Newsgroup: it.sport.ciclismo
Titolo: Cooke conquers hills and cobbles of Flanders classic to extend world dominance

http://sport.guardian.co.uk/cycling/story/0,,2053097,00.html
Nicole Cooke continued her dominant start to the season and took a 
stranglehold on the World Cup standings by winning yesterday's 76-mile 
Tour of Flanders, her second victory in two rounds of the season-long 
competition.
The 23-year-old from Cowbridge in Wales has been ranked No1 in the world 
since last summer and has won five races this year in 10 starts, 
beginning with the overall classification of the Geelong Tour in 
Australia, continuing with the Geelong World Cup event and adding two 
races in Italy, stage two of the GP Etruschi and the GP Alfredo Binda, 
following her return to Europe.
In a sport as uncertain as road racing a strike rate of 50% over this 
number of races reflects near total physical superiority and the odds 
must now be very short on Cooke successfully defending her World Cup 
title and taking an unprecedented third win in the competition in five 
years.
Yesterday she and her Univega Raleigh-Lifeforce team made the running 
for the entire event, which is held on a shorter version of the men's 
classic, including most of the same cobbled lanes and the same short, 
steep cobbled hills in the final phase.
Cooke's squad split the 164-rider field in pieces before they reached 
the second of the race's 11 climbs, with 40 miles remaining to the 
finish in the town of Ninove. Subsequently her team-mate and former 
world time-trial champion Karen Thurig made a lone escape, with Cooke 
joining her on the penultimate climb, the one-in-four "Wall" at 
Geraardsbergen, before continuing alone over the final climb, the 
cobbled Bosberg.
On the run-in to the finish Thurig was among a group of five riders who 
closed in on Cooke, who in theory should have been at a disadvantage 
having already expended a good deal of energy. Instead the Welsh woman 
escaped again, taking with her the Kazakh Zulfia Zabirova, the Flanders 
winner in 2004. The sprint was a formality for Cooke, who opened up a 
two-second gap on Zabirova, while behind them the current world 
champion, Marianne Vos of Holland, made a late lone chase to take third.
"It was a two-up sprint, so I just chose the right moment and went for 
it," Cooke said afterwards. "This is one of the biggest classics of all 
time. I guess it's one of the biggest races out there after the world 
championships. I'm very proud to have won it. It's a great way to start 
April. Zabirova is a great champion and a previous winner, so I knew 
she'd be a danger today."
Not surprisingly, given that her win was built on a dominant team 
performance, Cooke last night lavished praise on her team-mates: "I'm so 
happy with the girls . . . I'm hoping that pretty soon one of them will 
have a chance to get a win to show how good they are in their own right 
as well," she said.
She added that, with Thurig alongside her in the six-woman winning 
escape, "we had a numerical advantage, so we had to be as careful as we 
could and choose our moment, so that's what we did."
Cooke celebrates her 24th birthday this Friday and she will have a 
chance to make it three World Cup wins out of three on Saturday in the 
Ronde Van Drenthe in the Dutch town of Hoogeveen.
-- 
http://modesta.biciticino.ch
Il sito dedicato alla giovane ciclista lituana Modesta Vzesniauskaite

 
http://sport.guardian.co.uk/cycling/story/0,,2053097,00.html
"Not surprisingly, given that her win was built on a dominant team
performance, Cooke last night lavished praise on her team-mates: "I'm so
happy with the girls . . . I'm hoping that pretty soon one of them will
have a chance to get a win to show how good they are in their own right
as well," she said."
Bullshit, Cooke will take every race that means anything for herself, like
Leontien, she's not going to work to help her team mates win other races,
Jeanson did the same. Cooke's in it for Cooke. Cooke always credits her team
mates for her wins, but I doubt she will ever work hard to help them win in
their own right. Riders often talk nice about their teammates but they don't
care nor is it their job to care.  Their job is to help Nicole win and win
big, but the other girls probably cannot win.  So this is posturing by
Cooke, while nice, is disingenuous.
B-

 
http://sport.guardian.co.uk/cycling/story/0,,2053097,00.html
Cooke is from (Cow) bridge in Wales.
That's funny! I can't help it, that just stood out! :-)
B-

 Cooke, while nice, is disingenuous.
Nicole's goal (and Raleigh goal) is to win the worldcup. When the race 
is hard, it's normal that Nicole will probably have more chances than 
her team-mates...but on Sunday also Karin Thürig had a good chance to 
win. And I'm sure that also in the next races they will have their own 
chance. Of course, the leader is Nicole but Priska, Karin, Sarah, 
Joanne, Christiane,..., cannot only be considered domestiques...
Before the race in Cittiglio (Trofeo Alfredo Binda) I saw the whole team 
really in a good mood, some relaxed and some perhaps more tense, but 
anyway the atmosphere in the team was really good. And this is really 
important...and it will be probably more important when the results 
won't be so good...of course I don't hope so.


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
Priska and Joane career is mostly over I think. I don't see Soder as a coup
de force either. In fact the only one who really seems to be able to shine
on their own would be Thurig. She can win without Cookes help, but she is
also a rival to Cooke, so I bet you won't see Cooke going out of her way to
help Karen win. When it comes right down to it, those two will be riding to
win themselves, and not to lose so another team mate can win. I don't buy
into these team goals too much. The same happened to Melchers years ago. I
don't see Karen going out of her way to help Cooke win, or vice-versa, but
prove me wrong this year. While the lesser riders get paid to help Cooke and
Thurig win, the shoe rarely ends up on the other foot. Its like Regan's
trickle down economics, never works like they say it does. :-)
B-