Great time trial in the Giro by Rabobank’s Menchov¶

Tags: cycling

Of all the various sports, I like cycling the most. Better than both speed skating and football, both favourite Dutch sports. The nice thing is that there’s one really good Dutch team: Rabobank. Once I started to really follow such a team (twitter, website, email), I started to appreciate their efforts, losses and successes more.

And a brilliant victory as the Russian rider Menchov pulled off today in a time trial is fun to watch when you follow him and the team. He’s got a good chance of winning this year’s Giro (“Tour of Italy”), though that’s really to early to tell. Well, he’s certainly the best placed rider now and fully capable of finishing it off. The teammates he’s got aren’t the best that Rabobank has to offer, though: those are being saved for the Tour de France. And there are going to be numerous attacks.

Defending and helping a well-riding front man keep his #1 spot is something that Rabobank did well once before: in the Tour de France of 2007 with that lying Rasmussen as the top man. Whatever can be said about Rasmussen: Rabobank’s other riders did an incredibly fine job defending his top spot.

Anyway: following cycling this year is my favourite sport pastime again :-)