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from Photographers Blog:

Tour de France 2011 – A long way to Paris

This year's riders of the Tour de France covered 3430.5 km (2131.6 miles), divided into 21 stages, according to the Tour's official website.

What you may not know is that the Reuters pictures team covering 2011's most-watched sporting event managed to tally up some 10,000 km (6213 miles).

I was excited to cover the race but aware that despite careful planning, any big job can have its moments of near disaster. After meeting at the Reuters office in Paris with team leader (and Italy chief) photographer Stefano Rellandini and French photographer Pascal Rossignol we checked all our equipment, made sure our laptops were working, that our passwords were valid and that Mifi was setup. We picked up our local phones and configured wireless transmission devices from cameras. One thing's for sure -- the planning stage is essential on a big job like this, and a good team spirit never hurts either.

The next day we drove to Vendée in the east of France, where the race was due to start and met with our veteran bike drivers Jacques Clawey and Michel Vatel. This year's team consisted of three photographers. Photographers on bikes take two types of pictures during the race: postcard (landscape shots) and action. When you’re on the postcard bike the rules are clear: you can only take photos once the bike has stopped. Take a pic when the bike is moving, and you could be out. The ‘action’ bike’s rule? Don’t crash.

Serving the kangaroo, by Manuel Quinziato

Cycling has changed a lot in the last 15 years. Once the team had just 12 riders and there was just one captain for the whole season. At almost every race all the team worked for the same guy, because the same guy could win every kind of race, from Paris Roubaix to the Tour de France. Think about Merckx, Moser, Hinault and Co.

Now the sport has changed radically — between 25 and 30 riders per team, super light bikes, while wheels and training methods have improved a lot. The average level of every rider has increased. And top riders have started to have fewer targets during the season.

Nowadays, there are riders for the Spring classics and riders for the grand tours.

What happens in modern cycling is that a rider can be the captain of the team in April and a “gregario” (domestique) during the Tour.

This year, the BMC team at the Spring classics was so strong that I can’t honestly say that I was the leader. But for sure I was one of the guys who could get a result.

Here in the Tour de France the roles are different and even clearer. The whole team rides for Cadel Evans! We have known it since December and we came here with this only goal in mind.

The team on a grand tour is fundamental. Even more so in the first week of the Tour de France. Every leader needs a strong and expert team to help him avoid plenty of dangerous situations. Wind, rain, narrow roads and crashes can cause a leader to lose more time than in a mountain stage.

Armstrong re-retires, says no way back this time

It’s been a sad week in sport in some ways, with two modern greats announcing their retirements with immediate effect.

Admittedly, we knew long ago that we’d already seen by far the best of both Ronaldo, who called it a day on Monday, and Lance Armstrong, who announced on Wednesday his “retirement 2.0″.

Armstrong first quit the sport in 2005 after racking up a seventh successive Tour de France victory, an incredible achievement by any standard. The man who survived testicular cancer that had spread to his brain and lungs, undergoing coruscating courses of chemotherapy, gave us a story that was truly inspiring.

He returned to the sport in 2009, finishing third in his first year back and 23rd in 2010, his last attempt at the race.

I covered the Tour de France for Reuters in 2001 and saw him make it three in a row. He was under a huge amount of scrutiny over doping even then, with many people simply refusing to believe his achievements could possibly be coming unaided.

He has never had a positive test, though and has consistently denied ever taking performance enhancing drugs. “They can keep looking,” he told reporters in Australia last month. “If you’re trying to hide something, you wouldn’t keep getting away with it for 10 years. Nobody is that clever.”

Back in 2001, I recall writing that Armstrong had made some headway in his battle for more than grudging respect from Europe. He spoke French and Spanish to the media and fans and was careful not to sound boastful about his achievements, even though he knew full well just how much better he was than his two great rivals that year, Jan Ullrich and Joseba Beloki. If the people didn’t love him exactly, the mood was maybe sort of heading that way.

Contador provisionally suspended, cycling holds its breath

Tour de France winner Alberto Contador returned an “adverse analytical finding” for clenbuterol following an analysis of a urine sample taken during an in-competition test on the second rest day of July’s race, the International Cycling Union said on Thursday. 

The concentration was “400 time(s) less than what the antidoping laboratories accredited by WADA must be able to detect,” the UCI said in a statement. 

“In view of this very small concentration and in consultation with WADA, the UCI immediately had the proper results management proceedings conducted including the analysis of B sample that confirmed the first result.” 

Contador, who won his third Tour this year, has been formally and provisionally suspended as is prescribed by the World Anti-Doping Code and the case will require “further scientific investigation before any conclusion could be drawn”.

The Spaniard has blamed food contamination and riders at the road world championships in Australia urged people to reserve judgement until the investigation is completed.

Whatever the outcome, the issue of doping has once again overshadowed action on the road, with this story casting a pall over events in Geelong, where Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara won a record fourth time trial title on Thursday.

Where does cycling go from here?

from Photographers Blog:

Witness to a cobblestone crash

I am writing this on the road from rural eastern France at the end of the fourth stage of the month-long Tour de France. It’s hot and dusty outside with temperatures at about 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit). On the backs of the motorcycles in protective gear we are suffering as we spend all day in the sun. Fortunately there has been a lot happening in these early stages of the Tour and the images have been worth it.

On the third stage of the Tour between Wanze in Belgium and Arenberg in France, I was riding on the second of our two motorcycles. The second bike is not authorized to shoot the riders on the move, but instead can overtake the pack and then stop on the side of the road so the photographer can shoot the riders as they pass by. The third stage was very special as the last 50 kilometers were on the famous cobblestone backroads of northern France more commonly associated with the Paris-Roubaix cycling classic. This section is known as the “Hell of the North”. I have covered 21 Tour de France races, but never had the occasion to cover either Paris-Roubaix, nor shoot a cobblestone section.

Early in the stage, while listening in to the official two-way radio commentary, the race directors announced that all the motorcycles must travel directly to the arrival site bypassing this cobblestone sector at the end of the race because it was simply too narrow and too dangerous for everyone to work. Only a one-motorcycle pool would be authorized access. So, I took a chance and sped way ahead of the race. Our motorcyclist got the bike onto the cobblestone section and safely parked the bike off the road well before the race drew near. The day had been terribly hot and the impenetrable dust cloud thrown up from the accompanying official vehicles gave an aura of a foggy winter day rather than mid summer.

I was totally unfamiliar with this sector but I had a gut feeling that being on a tight bend would be the best place to shoot the riders because their trajectory would oblige them to pass very near me. I crouched low amongst the feet of the spectators tightly packed together on the side of the road. The first lead riders suddenly appeared and it became clear that the position was in fact a good one. The riders were passing within inches of me and I switched from my 16-35mm lens to a wider 15mm fisheye. Just as another group of riders appeared they suddenly collided and fell literally inches from me. My first thought was that they were going to land right on top of me but I kept my finger on the motordrive of my Canon 1D MkIV. Then Lance Armstrong appeared but skillfully avoided the fallen riders, then Contador, and again another group arrived and incredibly fell like skittles at exactly the same spot. I just kept shooting, this time with my 16-35mm.

Armstrong makes good Tour start but what next?

“Since I started, I’ve been at the front of my sport,” Lance Armstrong told me before the start of the Tour de France.

Whether you like him or not, it’s quite true.

At almost 39, Armstrong is still in the game and rode impressively in Saturday’s 8.9-km prologue in Rotterdam.

“Step by step, it’s getting better. I’m pretty content with it,” he said.

The sweetest thing for Armstrong may have been the fact he beat Alberto Contador for the first time in a time trial since his comeback last year.

The Spaniard, arguably the strongest Grand Tour rider, lost five seconds to Armstrong, who is set to be the man of the first week.

Ice cool Contador trains sights on Armstrong

It looks like Alberto Contador has learned from the master himself, with the Spaniard apparently intent on unsettling the seven-times Tour de France champion with his recent change of schedule.

Contador announced on Tuesday he was re-shuffling his race calendar following a commanding victory on Paris-Nice. Instead of taking part in the Tour of Catalonia, the defending Tour champion will travel to Corsica for the two-day Criterium International, where he will square up with Armstrong, who had decided to go to Corsica instead of Catalonia after Contador first announced he would race in Spain!

Has Contador decided it is time for payback already?

Last year, his then Astana team mate Armstrong hit out at him after he cracked in the penultimate stage of Paris-Nice (“Amazing talent but still a lot to learn,” the American wrote on Twitter).

He did not stop there.

“Alberto did not follow team orders,” he said after Contador attacked in the climb to Arcalis during the 2009 Tour. “Hey Pistolero, there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’,” he also wrote after finishing third in the Tour.

A soft spoken character, Contador swears he wants to stay out of the mind games, as he re-stated during his final Paris-Nice press conference, having only nice things to say about Armstrong’s RadioShack team.

Can Bradley Wiggins become Britain’s first Tour de France winner?

Can Bradley Wiggins win the Tour de France? It’s a simple question with a reasonably simple answer – yes, well maybe. Not necessarily this year but soon, if everything goes right and he stays fit.

Has he got the support every rider needs to win the Big One? And some. Team Sky have put together a hand-picked 26-rider team that balances young thrusters and old hands and with the money of Sky and the inspiration and attention to detail of Dave Brailsford and his similarly hand-picked assistants, nothing will be left to chance.

Is he a stronger all-round rider than Alberto Contador, Andy Schleck or Lance Armstrong? No. Well he was not last year when he finished fourth, but he said he surprised himself with how he has developed since, concentrating all his efforts on the road and he goes into the new season with a totally new mindset.

Will Contador, Schleck and Armstrong again be the men to beat? Yes, this year at least. Contador still looks to be individually a class apart but his Astana team looks weaker this year. Armstrong could be stronger than in his comeback year but he is fighting a one-way battle against his 38-year-old body while Schleck could prove Wiggins’ biggest threat.

Does anyone in Britain care? Well Mark Cavendish finished fourth in the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year awards last year and Chris Hoy won it in 2008 so cycling awareness is definitely on the up. The Tour de France remains the only race to gain any substantial media coverage in the UK and even that is a fraction of what it gets on the Continent.

So if Wiggins becomes the first Briton to win the race he’s guaranteed the BBC title in 2010? Unfortunately not – that will be going to England’s World Cup-winning captain John Terry following his emotional conversion of the 11th spot kick in the marathon final penalty shoot over victory over Brazil in Johannesburg…

PHOTO: Britain’s Bradley Wiggins cycles during the men’s time trial race at the world cycling championships in Mendrisio September 24, 2009. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann

Armstrong v Contador – It’s already game on

The Tour de France is still more than eight months from now, but the much-awaited duel between Alberto Contador and his illustrious challenger Lance Armstrong has already begun.   The Spanish champion and the American veteran, third this year after an impressive comeback following 3-1/2 years in retirement, both attended the 2010 route presentation in Paris on Wednesday.   Seated in the second row of the Palais des Congres, they were only separated by Luxembourg’s Andy Schleck, one of the riders hoping to settle the dispute with victory on the Champs Elysees on July 25.   Contador and Armstrong shook hands on Wednesday, but the tension between the two was already palpable.   The Spaniard, who has won every Grand Tour he has raced since claiming his first Tour de France in 2007, will be the hot favourite when next year’s event kicks off in Rotterdam.   He is the best climber, and Fabian Cancellara — not an overall contender — looks like the only man able to beat him in a time trial.   With four stages in the Pyrenees and a total of 23 passes, it is hard to imagine that Armstrong can compete.   But the Texan is 38 years old and has the experience that goes along with it.   While Contador is still unsure about his future — Astana ? Garmin ? Quick Step ? — former Astana man Armstrong has already set up his new team, bringing Levi Leipheimer and probably Andreas Kloeden to RadioShack.  

The American outfit, given a Pro-Tour Licence on Friday, will no doubt be strong.   Contador still does not know who will be his lieutenants next season. If he stays at Astana, he will be able to rely on Alexander Vinokourov, but who else? He wants Haimar Zubeldia to stay but the Spaniard is willing to join Armstrong.   Armstrong is ready to start preparing for the 2010 Tour, Contador is not.   Before the race enters the mountains, the first week will be potentially treacherous. Armstrong has the experience to deal with it, while Contador sometimes has problems holding his nerve. Not good when you are set to face strong crosswinds and nasty cobblestones in Northern France.   Basically, Armstrong has until July 6 — the Tour third stage with 13 km of cobbled sections — to unsettle Contador. After that, it could be too late.

PHOTO: From L to R : Champion cyclists Lance Armstrong of the U.S., Andy Schleck of Luxembourg and Alberto Contador of Spain attend a news conference in Paris October 14, 2009 to announce the itinerary of the 2010 Tour de France. REUTERS/Jacky Naegelen

Prepare for Pyrenees classic in 2010 Tour de France

One hundred years after first featuring on the Tour map, the Pyrenees could be the scene of a classic battle between Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong.

Tour de France organisers unveiled the route for next year’s race here in Paris on Wednesday, with four stages, including a gruelling 16th stage with four daunting climbs, to be held in the mountains that form the border between France and Spain.

Defending champion Contador sounded pretty pleased with the prospect.

“The route is better than last year’s because there are more mountains,” Contador told reporters. “Finishing with the Tourmalet is great for me,” he added, referring to the last mountain stage which ends at the top of the 2,115-metre high Col du Tourmalet.

The three-week race over almost 3,600km will start with an 8km prologue in Rotterdam before heading into the heartland of cycling — Belgium.

The first stage will take the riders along the North Sea, with 12km and 6km sections on an embankment, with crossing winds likely to split the peloton.