and her team-mate Tiffany Cromwell's blogs on the race on her site - and of course, the usual ORICA race reports on the team's news page.

The Route de France has been oddly repetitive, with ORICA's Emma Johansson winning the Prologue, and Wiggle Honda's Giorgia Bronzini winning all five road stages. Maybe Stage 6's hills will make a difference to the GC, which Johansson's kept since day 1? Here's a video intro to the race, and a video from Stage 1:

The queen of French women's cycling, Gwéna, has links to more daily news reports that feature the race on her blog - these may be geo-restricted (they are to me).

All the results etc so far are on Cycling Fever - thanks, CyclingFlash, for finding the embeddable video!

***

2013 Junior Track World Championships

For the juniors, it's time to spot the stars of the future, and hand out some lovely rainbow jerseys. And it's all being streamed live, and archived. Here's the Day 1 highlights video - with some serious Australian domination (let's just say the lads lived up to the Aussie junior tradition of dying their hair gold for Worlds)

and the full video of the Day 1 finals:

If you just want the finals, here are the timestamps:

  • Women’s scratch race from 1:23:53
  • Men’s Team Pursuit bronze & gold finals from 1:40:52
  • Women’s Team Sprint bronze & gold finals from 2:01:00
  • Men’s Team Sprint bronze & gold finals from 2:17:17

If you want to see the Day 1 Qualifications too, they’re here.

Here's the Day 2 evening session:

It starts with the women's 500m, and the timestamps for the other finals:

  • Men's Scratch race from 0:58:30
  • Men's Individual Pursuit from 1:36:39
  • Men's keirin from 2:05:00
  • Women's team pursuit from 2:27:25

(Wondering why Australia didn't ride for TP gold? They crashed in the qualification but still got to the bronze final)

All the results are online, as are some comprehensive race reports from each session. There's racing on Friday, Saturday and Sunday – if you want to check the schedule for your favourite events, that’s here. It looks like all the other sessions will be put online here. I'll add the links to the comments as we go. If you want to talk about the Champs as they happen, join the conversation post and chat in the comments!

***

MTB World Cup 2013 - Mont-Sainte-Anne

This weekend it's round 5 of the Cross Country World Cup, Round 4 of the Downhill, and it'll all be streamed live on the amazing Red Bull tv – follow the links to watch, and to see the full replays after the races are done.

I really recommend Red Bull's coverage, the commentary is enthusiastic and knowledgeable, and a hell of a lot of fun. I'm in love with Downhill this year, and the commentary makes it really easy to follow. I especially love the graphics - lots of information about riders, who's where, time splits and which laps the XCo riders are on.

Want to see what the DH course looks like? Here’s the Dirt TV trackwalk video, and Claudio Calouri’s helmetcam video on Red Bull tv.

***

Newsnight on the State of everyday cycling in the UK and the Netherlands

BBC2′s Newsnight had a feature comparing everyday cycling in the Netherlands and Britain. It features Jools Walker of the Vélo-City-Girl blog and Vulpine, and there are some background stats and facts on the BBC Magazine site. If you scroll down there, you can also watch the feature (look for the box with the arrow – it might be georestricted to the UK)

***

Everyday women's cycling in the USA

The USA League of American Bicyclists has published Women on a Roll, a report into cycling in the USA. It found, among other things, that:

  • From 2003 to 2012, the number of women and girls who bicycle rose 20%, compared to a .5% decline among men
  • Women are the new majority: 60% of bicycle owners aged 17-28 years old are women.
  • Women accounted for 37% of the bicycle market in 2011, spending $2.3 billion

but that

  • Women are still underrepresented in leadership positions, including the boards of national industry and advocacy organizations — and their membership.

More via the link

***

Cycling Central's Women's Cycling-themed programme

If you’re in Australia, SBS’ Cycling Central weekly programme is dedicated to women’s cycling on Sunday 11th August – 6pm AEST, SBS 2. It’s not streamed live, but it might turn up on the Cycling Central video page.

***

Lotto Belisol Belgium Tour

Starting on 23rd August is the final event in the Lotto Cycling Cup series of Belgian races. Here's a promo for it:

***

Positive tests for banned substances

Today's news in cycling is that 19-year old Italian rider Ilaria Sanguineti, tested positive for Clostebol Metabolite (a steroid). Her team, BePink, have put out a statement saying that this is as a result of using an over-the-counter topical cream, that contained Trofodermin - but as Alex Murray points out, Trofodermin is on the banned list anyway. As the rules say, athletes MUST be responsible for whatever they use - although as women's teams don't have team doctors, they are on their own more than the men. Still, that's the rules. We'll see what CONI give her as a punishment. And as Andrew Knights suggested on twitter, maybe there should be a role for the UCI anti-doping hotline to help riders who aren't in big teams, if they're unsure?

This is the second woman rider recently testing positive - 20 year old USA track rider Madalyn Godby tested positive for Clenbuterol at the Pan-American Track Championships. She blamed contaminated meat, and USADA and the UCI said they "couldn't conclude that Godby had acted negligently or was at fault for the positive test". She gets her Pan-Ams results stripped, but it won't be treated as a "first offence" unless she has a positive test in the future.
***

The petition for a Women's Tour de France

The petition for a women's Tour de France is at over 90,000 signatures - can you help it get to over 100,000, by sharing it with anyone you think is into cycling, or equality, or annoying Christian Prudhomme?

Here's a recent audio interview with petition instigator Kathryn Bertine, about it all.

***

UK Parliamentary Inquiry into Women and Sport

If you're in the UK, or have an interest in UK sport, you can submit written evidence to the Public Inquiry that runs until September. It will look at:

  • The variety of sports on offer to girls at school.
  • Media coverage;
  • Availability of facilities for training and playing sport, for both girls and women, at both elite and grassroots levels;
  • Finance, including sponsorship and prize money;
  • Reasons why participation in sport by women decreases;
  • The variety of sports on offer to girls at school.

Anyone can submit written evidence to the Committee online (here are the guidelines)

***

So, what have I missed this week? Add anything more to the comments!

More From Podium Cafe