Yes, but ...

Cycling Explained: Why Cav is pissed off.

So, it’s stage two of the Giro d’Italia (that’s the Tour of Italy, the Italian version of the Tour de France), and Manx sprinter Mark Cavendish has just pulled on the pink jersey which tells the world he’s currently in the overall lead at the race. He should be happy - the pink jersey in the Giro is pretty damn prestigious.

But he’s got a face like an angry, uh, like an angry short guy from the Isle of Man. He even came second in today’s stage, but that shouldn’t matter as it was enough to put him in the lead. Why so cross, Cav?

He’s cross because he didn’t win the stage. Okay, he’s cross because he didn’t win the stage and thinks he should have won it. Take a look at the video of the last kilometre from Belgian TV before going further.

Okay, so it’s hard to tell what’s going on in the last km of a race that’s going to end in a bunch sprint. What you want to look out for is the last couple of hundred metres, where Alessandro Petacchi, the eventual winner, launches his sprint. Cavendish goes after him, but as he’s gaining ground on the inside Petacchi veers across the road and cuts him off, losing him momentum. Cavendish then accelerates again and loses the sprint to Petacchi by about a tyre’s width.

Well, it was a race and Petacchi won, right? Well.. kind of. The thing about sprinting like that is that it can be really dangerous if people swerve all over the road, so the UCI (cycling’s governing body) has a rule against it. Rule 2.3.036, to be precise:

Riders shall be strictly forbidden to deviate from the lane they selected when launching into the sprint and, in so doing, endangering others.

Deviation is what Petacchi did - pretty much a textbook example, and Cavendish himself knows this as he’s been disqualified from races himself in the past for doing the same thing. I guess this means he’s entitled to expect others not to do it either, and that’s why he’s pissed off at Petacchi as they cross the line. 

However, this is cycling, and it’s a parochial sport (just look how possessive Americans get when anyone suggests Lance Armstrong may not be the greatest cyclist of all time). The Giro d’Italia is the national tour of Italy, the judges are Italian, and Alessandro Petacchi is something of a national hero.. are they going to deny him the win? Probably not. The only thing Cavendish and his HTC-Highroad team could do would be to lodge an official complaint which might not go anywhere - it’s better to just swear a lot and move on. It’s likely the same would have happened if Petacchi had been French and this had been the Tour de France. 

But! I hear you say.. he’s got the pink jersey, so he’s in the lead. Isn’t that what he wants anyway?

Well.. it is and it isn’t. Being in the pink jersey for a few days is nice, but Cavendish is a sprinter and therefore has no chance of winning the Giro overall - the mountains will kill his time as sprinters just aren’t built for grinding slowly up mountain passes. He’s after the points jersey, which is unofficially the “sprinter’s jersey”, for the most consistent top finisher. As sprinters tend to finish high up the order in more stages than the mountain guys, it’s usually won by a sprinter. Petacchi’s stunt appears to have cost Cavendish points towards this competition (first place gets 25, second place gets 20), and it’s really, really important for anyone having a run at the points jersey to get as many points in the bank early on as possible.

Incidentally, as the Giro being run by Italians the various leaders’ jerseys have stylish colours - the overall leader’s jersey is pink (the Maglia Rosa), but the points jersey is a fetching red (the Maglia Rosso Passione, or “Red Passion Jersey”). Until a couple of years ago it was a kind of mauve colour, cyclamen, but it got changed as nobody could spell Maglia Ciclamino.

So that’s why Cavendish looks pissed off despite being in the lead. He feels he should have won the stage, and it’s doubly infuriating as the guy who did win did so by doing something for which Cavendish himself has been heavily penalised in the past. Can’t blame him for looking like he wanted to wallop someone over the head with that fizzy wine bottle during the podium ceremonials.

Those bloody gates of Downing Street

I remember when the huge black gates went up at the entrance to Downing Street:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downing_Street#Downing_Street_gates

At the time they were regarded as a sign of how detached from the people the Thatcher government had become. Tony Blair promised to tear them down. Didn’t happen.

Now I see that David Cameron needs a bigger motorcade than the Queen to get from Downing Street to Westminster Abbey, a short walk away which previous Prime Ministers would have quite likely covered on foot. Sure, you can say “security reasons” but security was so tight in central London today the risk would have been minimal.

Maybe this is one reason why people are disillusioned with politics and don’t think it relates to their lives?

Royal Wedding marketing tie-in of the day..

 To: me
 Subject: Who’s gonna clean up the mess after the wedding?

Hi Mike

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