Italian sprinter Allessandro Pettachi stormed back from his 12 month drugs ban in emphatic style to take Stage 1 of the Tour of Britain. Petacchi powered home ahead of Rob Hayles with Magnus Backstedt in third. Daniel Di Luca – who had been first to break for the line – lost out on a podium spot. In every edition of the Tour of Britain so far the winner of the first stage has gone on to claim the race, which might seem like a good omen for Petacchi. The usual scenario is that a small break develops early in the stage, building up a big lead, while the peloton declines to chase. When they do it is too late: the result of the stage and the race is sealed in the first few hours. This time around things looked to be following the usual pattern with a seven man break going clear, of which Di Luca was a prominent part, but they were caught before the finish when Stuart O’Grady and his CSC Saxo Bank team upped the pace and reeled them in on the final lap of the London street circuit. That set up the day for the sprinters and Petacchi had his moment. Whether his LPR Brakes team will be strong enough to help him hold on to that lead remains to be seen. We should get an indication of that today when the race goes from Milton Keynes to Newbury. The Tour of Britain ends in Liverpool next Sunday when the riders will once again take on a city centre circuit. www.tourofbritain.co.uk
Petacchi wins Tour of Britain Stage 1
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Lovely colours on that C:68X.
I worked in outside broadcast (mostly sport) for a quarter of a century, and although I didn’t astutely monitor the situation, one could easily notice the differences in diversity according to sport. Football - very diverse. Boxing, also diverse. Athletics also diverse - especially at international championships. Formula 1 - white. I also covered many ‘minor’ sports like basketball, hockey, swimming. Basket ball was diverse but the latter were white. I never worked at a single cycling event now that I think about it and one thing was certain, the TV crews were exclusively white.
And how are those attracted/paid for? Through bigger audiences. There are 53 million black people in the USA, and around 1.2 billion in Africa. How much extra sponsorship and TV coverage do you think women's racing might get if there were a few black US and African women competing? That's not, in your idiotic phrase, "wokeism", it's good sound commercial common sense.
@chrisonabike I don't know how they would get confused - one's called Jack and one's called Nigel.
There is so much depressing deja vu here. The defence factors taken from the usual tick box list : "poor lighting", "dark clothes", "didn't see him" etc. The usual rehabilitation path comments : "full of remorse". The common previous : "drugs, and alcohol", "no licence" etc. Even your comments about the tipper truck industry ring a bell. Look up the 1957 British film "Hell Drivers", if you haven't seen it. It must have have been inspired by events of the time. I did wonder why Renshaw had been on remand. Was he a flight risk?
The cycle path at that point is (part of) the main road, not the side road.
Its not fucking careless if you drive a vehicle and don't check your mirrors. Its fucking dangerous and its fucking deadly. How on earth are we still dealing with this bollocks. Everything about this is maddening. The fact he tried to weasel out of it and blame the cyclist. The fact hes avoided prison. The fact he was still driving after such a long history of dangerous driving. The fact he is still only banned for 12 months despite killing someone due to his inability to drive safely.
The tipper truck industry is an absolute Wild West. Scandal ridden, partly because of the complete lack of regulatory oversight and the pay-by-the-load system which incentives dodgy driving. I hope there is an investigation into the firm’s recruitment process and a corporate manslaughter charge. We urgently need a HSE investigation into the whole industry
Perhaps they're confusing the writer with a certain - ahem - new poster?
My deepest condolences to the family and friends of Zinovly Savyulak.