Cycling has made a comeback in a big way, as two major, but
shorter, stage races have been underway this week. In France, the Route du Soleil, the ride
toward the Sun of the annual Paris-Nice competition began last weekend, and
wraps up Sunday. In Italy the ride
between the seas began on Wednesday and continues through the weekend, and into
the new week. The Tirreno-Adriatico has
brought even more excitement to the cycling world.
The Tirreno-Adriatico often serves as a preparation ground
for those aiming for Milan-San Remo glory as well as those riders thinking of
taking home the maglia rosa at the Giro d’Italia in May. But much like Paris-Nice, the other week-long
stage race that runs concurrently, the Italian race has prestige in its own
right, with a roll call of winners that would be the envy of any race. This year's race covers 610 miles (982km) in
total, with 36,100 feet (11,000 meters) of elevation. Sunday's Stage five will
finish in Filottrano, as a tribute to Italian rider Michele Scarponi who died
last year. After four stages, Italian Damiano Caruso, riding for BMC, currently
is heading the race, followed by Polish rider Michal Kwiatkowski, riding for Team Sky. Sky's Geraint
Thomas, from Great Britain, was race leader, until he ended up having to yank
on a stuck chain, losing precious seconds.
The Paris-Nice stage race is no second rate race, it has
equal or greater status to the Italian race, and the choice between the two
remains with teams and riders. The
French race often suffers from worse weather, being located farther to the
north, and that has been the case this year.
Saturday's penultimate stage was particularly problematic in that
regard. At the start of the day, the
race’s organizer reported that only six of the 22 teams still had their full
complement of seven riders in the race. LottoNL-Jumbo
had started the day with only three riders.
Irish cyclist Dan Martin, who took third place in the same race last
year, dropped out Saturday, due to weather concerns. With the cold, wet conditions set to continue
and with the possibility of snow on the final climb to Valdeblore La Colmiane,
in today's final stage, more abandons
are expected. Britain's 25 year old Simon
Yates took the overall lead today, riding for Australian team Mitchelton-Scott. Yates finished stage seven eight seconds
ahead of Belgian rider Dylan Teuns (BMC Racing). In the overall standings he took an 11-second
lead over Spain's Ion Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida) with Izagirre's brother, Gorka,
in third, 12 seconds behind Yates.
In Six Nations Rugby today, Team Italy travels to Wales as
the fourth weekend of competition comes to a close. The Principality Stadium is the site of the
meeting between Wales, who started this year's competition strong, besting
Scotland, and Italy, who is so far winless this year. Wales, in fact, have beaten Italy for their
last 11 successive meetings. Wales has
rotated in almost an entire fresh squad as starters for Sunday's game. Italy hopes to take some inspiration in the
contest by the victory of the Italian youth squad against Wales in the Under 20
game Friday evening. Italy captain
Sergio Parisse said as much, and described Cardiff's Principality Stadium as the best place to play
Rugby in the world. Italy's under-20s
claimed a historic 18-7 win over Wales in Colwyn Bay on Friday.
