Monday, February 11, 2008
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Lemond vs Fignon 1989 Tour
The famous 1989 Tour time trial where Greg Lemond bypassed Laurent Fignon by 8 seconds in overall classification.
Cycling Hall of Fame
My personal view of the best riders ever.
Best Cyclist - Eddy Merckx
He was known as the Cannibal, because of his great dominance over his opponents; won all the major tours and classics, including the overall, climber and points jerseys. Winner of 5 Tours, 5 Giros and 1 Vuelta, totalizing 11 victories, which is a record.
Best Climber - Fausto Coppi
Perhaps one of the first great athletes of this sport (together with Gino Bartalli) and an achiever of great feats, including a seven minutes advance in a World champion race, and many lonely escapes in the mountain stages of the Tour and the Giro. He has a top mountain prize named after him in Giro d'Italia. Won 5 Giros and 2 Tours de France.
Best Time Trailer - Miguel Indurain
Winner of 5 consecutive Tours and 2 Giros he was a complete rider, but he truly excels in the time trail specialty where he won the World Champion, the Olympic games 9 stage victories in his 5 winner years in Tour de France, and was also an hour recordist (53.040 Km).
Best Sprinter - Mario Cipolloni
King Lion or Super Mario was some of his nicknames mainly because of his superior achievements as a sprinter. He had 191 victories in his career, including 42 stages in Giro - a record - and 12 stage winners in Tour.
Best Portuguese - Joaquim Agostinho
Joaquim Agostinho was the best Portuguese rider of all times. His major results were two 3rd places in the Tour, a 2nd place in the vuelta, tour of Luxemburg, Dauphine, and Midi Libre, and 3 Voltas a Portugal.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Kayaking
Whitewater kayaking is the sport of paddling a kayak on a moving body of water, typically a whitewater river. Whitewater kayaking can range from simple, carefree gently moving water, to demanding, dangerous whitewater. River rapids are graded like ski runs according to the difficulty, danger or severity of the rapid. Whitewater grades (or classes) range from I or 1 (the easiest) to VI or 6 (the most difficult/dangerous). Grade/Class I can be described as slightly moving water with ripples. Grade/Class VI can be described as severe or almost unrunnable whitewater (classic example: Niagara Falls).
Video courtesy of National Geographic
