Sports Poets Society

07 Distance: 188.3km Category: High Mountain Highest point: 1,490m There’s barely a metre of flat road on this stage, which concludes with the first high-altitude summit. Once again, the finale is new to the race, although many of the riders will be familiar with the roads that run close to the Sierra Nevada resort, which hosts so many training camps. The finale on the Alto de Capileira lies on the southern flank of the Sierra Nevada. Reached via the water-producing centre of Lanjarón and the town of Órgiva in the Alpujarra mountains, the road to it rises for almost 20km at an average gradient of five per cent. The second half of the climb is steeper than the first and will see the field whittled down until just the contenders for the red jersey are left. David López It looks a pretty hard stage even though there aren’t many categorised climbs. It could be a good day for a breakaway but the favourites may have an eye on this one, too. There are a lot of finishes on small climbs...

06 Distance: 204km Category: Medium Mountain Highest point: 870m A stage the Spanish describe as rompepiernas, or leg-breaking. The road bumps constantly up and down for the first two thirds, with two much larger bumps to follow in the final third. The category 3 Alto de Baeza won’t disturb the serene progress of the favourites but the first-time finish on the Alto de Cazorla might trouble some of them. The climb has two very different aspects. It rises steadily for almost 20km before a sharp descent that leads straight onto a very steep 2km up to the finish. After more than 200km in sapping heat, the closing 2,000m could well produce the biggest splits so far between the big hitters for the overall. Fernando Escartín You’d be right to describe this as rompepiernas . Once again there are constant undulations but I don’t suspect that the gaps between the main contenders will be all that big. The uphill finish will suit riders such as Joaquim Rodríguez and Alejandro Valverde...

05 Distance: 182km Category: Flat Highest point: 70m On paper, this is the most straightforward stage of the race with barely a pimple hindering the riders’ progress as they head inland into the province of Sevilla. However, the elements could make for an uncomfortable day. In this parched landscape, the heat is likely to be intense. The riders will also be watchful for echelons forming if the wind begins to gust. This threat is greatest in the first half of Although essentially a flat stage, the sprinters’ teams won’t be keen on chasing down any breaks due to the two climbs on the finishing circuit in Vejer de la Frontera. Running steeply up to the old town, the two ascents will, however, prove tempting for any puncheurs using the Vuelta as a build-up for the World Championships in Richmond. The 1,500m run up to the finish rises through the narrow streets of this classic Andalucian the stage, which runs near the sea, but remains in the open countryside of the latter half. The f...

04 Distance: 203km Category: Flat Highest point: 190m Although essentially a flat stage, the sprinters’ teams won’t be keen on chasing down any breaks due to the two climbs on the finishing circuit in Vejer de la Frontera. Running steeply up to the old town, the two ascents will, however, prove tempting for any puncheurs using the Vuelta as a build-up for the World Championships in Richmond. The 1,500m run up to the finish rises through the narrow streets of this classic Andalucian the stage, which runs near the sea, but remains in the open countryside of the latter half. The finale is in the impressively imposing walled town of Alcalá de Guadáira, which is hosting its first finish. The sprinters should provide an equally impressive flourish. pueblo blanco that looks across the Straits of Gibraltar. With bonus seconds available to the first three finishers, the overall favourites will also be tempted to the fore with the aim of striking an early psychological blow on their GC ...

03 Distance: 164.6km Category: Medium Mountains Highest point: 660m With no fewer than nine summit finishes on the menu and a number of other significant days in the mountains besides, there isn’t a lot for the sprinters to pick over during these three weeks. Consequently, the peloton’s speedsters won’t want to pass up on this opportunity for some elbows-out action. The bulk of today’s climbing comes early on but there’s a tricky ascent into the old city of Málaga half a dozen kilometres from home that will add a touch of uncertainty. This will offer a chance for a last-minute escape attempt but comes far enough out for the sprinters’ teams to organise themselves and chase it down before the mad dash for the line. David López This should be a sprint as the last 50km will be easy for the sprinters’ teams to control. The heat might be a problem, but the coastal roads should provide some relief. Philippe Gilbert won on the climb to Málaga in 2010 but that stage finished in the ...

02 Distance: 165km Category: Medium Mountain Highest point: 560m Málaga is proud that it’s the first province to host four Vuelta stages in the same year, and particularly so of this one, which takes the race to one of the region’s most renowned sights. Cut high into the cliff face in the early 20th century to allow workers access to hydroelectric installations, the Caminito del Rey (the king’s pathway) became a hotspot for climbers until it fell into disrepair. Now restored, it will provide a spectacular backdrop to the first of nine summit finishes. The concluding ascent of the Alto de la Mesa is short but sharp. It extends to 2.5km at an average of almost nine per cent, with sections at 15 per cent. It will test the GC contenders’ mettle from the very start. Fernando Escartín I’d classify this stage as rompepiernas [leg-breaking]. It isn’t hugely difficult but the road goes up and down constantly and that will definitely take a toll. I’d guess that there will be about 20-...

di SIMONE BASSO, Il Giornale del Popolo Oggi, sabato 22, parte la Vuelta Grandi Firme. Per l'entusiasmo di molti, e lo scetticismo di alcuni, il terzo Grande Giro dell'anno - in tutti i sensi - sta diventando un cespite di valore nelle mani dell'inarrestabile Amaury (la potentissima società del Tour de France). Quest'anno poi, grazie a una serie di circostanze fortunate, le scelte dei ras - soprattutto i tappisti - ne hanno fatto una sorta di rivincita immediata della recente Grande Boucle . L'ultimo ad accettare la sfida è stata la maglia gialla: Chris Froome potrebbe essere il primo campione a fare la doppietta con il nuovo calendario, lui che si rivelò proprio in Spagna nel 2011, quando le scelte tattiche di Team Sky - che costrinsero il keniano bianco a far da sgobbone a Sir Bradley Wiggins - regalarono la roja al carneade Juan José Cobo. Reduci anche loro dal podio della Festa di Luglio, i Movistar Quintana-Valverde promettono battaglia: con tr...

01 Distance: 7.4km Category: TTT Highest point: 9m It had been suggested that the race would open with a prologue time trial . But, after some input from Cofidis’s local star Luis Ángel Maté, the organisers decided to stick with their preference for a team test. The route will follow the beach-side promenad that links the glitzy resorts. Starting on the breakwater at Puerto Banús, to which the teams will be ferried on launches, the riders will sweep onto the seafront, cross the Rio Verde on a temporary bridge and hurtle towards the finish on the Playa de la Venus. The TTT’s difficulty stems from the narrowness of the promenade and the different surfaces, including wood, marble and cobbles. Thankfully, there’s little chance of rain. Javier Guillén The race starts on the port’s breakwater, which is a very lovely setting. Although it’s very short, I think the beach-side course will look very impressive, and it will have the first ever finish on a beach. It shows that...

http://www.bicycling.com/culture/advocacy/how-colombian-cycling-tradition-changed-world A million cyclists taking over the busiest, biggest, and most important streets of a notoriously traffic-snarled metropolis? No big deal-it happens every week in Bogotá, Colombia. by Mark Jenkins, August 17, 2015 Carrera Séptima, in Bogotá, Colombia, bisects the financial district, the commercial district, and the government sector. Closing such a street every Sunday is akin to New York City closing Madison Avenue, or Washington D.C. closing Pennsylvania Avenue. Pedaling side by side, my wife, Sue Ibarra, and I are part of wave after wave of cyclists that take up the entire 12-mile stretch of the main street, Carrera Séptima, in downtown Bogotá, Colombia. An old man in a serape on a bright-red 1970s Sting-Ray spins alongside us, grinning beneath a yellow helmet. We split to pass around a four-year-old, fingers barely reaching the brakes, seated on a teeny orange bike with training wheels...

di CHRISTIAN GIORDANO, 17 agosto 2015 LIVIGNO (So) - Una banale caduta alla quinta tappa del Tour de France, una botta proprio là, contro la sella. Succede, ai corridori. Solo che stavolta il dolore non passa. Persiste. Dopo nove tappe, il primo riposo. A Pau c'è un centro urologico di massimo livello, Ivan Basso fa un controllo. Poi altri: tumore maligno al testicolo sinistro. È il 13 luglio, il 15 lo opera al San Raffaele di Milano l'équipe del professor Francesco Montorsi. Il 17 agosto, nella sua Livigno, il 37enne corridore della Tinkoff-Saxo torna in bici. E pedala. - Trentasei giorni, li ho contati. Sensazioni? “Molto buone perché in questi ultimi giorni la convalescenza è migliorata molto. Mi hanno dato l’OK per pedalare e questo è già un segnale importante; non per allenarmi, però tornare in bici vuol dire che la salute è buona. E questo è un passo avanti importante”. - L’altro passo avanti importante sarà il primo settembre. “Sì, il primo settemb...

by CHRISTIAN GIORDANO  exclusive interview, August 17, 2015 LIVIGNO (Sondrio) - A dull crash in the fifth stage of the Tour de France, a common hit right there, against the saddle. It happens to the riders. Still, the pain does not go away. After nine stages, the Tour takes his first rest-day. In Pau there is a world-class urology department, Ivan Basso is asked to undergo a check-up. Then, another one. A malignant tumor in the left testicle – that’s the diagnosis. It is July 13, the surgery was performed on July 15 at the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, by Professor Francesco Montorsi’s team. On August 17, in his Livigno, the 37 year-old Saxo-Tinkoff rider back on his bike. And he rides too. - Thirty-six days, I counted them all. What about your feelings? "Very good because in the past few days my convalescence has improved a lot. They (the doctors, e.d.) gave me the OK to ride and this is already an important signal; not to train, but get back on a bike means that healt...

Trentasei giorni, e di nuovo in bici. Ivan Basso torna a pedalare, e questa è la prima, gran bella notizia. Dal 13 luglio a Pau, primo giorno di riposo al tour e giorno della scoperta di avere un tumore al testicolo sinistro, al 17 agosto nella sua Livigno: trentasei giorni in cui il suo mondo si è capovolto. Ma sempre con il sorriso. Perché lui, Ivan, «sorride sempre». Il primo settembre il controllo definitivo del professor Montorsi, il chirurgo che lo ha operato lo scorso 15 luglio al San Raffaele di Milano. Da quel responso di negatività, in senso medico e quindi positivo, dipenderà il futuro di Basso. Ma solo quello agonistico. Perché il 37enne varesino della Tinkoff-Saxo, la squadra che dalla Primavera 2015 ha qui all’Aquagranda di Livigno il suo quartier generale, sarà comunque legato alla bicicletta, al ciclismo. La sua vita, la sua famiglia allargata oltre a quella, splendida, costruita con la moglie Micaela e i quattro figli Domitilla, Santiago, Levante e Thai. ...

There was no let-up for Ivan Basso on the Tour’s first rest-day – just the shocking announcement that he’d been diagnosed with testicular cancer Writer: Daniel Friebe Nine years after striding across a Strasbourg hotel car park, climbing into a car and driving out of the Tour de France in disgrace, Ivan Basso enacted an unsettlingly similar yet altogether different scene in Pau.   This time around Basso shook a few last hands, forced another smile, thanked the handful of well-wishers – fans, journalists and the Lampre mechanics working nearby – and took his place in the passenger seat of his friend and agent Giovanni Lombardi’s white SUV. “Ciao, tutti,” were his last words before leaving.   Everything in the previous three hours had happened with disorienting speed. First the confirmation from the hospital in Pau that the lump identified the previous evening by the Tour’s own medical staff in an X-ray was indeed a tumour. Then the phonecall to his wife,Micaela, ...

Hai capito, l'ex Tinkerman.  Ai tempi del Chelsea i media inglesi lo prendevano in giro, più che per l'inglese maccheronico, per come smontava e rimontava le formazioni, e allora Claudio Ranieri - al ritorno in Premier dopo undici anni, ha imparato la lezione: stessi titolari e dopo due partite, il suo Leicster City è primo a punteggio pieno.  Alzi la mano chi lo avrebbe mai pronosticato. Trovata una seconda chance in Premier subito dopo il flop con la Grecia, Ranieri ha ereditato una squadra che l'anno scorso si è salvata solo grazie alla incredibile - e per qualche maligno anche troppo - striscia finale di sette vittorie nelle ultime otto.  Allora si tirò in ballo anche il King Power Factor: cinque di quelle sette vittorie fra aprile e maggio arrivarono in casa, dove le Foxes scappavano e non si facevano più acchiappare; il 63 percento dei suoi 41 punti il Leicester City allora di Nigel Pearson li conquistò nel suo stadio, solo QPR e Newcastle fecero meglio. ...

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1998/12/21/jordans-moment   By David Halberstam The Sporting Scene December 21, 1998 Issue  The desolate neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago where the Bulls play their home games is very quiet these days. Their gleaming new arena, the United Center, is set down there as if on a moonscape. All twelve pre-Christmas home games have been cancelled, because of the labor dispute between the owners and the players, which was initiated by the owners in a lockout described as a struggle between short millionaires and tall millionaires, or between billionaires and millionaires. The National Basketball Association, which would have entered its fifty-second season this fall, seems to have fallen victim to its own dizzying success, one that has seen the player payroll increase by an estimated two thousand five hundred per cent in the last twenty years. The incident that probably triggered the lockout occurred about a year ago, when the Minnes...