Aftermath

I heard it was sunny for the cyclocross world championships in Sankt Wendel, Germany. Not so in Northern California. After a glorious, dry and warm January, we suddenly got hit by a storm and the weather turned cold, wet and overcast. I kept my fingers crossed because we have had this new weather pattern the last four or five years where a record setting January is followed by two or three cold and wet months. Fortunately, it appears we are entering another warm and dry spell today so maybe we can avoid it altogether.

It was a mixed weekend for the Belgians. First in tennis, Kim Clijsters won the Australian open and another Belgian An-Sophie Mestach won the juniors and is currently the world's number one. That was excellent news after the shock announcement that Justine Henin was calling it quits.

Kim's win made everyone hopeful that the men would sweep the cross championships. Expectations (and tensions) were high in a team with seven top riders. Although there had been some words, coach De Bie did what he could to calm the waters and on Saturday, all looked good for the day ahead.

Niels Albert was the clear favorite. The course suited the former world champion and he has been on a winning streak throughout the season. But Niels had a bad day and some bad luck and he was out before the racing started. He ended in 24th, a world away from the winners and appeared to have fallen off the planet as far as the Belgian media was concerned.

Niels' problems left Stybar, who will ride for Quick-step next season and Sven Nys alone to battle it out. Although Nys fought hard, he could not stop Stybar from riding away from him with four laps to go. Behind the leaders Pauwels fought French and German riders for third. The podium was Stybar, Nys and Pauwels. A Belgian victory of sorts, as Stybar lives in Belgium, speaks Dutch, and rides for a Belgian team. He is an adopted (Flandrien) Belgian.

An estimated 1.2 million Belgians watched the event on TV. Pretty good for a sport that is decidedly not tops during soccer season.

Stybar, Nys and Pauwels

This weekend's results and news coverage highlight another Belgian idiosyncrasy: despite being a cycle-crazy country, there is very little interest in women's cycling in Belgium. Although nearly all girls and many women ride bikes in Belgium, cycling is not traditionally seen as a desirable sport for women. Belgians may not want to admit it, but the feeling runs quite deep in some areas and it is only recently that women's cycling has received a little bit of attention. I am willing to bet that most Belgian cyclocross fans could not name one woman on the Belgian team.

Kim Clijsters down under

Women's cycling races have (relatively) few competitors, a very sparse race calendar (by Belgian standards) and hardly any news coverage. That is true for all five cycling disciplines. Somewhat ironically, women's cycling is (relatively) popular in countries such as Britain and the US, where men's cycling is a minor sport.

Tennis on the other hand, is a very popular sport for Belgian women. And that is not just because Belgium had some success there in the past. As a matter of fact, it is precisely because tennis is so desirable and popular among girls that Belgium has these tremendous successes. Women's tennis is one of the few women's sports that gets top billing -on par with men's sports- in Belgium. It is also a sport where Belgium has a deep line-up of top players, which is all the more amazing given how small the country is.

In other news, Spanish rider David Etxebarria has made some waves by lashing out at former team mate Alberto Contador. Etxebarria is accusing Contador of being hypocritical and remaining silent when others were accused of doping. He twittered, "Don't shout out when previously you stayed silent." Etxebarria was a team mate of Contador in 2005 and 2006 at Liberty Seguros. Clearly there is some bad blood here.

And finally, I was able to sleep on left shoulder for the first time since my crash on December 8. I did not follow the advice of my orthopedist (to inject cortisone) but rather opted to leave things alone. The shoulder still hurts a bit from time to time, but overall it is healing well and I am hopeful that it will continue to do so.

Quick-step looking for world domination

Quick-step has been in the news a lot lately. After what some would call a season of near-misses in 2010, Quick-step is out to set the record straight. "We have to win again," team manager Patrick Lefevere said. He pointed out that Tom Boonen is now working with a personal coach to make sure we don't see a repeat of what happened in 2010. Surely giving Tom the benefit of a personal trainer, a luxury many stateside Freds enjoy, is going to make all the difference.

Hmm, a personal coach?

You may recall that Quick-step was courting Alberto Contador, but the Tour de France winner decided to find his luck elsewhere. Now that Contador is looking at an almost certain 2 year suspension, Quick-step is probably very happy that things worked out the way they did.

Added at 3PM : Contador confirmed today that the Spanish Federation will impose a one year ban plus a forfeit of his 2010 Tour de France title. There will be a press briefing on Friday.

The Belgian court decision favoring Iljo Keisse in his battle with UCI also brought some joy, although that was subsequently nullified when UCI stepped in to block Keisse in Manchester and Bremen. Still, the team walked away with a decisive win in Gent, before the home crowds, and that must count for something.

Earlier this year Quick-step pulled in big money from Czech investor Zdenek Bakala, who now owns 80% of the team. The influx of capital will ensure the team's survival in what are becoming difficult times for professional cycling.

Bakala, he got a free Merckx bike too!

Even before the investment, Lefevere was contemplating buying the Telenet-Fidea cyclocross team headed by Zdenek Stybar but Stybar decided to make the move to Quick-step on his own.

Maybe the fact that his compatriot Bakala is the majority owner played a key role? Or maybe Stybar did not want to wait to see what would happen to Telenet because Niels Albert's team bosses also expressed interest in acquiring it. Whatever happens there, it won't happen until after the world championships. That is what Telenet manager Hans van Kasteren said yesterday.

Stybar is interested in trying new things. He wants to compete in mountain bike at the London Olympics and he also wants to try and see what he can do on the road. Patrick Lefevre for one would like to see what Stybar can do on the road. Either way, we probably won't see Zdenek ride 40 cyclo-cross races next season. Something will have to give.

Maybe that is good news for Niels Albert. Albert is on an impressive winning streak and if he tops it off with a world championship win this weekend, he will be on top of his game. Rumors are however, that Albert too would like to try the open road.

Meanwhile, Lucien Van Impe's team Veranda's Willems Accent, is getting ready for the Flemish spring classics. The former Tour winner's team will ride as a ProContinental team this season and may enter the Walloon classics as well as Paris-Roubaix if all goes well.

Van Impe, polka dot and yellow

Yesterday the team was presented to the press. They just returned from Spain, where earlier in the month they made some waves by trying their hand at bullfighting. Clearly Veranda's Willems is ready for anything.

She's not part of the team