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“He’s a jerk – I don’t understand how anyone would root for him”

August 24, 2009 in Cycling, Sport | Comments

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This is Lance Armstrong abandoning the Tour of Ireland yesterday in Cork city centre, just before ‘the monster’ he had come to tame – St Patrick’s Hill – yawned in front of him. The above quote was the honest analysis of a very annoyed American woman who walked back down the hill in front of me after over an hour at least of standing in the most violent Leeside monsoon, still clutching a Livestrong banner.

The conditions were truly crazy and I wouldn’t blame anyone for dipping in for any early shower rather than complete the two circuits of the famous 25% gradient. Mark Cavendish, who I was looking forward to seeing most, I must admit – pulled the same trick as last year and bailed at the bottom too.

But though the Manx star was one of the twin pillars this tour was built upon this year, he’s a sprinter. He doesn’t urge people to come out and see him on the streets, wear his yellow wristbands or, generally, wrap up his sporting endeavours in charitable works. Lance does.

The 37-year-old Armstrong, who travelled from Cork to Dublin last night to host a three-day Global Cancer Summit in the capital, which opens today, tweeted: “rough day on the bike. The ol’ back was not in a good way and St Patty’s Hill wasn’t looking too cozy”.

Let’s forget the apple-pie abbreviation of Patrick’s Hill; the fact is it wasn’t too cosy for thousands of Armstrong’s fans as they stood, soaked to the bone, waiting for him. Shouldn’t he have taken at least one lap of the city centre circuit, maybe?

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This was my view – a pretty bad one – of eventual winner Russell Downing climbing his way up the slope. As Gary Imlach said on the television coverage, which I’ve just watched back, “the hill seperated the men from the visiting superstars.” The abandonment was Armstrong’s last act as an Astana rider. I have a feeling, sadly for his many supporters in this part of the world, that the superstar won’t visit next year with his new RadioShack team.

This post first appeared on the Irish Examiner sportsdesk blog.

In the saddle with Sean Kelly

August 19, 2009 in Columns, Cycling, Sport | Comments

Eurosport commentary, Milan San Remo, 1992: “And it’s Kelly in there as well! A previous winner of the race; what a finish we’re going to have. The firemen are behind pumping in the coals to try to catch Argentin, anybody with anything left in their legs is trying to get in position before the descent of the Poggio.”

Many of you – those, perhaps, more familiar with recessions which are more PJ Mara than NAMA – will remember March. 21, 1992. That Sunday afternoon, Ireland kicked off their Five Nations campaign in the Parc de Prince, in front of 50,000 people with a 32-point drubbing; Right Said Fred’s Deeply Dippy may have pumped from the kitchen radio as you checked on the much-anticipated weekly roast and, Carrick-on-Suir’s Sean Kelly was about to earn his last-ever victory in a classic after a professional cycling career that creaked under the weight of achievement.

Never meet your heroes. I learned that harshest of lessons when former Stone Roses lead singer Ian Brown personally threw me out of an after-show party, with the wafer-thin lie that there was one too many bodies in the room and ‘the fireman’ wanted me out. But Kelly disagrees. The Tour of Ireland gets underway on Friday and with box-office names like Armstrong and Cavendish, the country’s budding pros and amateurs alike will be cast as supporting stars in a production sprinkled with a little Hollywood magic. Yesterday I too climbed on a bike, to cycle in the slipstream of greatness.

“The gap still looks about the same and Kelly is leading the chase. He’s got to do that because Sorenson is behind him and Sorenson won’t do any work at all.”

We’re at the bottom of Seskin Hill – a twisting, knotted climb on the outskirts of Kelly’s hometown. The intimidating slope is carpeted in a morning’s rain while loose pebbles see the former world number one skidding expertly along a lane which is hemmed by high ditches, dragging long marks like isobars on the surface.

In the meantime I’m furiously fumbling with a loose wheel and an upturned mountain bike in a pair of ill-fitting cycle shorts, odd socks and a borrowed An Post team top. Passing motorists slow to walking pace and wind down their windows to gape at the apparently professional rider on the side of a mountain in Waterford who looks like he thinks ‘the spokes’ are a trendy New York rock band. I see them, through a veil of tears, mouthing in astonishment: “Kelly’s team are gone to shite, anyway, Mary”. Read the rest of this entry »

A day in the life of a pro cycling team

July 22, 2009 in Columns, Cycling, Sport | Comments

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A FORMER rider in standard-issue team colours with neat red hair pinned down under designer shades, Kurt Bogaerts doesn’t really look it – but he drives like Evel Knievel, late for Mass.

The Belgian national is manager of the Sean Kelly/ An Post cycling team, and on the third stage of the recent FBD Insurance Rás, he’s hoping – and planning – for a good day.

The Carrick-on-Suir legend, Kelly founded the team in 2006, basing them in his academy in Belgium. Bogaerts runs the show and most importantly, as I fold myself into the passenger seat, he drives the car. He makes it look easy; it isn’t. Read the rest of this entry »

The Freewheelin’

May 19, 2009 in Columns, Cycling, Sport | Comments

Few phone snaps from yesterday’s spin with the Sean Kelly/An Post team on stage 3 of the Rás. Some men…

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Rough ride

May 18, 2009 in Cycling, Features, Sport | Comments

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I’ll be riding shotgun in the Sean Kelly/An Post team car today on Stage 3 of the FBD Insurance Rás from Cobh to Cahirciveen. Follow the progress on twitter @adrianrussell.

In the saddle with the Sean Kelly Academy

May 1, 2009 in Cycling, Features, interviews | Comments

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I went to a secret location somewhere outside Brussels to visit the Sean Kelly Cycling Academy some time ago to see how the Irish pro riders train and live. The team look to be in good form at the moment ahead of a busy summer. The piece is below.

WHEN the peleton converges on the start line in Grand Canal Square in Dublin for the first stage of the Tour of Ireland tomorrow morning, 16 teams from 11 different countries will be represented. But through the patchwork of colourful jerseys, will run a thread of green – Sean Kelly’s An Post team.

Founded by the Carrick-on-Suir cycling legend four years ago in an attempt to offer a platform for promising, young Irish amateurs, this season has seen the team come of age with three race victories so far. Kelly, a man born on the nape of two counties, and after a lifetime in the saddle on foreign roads, has attempted to blend ‘overseas riders’ with the best from this country at his high-performance academy in Belgium – a policy that is starting to pay off. Read the rest of this entry »

Yellow fever

April 20, 2009 in Cycling, Features, interviews | Comments

Twitter is obviously a load of shite.

But it does cut out the middle man between sport’s superstars and the rest of us.

Lance Armstrong was tweeting earlier – explaining he’s making good progress on the road to recovery after injury. One example: “Just off the bike. 6 hrs. Amazing ride. Harder than hell tho. Oh wait, that’s the way I like it”. Hell yeah!

The seven-times Tour de France winner broke his collarbone in a race in Spain last month and has been training in the US in a bid to be fit for what would be his first Giro d’Italia in May.

If that happens, he’ll be expected to race in July’s Tour de France but French authorities may yet ban him because of a disagreement over his behavior at a doping test in March; he took a shower before giving his sample.

Whatever your views on Armstrong, yellow wristbands, doping allegations, jerseys yellow and otherwise – it’s certainly true that Armstrong’s reputation is on the line if he’s refused admisssion to the Tour. This will clearly hurt his cancer charity. A lot, maybe.

I interviewed Greg Lemond relatively recently. If you’re not up on your plotlines in the forever pedalling soap opera that is professional cycling, then you need to know this:  LeMond does not where a Livestrong bracelet.

A blur of energy even now, LeMond has ADHD and punctuated the conversation with apologies for his ‘brain farts’ as he freewheeled off on another tangent. I wonder what he reckons of Armstrong’s ego-trip back to the European spotlight.

Incidentally, Lance will be in Ireland this summer according to his schedule. Let’s hope he doesn’t run into Paul Kimmage again. That’s some good YouTubing, let me tell ya.

In an attempt to ‘digitise’ everything I’ve ever written like the City Council belching rent books onto a hard drive, I’ve crowbarred in the LeMond piece below. But he has lived a page-turner: glory, betrayal, drugs, sexual abuse, guns, infidelity, money, no money and back again.

His perspective on the world varied. He enjoyed the unique loneliness only felt in the yellow jersey. He endured, through a veil of sweat and, he admits, tears, the unfamiliar view from the rear of the peloton. And when at last he folded away the bike, he got in the saddle to face down problems steeper than any feared Alpine climb. But Greg Lemond refuses to linger in the rear view mirror, a winner prefers to crane his neck at the next climb.

Read the rest of this entry »


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