EisenAndy has moved to Wordpress for a while, to see if it is better than Blogger: and I took the opportunity to get the name Schleckland back, yay!
The address is schleckland.wordpress.com
But I'm keeping Eisen Andy going for now, as it has the best SEO!
Click here for an easy jump to the new blog, see what you think of it.
Somewhere in Luxembourg, Andy Schleck is slumped on the sofa, dejected and with a sore backside. He is watching an incomprehensible children's tv show featuring a wooden spoon with a wig, eyes but no mouth, apparently having a conversation with someone offscreen, but not in any language that he recognises.
He looks around listlessly as the front door opens so energetically that it bounces back off the wall.
A greek god springs into the room, which is lit as though with a golden glow.
Jakob: “Andy! Dude!”
Andy: (rouses himself with some difficulty) “Jakob?”
Jakob: “Look!” (turns on the spot)
Andy: (reluctantly smiling) “Aaw, dude, you got the yellow.”
Jakob: “Yay for me! And yar boo sucks to the management, this will show them!”
He does the "stirring the custard" dance, making Andy smile a little more.
Andy: (throws a cushion at Jakob) “Dude, I'm really happy for you, well done, mate. But no UCI points?”
Jakob: “Who cares? Every team manager in the peloton knows that I'm good, I'm improving every season, I'm on great form, and I'm worth the money. "
Andy nods his head: "True, true. I'll be really, really sorry to lose you, mate."
For a moment the mood in the room drops, and the golden glow dims a little.
Jakob: "But hey! We'll always be mates!"
Andy: "Yeeeeeaaahhh, we will, won't we?"
They look at each other and start to laugh.
Jakob: "Come on, a bit more enthusiasm - look, a yellow jersey! Go and get yours, put it on, come on, come on!”
Andy is reluctant, but Jakob is fizzing and won't take no for an answer, and pesters Andy until the pair of them are wearing yellow jerseys and doing the stirring the custard dance...
Meanwhile back in the real world, here is Jakob on the podium at the Tour of Austria. Little Miss Botox to his left seems strangely unmoved by it all, but the other podium girl seems to be quite taken with him, which is what we would expect, frankly.
Turning to other, less happy matters, what on earth is going on at the Shack?
Well, I know the easy answer is that they are a team in turmoil, it is clear that half their riders are not having a good time, and it is entirely possible that we will be seeing a mass exodus at the end of this season, contracts or no contracts.
Yesterday there was a bit of a stink in the cycling news from Kloden: the team sent out a press release saying that Kloden had said that his legs felt weak.
Kloden used his Twitter account to respond (presumably they've learned not to talk to journalists, after Jakob's little experience) and described the RNT press release as "bullshit".
This is appalling on several levels: why are the management putting around stories that he is weak, why do they not know that he is not feeling weak, why do they not have the decency to show the press releases to the riders before they are issued, why are the riders apparently totally unable to talk to the management, having to rely on their own blogs (Horner) and tweets to get their side of a story aired?
Then today we have another truly appalling press release: we all know that the Shack are having a really bad Tour, we know that Frankie is tired, we can see for ourselves that he is not going particularly well, we could see through yesterday's stage that none of the others was feeling particularly great, apart from Gallopin the sprinter who climbed the hill faster than the others: yet they managed to get five riders in the top 15. Five out of 15!! But what did the press release concentrate on?
Encouraging the team?
Putting a good face on things?
The fact that they now lead the team classification?
No - they went with something like "We don't have a real leader in the team".
Gee, thanks, Shack, nice to know how much you care.
At present the only way out of this that I can see is for Mr Bruyneel to be given the sack from Shack, then everyone else can ride out their contracts in peace, Jakob can make his own decision, Kim Andersen can go to whatever races he thinks best for the team, the sponsors will be relieved to have an end to the bad publicity, and we can all settle down a bit.
As far as the rumours of the new German team go, I can at least confirm that, after careful scrutiny of the Shack site (well, I looked at the partners page) there is no sign of Alpecin as a sponsor for Shack.
Which means that they could well be starting a new team. Although there is no mention of sponsorship of anyone, let alone cycling, on their website. I am beginning to wonder if the whole thing has been a misunderstanding.
So, what are we expecting for today? It's the TT, it's fairly long, 41kms, it won't suit Frankie but I am sure that he will do his best: and Shack will be wearing yellow helmets.
Or will they? Did the ASO seriously tell every one of 22 teams that they had to bring a set of yellow helmets, AND a set of yellow TT helmets? What a ridiculous waste of money, especially for the smaller teams. I vote for the spray-can of yellow paint, myself.
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