Norway? ... or Monte Carlo?

Not really surprised of who he beat if you check the stage profile and the top 10- Nicholas Roche was 8th so its not like there were any sprinters of note there. Good for him though, hopefully he gets back in the mix in the classics.

Hushovd and Evans both had a long-term viral which made them weak. I always find these stories fascinating, because I guarantee no doctor is ever going to declare I have a mystery, curable virus. Do the riders have access to more advanced diagnostic medicine than we get in private life? Or is it a Euro thing?

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Cadel did have a virus.

Thor clearly had something deeper going on.

Up to you if you believe it or not.


I understand the scepticism the now comes with cycling, but I think the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater at times.

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Not saying this is the case here, but Cindy Olavarri did not ride in the '84 Olympics because she had "mononucleosis". That was actually a cover story for her being kicked off the team for steroid use.

Apropos to nothing?


Anyway, good to see that Thor's legs are not painted on and he's back on the podium. I would like to see him win Roubaix.

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Thor's arguably my favorite rider in the peloton, I'm really happy to see him getting results again.

Now if he could just pull off PR.

+1. Rooting for the big guy as well. I still have a Norwegian champion jersey from his Cervelo days that I pull out when feeling nostalgic and I like to pretend.

Castelli has set a trend.
Skinsuit with pockets for Blanco too, and loooong overshoes. And aero helmet to go with
from another angle, as someone posted before here, he has a narrow handlebar à la Hansen

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid= ... =1&theater" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Has anyone noticed the utter dominance of Norway in the Biathlon world champs? 7 gold medals out of 9. It's Norvege douze points all the way.

And Froome beating Bertie twice in two days was nice too.

Nordic sports are as competetive as womens cycling(ref Vos`dominance).

or they are far ahead to others in some "fields" legit or not:
the history of sport -and thus of doping- provide good informations that blood doping (transfusions at first) where first tested and used in XC Ski, EPO in cycling and then the same methodologies had a crossing point, used and "refined" in both sports, and others too as track and field, basically from the same doctors.
When EPO was first used by Italian XC teams (men and women) in the 90s, in the same fashion and timings as cycling, they reached suddently a level that made them immediately/surprisingly competitive, then other teams/nations come a little later, leaving back the "old" transfusion.

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uhm, Norway was always dominant in biathlon. nordic skiing for as long as i can recall has been pretty much an internal case of scandinavian teams with possibly Germany or Russia trying to pull something off.

to achieve anything in nordic skiing you need a permanent access to places where you can train whole year long. some traditions in said discplines wont hurt either. that's pretty obvious, no? there are obviously exceptions (like Justyna Kowalczyk) but they are a result of one's persistence and dedication rather than some 'system' or schooling

Norway was not dominant in Biathlon in the good old days. Then it was DDR and USSR who were the ones to beat.
Right now there are two Norwegian aces in Berger and Hegle Svendsen, and the teams are not too shabby either. The Germans have a generation change going, and will be back. Nice thing about Biathlon is that there are quite many competitive nations. Not like cyclocross, alas.

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well, OK, but these were the times of politics mixing with sport, hence the formention countries' enormous investment of resources in proffesional sport. or, easier to say, their success was based on doping