Tweets of the Week: Tears, tantrums and Milan-SanRemo

The longest race in the WorldTour calendar is also one of the most unpredictable and Sunday’s Milan-San Remo did not disappoint. It brought out the best in some tweeters and the worst in others, well, one. Therefore, I have now declared this an Oleg-free zone. While there may be a reply to a tweet of his, he himself is not in this column. I think it’s time we disembark from the Tinkov crazy train.

Pre-race poses and predictions

Pre MSR Trek 1 Pre MSR Trek 2

Blimey, Cav goes all cultural on us!

Pre MSR operaDegs on his final training run, looking relaxed and happy.

Pre MSR Degs training

Matteo Bono, who would be the last man standing – or riding – from an 11-man breakaway during the race, tells it like it is. (I think he’s selling himself short here.)

Pre MSR Bono 2 Pre MSR Bono 1

The jerseys, the good luck charms (that little puppy is gonna cause all kinds of drag, Fabs), the numbers.

pre MSR Fabs ready Pre MSR Demare 2 Pre MSR Demare 1 Pre MSR Greipel

The fan – no, he doesn’t have some strange bobble-thingy coming out of his head, it just looks that way. He does have some bobble-thingy glasses on, though.

Pre MSR fan

The predictions! There was a lot of talk but just a few people naming the eventual winner. I’d actually had a dream about the Mighty Degs the night before – if only I’d put money on it, I’d be rich, rich beyond my wildest dreams now!

Pre MSR prediction 1If you look closely, you can see that Gazzetta puts Vincenzo Nibali in the mix at a three-star, the same as Michael Matthews and Greg van Avermaet. One of those made the podium and another animated the race with attacks up until the end. Neither of these were Italian. We only saw him off the back, didn’t we? Maybe he was in disguise, trying to outfox the tax officials (more on that later).

Pre MSR prediction 2 pre MSR predictions 3The start pictures – raindrops and kisses.

Pre MSR pics

“I must break you” – and Luca certainly did break a few people on Sunday. An unbelievable powerhouse.

Pre MSR Luca 2 Pre MSR Luca 1

So loving that rainbow gilet. So so cool.

pre MSR Cav Kwiat 1

What the race winner takes home.

Pre MSR trophiesThe race, complete with bananas and striptease

It was a long day in the saddle – one that required bananas in team colours and the constant putting on and taking off of gilets, capes and leg/arm warmers.

MSR banana

Panache’s second tweet in this string is incredibly funny – and so saucy!

MSR Gabba

And then the obligatory “what the hell are Sky doing?” string of tweets.

MSR Sky doingThe win! As Neal Rogers says in this string of tweets, make no mistake – John Degenkolb is one bad-ass rider. Yeah baby!

MSR Degs win 1 MSR win 1 MSR win 2 MSR win 3

For some reason which escapes our understanding, British Eurosport doesn’t show the podiums any more. In a one-day race of this magnitude, you couldn’t not cut to Arctic Shoot and Ski malarkey and show the winner getting his podium kisses? Really? Home of Cycling, my ass. I am furious – I want to see the winner cry! I want to cry with the winner! I want to see that it means something. Okay, rant over. Here a bunch of pictures, some with tears, some with smiles. Most with lipstick.

MSR podium 4 MSR podium 3 MSR podium 1 MSR podium 2 MSR podium 5 MSR podium 6 MSR podium 7 MSR podium 8 MSR podium 9The aftermath – the tantrums, the bruises, the tax man

There were some nasty, nasty crashes in this race. A couple of guys hit the wall (see Chris Juul-Jensen‘s face!) and some hit PhilGil once he spilled.

post MSR PhilGil 4 post MSR PhilGil 3 Post MSR PhilGil 2 Post MSR PhilGil 1

The rainbow jersey was sullied and the helmet was a write-off as KwiatKrush hit the deck in the PhilGil crash. Post MSR KwiatPost MSR helmet 2 Post MSR helmet 1

Getting a going-over by a WorldTour race.

post MSR JJ crash 2 post MSR JJ crash 1

post MSR IAM crash“Daddy, I want it NOW!”

post MSR Cialek 2

post MSR Ciolek 1Chaingate. Again.

Post MSR Cav chainAn anti-rain rider. I think Paul Martens has been dipping into the Fabianese phrasebook.

post MSR anti-rainOne thing is for sure, Luca Paolini is one beast of a rider. Pep talk followed by pulling Kristoff to the line.

post MSR Luca pullSo, without explanation, bikes from Etixx and Trek were confiscated immediately after the race – for what? To check weight? To check the paint job? To check for motors? Remember what Fabs said after the Roubaix-engine shenanigans “I am the motor!” (It was announced on Monday that, no, there was nothing untoward about any of the bikes.)

post MSR FabsPost MSR bikes 2 Post MSR bikes 1 Post MSR bikes 3The real reason we didn’t see Nibali in the race? (He had paid a hefty fine to keep himself out of jail for a tax, um, problem.)

post MSR nibbles

I WON! The Instagrams from the man of the hour …

MSR Deg tweet 1 MSR Deg Tweet 2The gruppetto

Congratulations to the Eisels on the arrival of their daughter. (Kind of hoping that the baby will make it clear that he needs to shave.)

G Bernie baby

Chava stickers!

G Chava stickers

Fabs cover. I’d know that leg anywhere.

G Fabs cover 2 G Fabs cover 1

Chickens on bikes!

G chicken bike

A forlorn Dan Lloyd after stealing whisky from the giant’s liquor cabinet.

G Lloyd whisky 1 G Lloyd whisky 2

And Mick Jagger seems to have gone back to taking pictures of himself in deserted locations.

G Uran helipad 1 G Uran helipad 2The last word

last word hallucinations

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