The 2011 pro cycling season so far

It seems like we say this every season but this year’s racing has been outstanding; from the first race of the season in Australia to the Tour of Flanders this past weekend. Breakaways have stayed away by two seconds, Tommy Voeckler has done what he does best (attack and win) and strong teams on paper have been left to wonder what has gone wrong. Riders who’ve enjoyed great success so far is the aforementioned prince of France, Voeckler, Matt Goss, Alberto Contador, Nick Nuyens and a special mention to the RadioShack squad. They’ve got very few big names on the squad. In fact only one of the big names (Andreas Kloden) has picked up one of their eight victories so far this season. They don’t get a lot of press these days and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of interest around the team. Maybe it’s because names like Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel are stale now or maybe it’s because the team has limited its press commitments in order to focus on racing.

I want to have a look at some riders who’ve had a slow start to the season.

Andy Schleck — He seems to have an Armstrong-like approach to his season where everything is centered around the Tour de France. With nothing to write home about at the Majorca challenges and Tirreno-Adriatico, the first time we saw the younger Schleck coming to the fore was in the Criterium International. He set up a perfect attack for his brother Frank to win up the Col de l’Ospedale. Yesterday the Leopard Trek team spent the closing kilometres on the front of stage one in the Tour of the Basque Country only for Schleck to go backwards and finish 18 seconds behind stage winner Joaquin Rodriguez. Eighteen seconds is much less than the chunks of time he lost in Adriatico, which means he is right on schedule for Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Fleche Wallonne and the Amstel Gold Race. I think a win is expected from him for one of those this season.

Alexander Vinokourov — Returning from his suspension last season for a full year of racing, Vino raced from the beginning of the season to the end like a man possessed. He won Liege-Bastogne-Liege and a stage in the Tour. Struggling to keep up with the pace in Paris-Nice and the Criterium International this year, maybe missing two full seasons of racing is finally catching up to him? Expect to see him come good sometime this year though.

Carlos Sastre — When hearing this name, I always hear Paul Sherwen’s voice in my head — “this man is like an old steam train”. Always a slow starter, Carlos has built his season around the Giro d’Italia. Results so far this season have seen him finish 16 minutes behind Contador in the Tour of Murcia and a further 36 minutes behind Contador in Catalunya. Don’t be fooled though, even though the Giro this year boasts a very strong line-up in Contador: Denis Menchov — Sastre’s teammate — Roman Kreuziger, Vincenzo Nibali and Joaquin Rodriguez, you can expect to see the 2008 Tour de France champion high up in the Dolomites.

There’s a few other riders I’d like to see come good this season. They are Linus Gerdemann, Brice Feillu, Richie Porte, Tom Danielson, Kevin Seeldraeyers, Christian Vande Velde and Fredrik Kessiakoff.