Giro d’Italia stage 19 review: Kreuziger gains consolation as Hesjedal eyes the big prize

May 25, 2012 Tim Leave a comment

Stage 19 – Treviso to Alpe di Pampeago, 198km

Astana’s Roman Kreuziger put in what amounted to a 25km solo effort to claim victory at Alpe di Pampeago on the toughest day of the Giro so far and provide him with some consolation for his disastrous day on Wednesday’s stage 17, when he blew and lost 11 minutes to drop him out of overall contention. Meanwhile Ryder Hesjedal emerged from the elite GC group in the closing kilometres of the final climb to take time out of all his rivals and move him closer to the possibility of overall victory on Sunday.

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The Big Feature

Friday Feature: Jens Voigt – Hard man with a soft heart

May 25, 2012 kittyfondue Leave a comment

Velo’s November 2011 cover says it all!

Last week in the Amgen Tour of California, Jens Voigt had the second best time in the individual time trial – only Dave Zabriskie, a TT specialist, bested him. Posting second was startling enough, but the fact that the guy who placed third, Tejay van Garderen, is 17 years younger than Jens is even more astonishing. That’s a whole teenager’s worth of age gap! And in a way, it’s like Jens still has a whole teenager in him – he has more positive energy, more derring-do, more spontaneity and humour than anyone else in the peloton. The man has some fierce joy.

I’d been toying with the thought of doing an homage to The Jensie and after his ITT, it seemed as good a time as any. I’ve picked out some choice clips and tweets for this Friday Feature – let’s start in France, July 2008, when Jens was at CSC.