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Tuesday's EuroFile: British showdown? Bitter, but optimistic, Piil

Published: Oct. 4, 2005
Wiggins at Madrid
Wiggins at Madrid
Photo: AFP (file photo)

The Brits are already hyping the expected showdown between Bradley Wiggins, the good trooper who won gold, silver and bronze medals for Queen and country on the Olympic track, and David Millar, the dark star and confessed doper.

Wiggins, 25, will leave Crédit Agricole next year in a two-year deal to join Cofidis, which just happens to be Millar’s former team.

Millar, 28, penned a deal to return to the elite ranks with Saunier Duval when his two-year racing ban expires just days head of the start of the 2006 Tour de France. Millar admitted he took the banned blood booster EPO and later had his 2003 world time trial championship stripped as part of his punishment.

Wiggins has a Boy Scout image while Millar was once cycling’s brightest stars after beating Lance Armstrong in the 2000 Tour prologue.

Wiggins turned pro with FDJeux in 2002, but switched to Crédit Agricole in 2004. He shot to fame last summer when he won gold, silver and bronze on the track at the Athens Olympics.

Millar turned pro young with Cofidis in 1997, won a handful of important races and seemed poised for breakthrough status when he was caught up in the 2004 Cofidis scandal. The international 28-year-old Scot was born in Malta, grew up in Hong Kong, and learned fluent French at Cofidis. He told the British press recently he’s committed to getting his career back on track.

The pair look to lock horns in the Tour’s opening prologue in Strasbourg, but the British national championships set for June 25 will be Millar’s first chance to prove to the world he’s serious about being a bike racer again.

Basso, Voigt hang up cleats for season
Two of Team CSC’s biggest stars find themselves at the end of a long successful season, Team CSC reported. Ivan Basso and Jens Voigt each have stuck a fork in their respetive racing seasons.

“It has been the plan all along that if Ivan wasn’t able to sit up front in the last big races there was no point in continuing,” said Team CSC manager Bjarne Riis. “He's had a long tough season and he has really made some great results. Not many riders are capable of going fast more or less from the beginning of the season as well as in the Giro and the Tour, and then at the same time having ambitions about winning the last race of the year.”

Riis said Basso, 27, needs a break so he can come into the 2006 season feeling fresh, when he will be one of the top favorites to win the 2006 Tour de France.

“2005 has been my best season ever as a professional rider and I have a lot of great moments to look back on along with the team,” Basso said. “After such a brilliant season it’s good to withdraw and be able to reflect and analyze everything. For me it’s also about finally having time with my family, because I haven’t seen much of them through the summer. I’m looking forward to being at home more, and then slowly starting to look towards next year.”

Riis said the same thinking went into the decision to pull the plug on Voigt and his ever-ambitious legs. The veteran German won eight races this year and a run in the Tour’s maillot jaune as well as posted 25 top 10 spots, including an inspirational second in Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

“He has been full steam ahead right from the beginning of the year and he’s starting to get tired now,” Riis said of Voigt. “The idea was for him to finish the season after Paris-Tours this week, but now we’ve come to the conclusion that he's done all he can for this year. He’s had yet another great season with us, and there’s no reason to wear him down completely.”

Voigt said he’s been feeling ragged since becoming ill during the Tour, which saw him miss the time cut while wearing the yellow jersey.

“I can feel that I'm spent and luckily I can look back on a great season for the team and for me also. I think it's the best thing for me to start my break now,” Voigt said. “As a rider I'm probably the ‘All or Nothing Type,’ and when my body is telling me, it’s got no more to give, then it's got a point.”

Piil wants another comeback
Jakob Piil, the oft-injured Danish rider on Team CSC who broke his hip in a fall in Sunday’s Championship of Zürich, said he’s already planning a comeback.

Piil has suffered through a string of injuries dating back to the 2004 Tour de France, and recently shook off a mild concussion and a broken thumb that forced an early exit from the Vuelta a España to finish sixth in the world championships.

Piil was in the “best form of my career” when he was knocked off his bike by one of the caravan cars in Sunday’s race, leaving him with two fractures in his left hip.

“They opened and cleansed the two deep wounds yesterday so they won't get infected,” Piil said on the team’s web page. “Now the doctors want to leave it for a couple of days before they start operating. The idea is to place a piece of metal around the bone to keep one of the fractures in place. I feel that I’m in good hands here and I'm very optimistic regarding a full recovery.”

Despite the prospect of surgery and a painful recovery, Piil reckons he can be back on the bike inside a month.

“They reckon it'll be about six weeks before I'm able to train again, but I could be lucky and recover quicker than that,” he said. “I only have one thing on my mind now, and that's to come back with a vengeance for next year. This whole thing hasn't destroyed me, I've been through so much this year and I've always been able to move on. I know I'll be able to ride fast next year and my ambition is to reach the level I was at for the world championships, if not higher.”

Piil, a former winner at Paris-Tours, said crashes are part and parcel of being a professional bike racer, but admitted he’s very angry at the circumstances of his mishap.

“I’ve no problem accepting the occasional crash, which can happen to anyone, but it's totally unacceptable when it happens because of reckless driving by one of the service cars. The safety of the riders should always come first, and there are no excuses to jeopardize this,” Piil said. “Imagine if it had been Bettini in that crash, because some sports director wasn't paying attention. And I even took precautions yesterday, because I was actually sitting there thinking that the driver in question wasn't paying much attention and was acting a bit reckless, when he all of a sudden drove through the group we were in. Suddenly he just hit the breaks, and with the streets being wet with rain I never stood a chance. The decisive breakaway was already well under way and there was no doubt that it was in our group the winner was to be found. I had lots of energy left and knew I had the chance of winning. This of course only makes it even harder to bear.”

“Even though things went wrong I actually feel quite lucky, because I landed right next to some very sharp stones, and it could easily have been a lot worse,” he continued. “Now I'll have to look forward to starting my training again and towards next season. I would like it to be a very different one to this year.”

Q&A with Di Luca
Liquigas-Bianchi is rightly proud of Danilo Di Luca and his recent triumph in the hunt for the overall ProTour title. The team posted this interview on its web page:

Danilo Di Luca: It has been a terrible race, the toughest one of my life. The weather conditions were frightful but it had been worth it: at last the ProTour is mine.”

Question: Do you have a special dedication?

DDL: I dedicate this win to the people that stayed at my side last year, in the most difficult period of my life. Above all my wife Valentina.

Q: What has been determining for this success?

DDL: The regularity during the season has had a great importance. I've won the Vuelta al Pais Vasco, the Amstel Gold Race and the Flèche Wallonne. I've raced as a protagonist the Giro d’Italia taking fourth and today, in October, I'm still with the best riders. Behind me in the ProTour ranking there are great champions that, on the contrary, preferred to aim at specific goals limited to a particular period. Or athletes, like Boonen, very regular but not present in the great tours' overall rankings.

Q: Which picture would you like to frame?

DDL: An enormous poster of the whole Giro d’Italia.

Q: You had been the best rider in the first ProTour. What is your answer to the people that would modify the rules of this challenge? Do you have any change to suggest?

DDL: The structure is all right. I would only increase points to stage winners: 3 points for a stage win in a great tour or only one for the win at the Vuelta al Pais Vasco is really few. Q: Talking about score, you don't need points at stake in the Paris-Tours and Giro di Lombardia by now: do you miss one of these races?

DDL: No, I won't. I can't do without the Lombardia. I've already won this charming race in 2001. Moreover the ProTour's victory is an advantage for me. I can race the ‘Classic of the dead leaves’ concentrating on the day's victory. Of course. the Paris-Tours doesn't suit me as the Lombardia does but I believe the ProTour leader can't do without racing such a prestigious race in front of such a passionate public like the French one.

Q: Who will be the next Pro Tour winner?

DDL: It's difficult to say. Surely the winner will be a regular rider in the whole season. One day races' protagonists are favored.

Q: And what about Di Luca?

DDL: I've fought with all my strength for conquering this edition of the ProTour, the first one. Now I have other goals. However, if I have at hand on my way also the second white jersey, I will try not to let the opportunity slip, of course. But it isn't one of my main goals. In 2006, I will aim at the Giro d'Italia and world championships.

Q: So you have new goals. Also your training will change?

DDL: Not at all: I will do the same as this year, starting from the long high ground training in the month of January. I only won't force in April's races.

More details on González case
While Aitor González has yet to publicly comment about allegations of a positive doping case in this year’s Vuelta a España, more details are coming out in the Spanish media.

According to reports in the Spanish wire service EFE, González was singled-out for an anti-doping control after the 13th stage after he was on the UCI’s watch-list. González was reportedly contacted by the UCI at his home in San Vicente del Raspeig days following his victory at the Tour de Suisse in June, but wasn’t located.

Other reports have González failing a test by the Spanish cycling federation that were carried out the weekend of the Vuelta start on any rider being considered for the September world championships. González tested positive for the same substance later detected by UCI tests conducted during the Vuelta.

Through agents, the 2002 Vuelta champion has protested his innocence that he failed tested for banned anabolic steroids.

Grabovskyy no longer up for grabs
Espoirs world champion Dmytro Grabovskyy has his future very well planned. The 20-year-old Ukraine will ride one more season with the U23s with the Finauto D’Etoffe before joining the QuickStep-Innergetic elite team in 2007.

Zanini switches to Liquigas
Stefano Zanini, a 36-year-old veteran of the peloton, will ride for Liquigas-Bianchi in 2006. The Italian will leave his role as top lieutenant for recently crowned world champion Tom Boonen at Quick Step to take over the same role for ProTour champion Danilo Di Luca at the Italian team.