Archiv der Kategorie: History

DM 100km 2er Mannschaft 1983 am Reichelsdorfer Keller

Bahn, History, , , , ,

Das Foto ist eine schöne, wie auch gleichzeitig traurige Erinnerung für mich.
Günter Kobek und Reinhold Kleebaum wurden im Sommer 1983 vor den Donike Brüdern Deutscher Meister im 2er Mannschaftsfahren der Amateure über 100km.
Leider verunglückte Günter Kobek am 30.10.2016 tödlich, als ein 82-Jähriger Autofahrer ihn auf der Landstraße mit seinem Rennrad übersah und mit ihm kollidierte.

Text und Fotos: Gerhard Plomitzer

Historic Cycling – GIRO 1983

Etappenrennen, History, , , ,

Hallo zusammen,
da im Augenblick ja leider wenig erfreuliches vom Radsport zu berichten ist, dachte ich, ich stöbere ein bisschen in meinem Archiv und zeige ein paar Fotos aus der Radsportgeschichte:

Im Jahr 1983 gewann Giuseppe Saronni (Del Tongo-Colnago) mit tatkräftiger Unterstützung von Teamkollege Didi Thurau den GIRO d’Italia. Obwohl als Edelhelfer im Einsatz, gelang Thurau ein hervorragender 5ter Gesamtplatz bei dieser GIRO Ausgabe.
Die Bilder zeigen die Fahrer der legendären Del Tongo – Colnago Mannschaft, bei der zu dieser Zeit auch Rudy Pevenage fuhr.
Giro 83 - Del Tongo Colnago Team making the pace, Rudy Pevenage in front of Guiseppe Saronni in the pink leader jersey, winner of Giro 1983.
An der Spitze des Feldes kurz vor den Dolomiten
Giro 83: Bombini, Thurau and Pino are climbing up the Passo Campolongo.
Bombini, Thurau und Pino am Campolongo Pass, der an diesem Tag 2x befahren wurde.
Giro 83 - Claudio Bortolotto and Alf Segersall (SWE, Bianchi)
Claudio Bortolotto und Alf Segersal (Bianchi)

Claudio Bortolotto vor Czeslav Lang (GIS-Gelati)

Rudy Pevenage

Text und Fotos: Gerhard Plomitzer

Raymond „Poupou“ Poulidor mit 83 Jahren gestorben

Allgemein, History, ,

Der beliebte Raymond Poulidor, einer der berühmtesten Veteranen des französischen Radsports, ist tot. Der dreifache Gesamtzweite der Tour de France starb gestern im Alter von 83 Jahren in seiner Heimatregion Limousin, nachdem er vor zwei Monaten wegen allgemeiner Erschöpfung ins Krankenhaus eingeliefert worden war. Der von seinen Landsleuten liebevoll „Poupou“ genannte Poulidor war Berufsradfahrer von 1960 bis 1977, zunächst bei Mercier-BP-Hutchinson, dann bei Gan-Mercier. Er erlangte Berühmtheit vor allem durch die Tatsache, dass er insgesamt achtmal auf dem Tour-de-France-Podium stand, die Frankreichrundfahrt aber nie gewinnen oder auch nur einen Tag das Gelbe Trikot tragen konnte. Gerade deswegen überstieg die Beliebheit des „ewigen Zweiten“ die seiner erfolgreichen Konkurrenten Jacques Anquetil oder später Eddy Merckx, zumindest in seinem Heimatland.

Poulidors größte Erfolge waren der Sieg bei Mailand-Sanremo 1961, bei der Flèche Wallonne 1963 sowie der Vuelta-Gesamtsieg 1964. Außerdem konnte er das Critérium du Dauphiné und Paris-Nizza je 2x gewinnen (1966/1969, 1972/1973) und sieben Tour-Etappensiege einfahren. Bei der Straßenrad-WM trat er mehrfach an, aber er kam über einen zweiten Platz (1974 hinter Merckx) und drei Bronzemedaillen (1961, 1964, 1966) nicht hinaus. Bis ins fortgeschrittene Alter arbeitete Poulidor als Botschafter des Tour-Sponsors Credit Lyonnais und war auch Gast bei der TdF 2019 in Brüssel. Er besuchte oft die Radcross-Rennen, an denen seine Enkelsöhne Mathieu und David van der Poel teilnahmen. Der Radcross-Welt- und Europameister und sein Bruder zeigten sich über den Tod ihres Großvaters tief betroffen.
RIP Poupou!


Text und Fotos:
Gerhard Plomitzer – www.plomi.smugmug.com

A DAY IN YELLOW: MARK CAVENDISH (X/X)

History, Tour de France, , ,

Light-years behind the records of Eddy Merckx and nowhere as famous as the three other five-time winners of the Tour de France, Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain, a total of 67 riders have worn the yellow jersey for just one day (or even less) in their careers and exemplified the pursuit of excellence from a humble start. Back in 2016, Mark Cavendish, who had claimed virtually every honour available to sprinters bar the yellow jersey, was finally rewarded for his patience.
Foto: Presse Sports
Foto: Presse Sports
From time to time, the Tour de France puts the yellow jersey within reach of the sprinters with a flat opening stage in which the fastest men in the peloton can go toe to toe in a mad dash to the line, allowing riders such as André Darrigade and Rudi Altig in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as Mario Cipollini, Thor Hushovd and Marcel Kittel in more recent years, to wear the golden fleece for a while. Mark Cavendish, on the other hand, went into the 2016 Tour with 26 stage wins to his name and a history of near-misses with the yellow jersey. Although he had already pulled on the leader’s jerseys in the Giro and the Vuelta, the rainbow jersey after winning the 2011 Worlds, the green jersey in the 2011 Tour and the British champion jersey, the most coveted one of them all seemed to evade him. Some near-misses had been outright painful, such as the stage on home turf in Harrogate that had kicked off the 2014 Tour.
By the time that the race featured another flat opening stage two years later, the majority of pundits were adamant that the rise of riders such as Kittel, Sagan, Kristoff, Greipel and Matthews had closed the window of opportunity for „Cav“. Yet the Manx Missile fired again on Utah Beach, one of the scenes of the D-Day landings, beating Marcel Kittel by two bike lengths to take his 27th career stage win and the first with Dimension Data. Writing in the next day’s edition of L’Équipe, Philippe Bouvet explained how „It is a childhood dream come true for the sprinter from Isle of Man, who also made amends for the frustrating experience in Harrogate two years ago, when he missed out on the yellow jersey in front of the royals“.
It had been a long, long wait, but Cavendish had finally got his hands on the yellow jersey in his tenth Tour start. Other riders have had to bide their time for even longer: Henk Lubberding only found out what it felt like to lead the Tour in his 12th start (1988), while Alberto Elli finally got a taste of yellow in his 11th start (2000) and, like Cavendish, Sylvain Chavanel also had to wait until his 10th Tour (2010). 24 hours later, Peter Sagan, just as prolific but nowhere near as patient as Cavendish, toppled the Manxman and pulled on the yellow jersey for the first time after winning the stage to Cherbourg.
@ASO

A DAY IN YELLOW: ROMAIN FEILLU (IX/X)

History, Tour de France, , ,

Light-years behind the records of Eddy Merckx and nowhere as famous as the three other five-time winners of the Tour de France, Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain, a total of 67 riders have worn the yellow jersey for just one day (or even less) in their careers and exemplified the pursuit of excellence from a humble start. Romain Feillu’s stint in yellow, limited to about 40 minutes in the time trial stage around Cholet in the 2008 Tour de France, was as short as it was intense.
Foto: Presse Sports
Foto: Presse Sports
Back in 2008, there was no clear favourite to win the Tour, even though a duel between Australian Cadel Evans and the Luxembourgish Schleck Bros. seemed the logical outcome. France was having trouble finding leaders who could challenge the big names and waiting for the next generation of mountain goats and fast men to rise. Unable to tackle the world’s best climbers and sprinters head-on, many French riders tried their luck in breakaways instead. Shortly after the start of stage 4 from Saint-Malo to Nantes, American William Frischkorn attacked and took Italian Paolo Longo Borghini, Samuel Dumoulin and Romain Feillu with him. Caisse d’Épargne only mounted a half-hearted defence of Alejandro Valverde’s yellow jersey, raising the four men’s hopes of bringing their adventure to a successful conclusion. In the end, it was Dumoulin, then riding for Cofidis, who came out on top in the dash to the line, while their two-minute gap to the peloton was more than enough to make Romain Feillu the new overall leader.
Despite spending almost the whole night awake,
replaying the events of the previous day,
he savoured every minute of his ride in the yellow jersey
Feillu, still a young sprinter at the time, quickly moved on from the lost opportunity to win a stage and basked in the glow of the yellow jersey, especially after spending most of the season bedridden due to a bout of toxoplasmosis. „I was thinking about it all the time“, he said after pulling on the coveted garment. „Wearing the yellow jersey was something that only happened in my wildest dreams. As a kid, I used to watch Indurain and LeMond. Sure, I didn’t take it in a mountain stage, but even getting it in a flat stage is pretty awesome.“ Feillu had just become the first French rider to wear the yellow jersey since Cyril Dessel two years earlier, but keeping it for as long as Thomas Voeckler in 2004 seemed out of the question.
The next stage was a 29 km time trial around Cholet in which the Agritubel rider appeared to have a snowball’s chance in hell of holding out against the Tour favourites. These long odds did nothing to curb the new leader’s enthusiasm and, despite spending almost the whole night awake, replaying the events of the previous day, he savoured every minute of his ride in the yellow jersey. There was to be no fairy-tale ending, however, and Feillu finished the time trial far behind Stefan Schumacher, who won the stage and took the yellow jersey, only to be later stripped of these honours following a positive doping test. History will remember Feillu as one of the most ephemeral leaders of the Tour de France, with 40′43″ in yellow, only a bit longer than Patrick Sercu in 1974 (11 minutes in the 9 km team time trial in Harelbeke) and another Belgian, Philippe Gilbert, in 2011 (25 minutes in the 23 km team time trial around Les Essarts).
@ASO

A DAY IN YELLOW: JEAN-FRANÇOIS BERNARD (VIII/X)

History, Tour de France, ,

Light-years behind the records of Eddy Merckx and nowhere as famous as the three other five-time winners of the Tour de France, Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain, a total of 67 riders have worn the yellow jersey for just one day (or even less) in their careers and exemplified the pursuit of excellence from a humble start. Back in 1987, Jean-François Bernard was taking part in his second Tour, the first one as the leader of Toshiba-La Vie Claire, when he added the yellow jersey to his race number 1 after a colossal performance on the slopes of the Mont Ventoux. However, things were about to go pear-shaped…

French cycling fans were looking for references in summer 1987. Bernard Hinault had just hung up his bicycle and Laurent Fignon was out of shape, while those who had fallen in love with Greg LeMond, an American with a lot of French character, in 1986 were left disappointed after a serious hunting accident forced him to sit out the race. The Tour had „changing of the guard“ written all over it, with riders such as Charly Mottet, Pedro Delgado and Stephen Roche as the main favourites. However, it was another contender who burst onto the scene in stage 18, a gruelling time trial on the Mont Ventoux coming right after a rest day. It was a performance that turned Jean-François Bernard from an outsider into a hero: Hinault’s former lieutenant crushed the best power riders in the flat section between Carpentras and the foot of the mountain and then left the Colombian mountain goats in the dust on the slopes of the Giant of Provence. Jean-François Bernard’s stellar performance evoked memories of Charly Gaul, who had also won a time trial to the summit of Mont Ventoux, and turned him into the new leader of the race and the odds-on favourite to take the yellow jersey all the way to Paris.

„Bernard à la Hinault“, read the provocative headline in the next morning’s edition of L’Équipe, harking back to Bernard’s glorious origins and auspicious future. In his column in the newspaper, Pierre Chany wrote about the young Burgundian’s leap forward: „This rider who has just proved to be one of the favourites to win the race on the Champs-Élysées with this dazzling performance, maybe even the top favourite, showed in just under an hour and a half that he knows perfectly how to amalgamate his talent and the animalistic fire that burns within all extraordinary riders, without which talent means nothing or almost nothing.“ However, Bernard was still not in the clear, with Roche, Mottet and Delgado within less than 4 minutes and four Alpine mountain stages left before the finish.

In the next stage, the yellow jersey suffered a series of setbacks that his rivals did not hesitate to use to their advantage. It all began with a puncture right before the Col de Tourniol, about 100 km from the finish in Villard-de-Lans. „It was insane: I had a flat, it got fixed and I got back“, explains „Jeff“ Bernard, evoking the bitter memories of that day. „After that, bottlenecks formed in the feeding zone and then my chain came off on the Col de la Bataille. I was going crazy. I managed to hold on at 1′, 1′30″, until I just gave up 10 km from Villard-de-Lans after chasing for 90 klicks. I had nothing left in the tank.“ Bernard’s ordeal cost him 4′16″ to the stage winner, Pedro Delgado, and put him 1′39″ behind the new leader, Stephen Roche. Even winning the Dijon time trial on the eve of the finish in Paris was not enough to put him back in contention, and the Burgundian had to settle for the bottom step of the podium in the 1987 Tour de France.
@ASO

A DAY IN YELLOW: ALEX STIEDA (VII/X)

History, Tour de France, , ,

Light-years behind the records of Eddy Merckx and nowhere as famous as the three other five-time winners of the Tour de France, Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain, a total of 67 riders have worn the yellow jersey for just one day (or even less) in their careers and exemplified the pursuit of excellence from a humble start. Back in 1986, Alex Stieda started his very first Tour with the very last race number in the peloton — 210 — pinned to his back. The Canadian surged to the top of the general classification in the first mass-start stage, beating LeMond to the punch to become the first North American rider to lead the Tour de France.

Cycling fans were still pondering several questions as the 1986 Tour got under way: how would La Vie Claire deal with the tension between Bernard Hinault, who was entering the race for the last time, and Greg LeMond, the rising star he had pledged to support? Would Lucho Herrera or Fabio Parra manage to take Colombian cycling all the way to the top and win the race outright? Would Système U and its leader Laurent Fignon be able to fish in troubled waters? Especially curious fans were also debating what 7-Eleven, the first American team to get a Tour de France wildcard, brought to the race. Some were looking forward to following five-time speed skating Olympic gold medallist Eric Heiden’s quest to finish the Tour de France, but only the most hardcore fans had ever head of Alex Stieda, whose only success to date had been a bronze medal in the Commonwealth Games.

The joy of Alex Stieda and his 7-Eleven teammates turned to ashes in a calamitous 56 km team time trial between Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines and Meudon

The frisky young Canadian went on a solo breakaway in the very first mass-start stage, trying to manoeuvre himself into a distinctive jersey by grabbing „Catch“ points along the way. The adventure also netted him a few bonus seconds and, even though he was eventually caught by another five men and finished fifth in Sceaux, behind stage winner Pol Verschuere, Stieda was still the best-placed rider in the general classification. The former medicine student hit a milestone in the globalisation of cycling, beating older and more famous cyclists such as Steve Bauer (then sitting in third place overall) and Greg LeMond to the punch to become the first rider from North America to wear the yellow jersey.

Hours later on that same 5 July, the joy of Alex Stieda and his 7-Eleven teammates turned to ashes in a calamitous 56 km team time trial between Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines and Meudon. The team was knocked out of kilter by a crash and four punctures, one of which involved the yellow jersey, who was dropped and eventually crossed the finish line alone while his comrades posted the second-worst time out of 21 teams. While Stieda went from heaven to hell in one day, 1986 was a bumper crop for North America as a whole, with David Phinney claiming the first stage win for the continent in Liévin on the next day and, a couple of weeks later, the Stars and Stripes flying in Paris in honour of Greg LeMond as the first American to win the Tour de France.