Brutt force!

That's a picture of Pavel Brutt after the finish of Stage Nine of Le Tour de Langkawi in Seremban in 2007. That was his team's first ever stage win in an international race.
Last night, after Slipstream's David Millar threw his bike over the barricades having a broken chain in the final three kilometres, the 26-year old Russian, in similar fashion to which he won that stage in Seremban a year ago, ditched breakaway partners Johannes Frohlinger, Luis Felipe Laverde and Francisco Perez to register Tinkoff Credit Systems' first ever Grand Tour stage win in Stage Five of the Giro d'Italia - over 203km from Belvedere Marittimo to Contursi Terme.
It was those four, plus Millar who'd made the decisive break and maintained a gap which at a point reached almost six minutes over the main bunch. The final 10 kilometres provided an undulating terrain soaked by what was left of an earlier downpour, which in some sense I think, gave an advantage to the breakaway.
It was the first uphill finish, although the final three kilometres saw a rise of about 3 to 4 percent gradient.
French journalist, and that country's media officer for the Olympic Games, Jean Francois Quenet had indicated that Laverde is used to winning stages under those circumstances, as he watched the race with me. Funny that he was also the one most happy with Brutt's win.
As usual, I'd also made the wrong assumption. I'd thought the bunch would catch up and world champion Paolo Bettini would have won it. Instead, he won the sprint for fifth spot.

Goodbye Juju

For a spunky teenager, Justine Henin had the most explosive of entrances into the world of pro tennis. At 16, nine years ago, she won her WTA debut tournament, the Belgian Open. She retired last night, aged 25, just weeks before the French Open, which she'd won four times.
It took a defeat to Serena Williams in the quarters of the Sony Ericsson Open, a retirement due to knee injury in the Family Circle Cup and then a first ever defeat to Dinara Safina in the German Open for Justine to decide to pull the plug. The knee was never gonna get better.
Sad day for tennis, but I can't remember when a player ever retired while ranked number one in the world.

Will Justine pull the plug?

The UK's Daily Star has it here http://www.dailystar.co.uk/latestsport/view/37715/Henin-to-announce-retirement/ that Justine Henin is to announce her retirement from pro tennis today, albeit while still occupying world number one spot. The nagging knee injury has got the better of her. She's 25.

WOOOOPS! It isn't just Ronaldo...

From News of the World..

Hehehe... They're all into the ladyboys these days. First it was Ronaldo refusing to pay, now its the Liverpoodle Steven Gerrard... And in the presence of his wife! Sick buggers.

Here's the News of the World report

By Keith Gladdis
PASSING: Stevie and Alex HANDS, REF! England ace Steven Gerrard tries some man-to-tran marking as he grabs a gender bender's fake boobs.
The Liverpool star made his play for transvestite Martine McClutchbag's twin strikers as he passed "her" outside a gay bar on a night out with wife Alex Curran.
The scene was caught on video as the grinning midfielder glided up to Martine, 24, in her blonde wig and fishnets tights and said "Hi sexy"—before completing his saucy one-two.
The thrilled tranny—who DJs at Liverpool's Pink bar —said: "I was outside having a dance when I saw Stevie coming down the street.
"I'm a Liverpool fan so I was a bit giddy hoping he'd come in the club. As he walked past he reached out and squeezed my inflatable boobs." Gerrard, 27, told her "Pretty in pink, makes the boys wink" before heading off with Alex giggling beside him.
LIFE'S A DRAG: Tranny Martine Martine—real name Matthew Swain—then ran into the club and screamed down the mike: "I s*** you not, Steven Gerrard has just squeezed my t**s."
She added: "I was really made up. Everyone cheered. If him and Alex want to come to Pink they're more than welcome."


Story and pics here http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/1105_gerrard_and_tranny.shtml

Woops! Cavendish?

Who's won Stage Four of the Giro d'Italia?

Well, I guess the Eurosport channel's English language commentators deserve some cheers after covering thebig races for so long without much British glory to bark about. Yes, several years ago there was David Millar at the top of his game (before he got busted), but now Mark Cavendish is up there in the history books with his first ever Giro d'Italia stage win.

So much for my predictions. Well, the bunch sprints are unpredictable, as much as you would like to think you know who the main guys are gonna be. Its good for the High Road team to have a Grand Tour stage win in the bag. But I'd thought about anybody but Cavendish all along. Come to think of it, who'd have had this 21-year old on his GT debut on their list of possibilities. Just two years ago, if I remember correctly, he was in Le Tour de Langkawi with the British national team.

This proves something though. If you want to win a stage in the Giro, you've got to prepare by winning a stage in the Tour de Romandie in Switzerland two weeks earlier. Cavendish won the opening prologue stage of that race, while the Giro's Stage Three winner Daniele Bennati had won the final stage.

Tonight, Cavendish beat Gerolsteiner's Robert Forster and Bennati in his smart final move. I saw Astana's Assan Basayev up there and was gunning for him to get it. Always nice when an Asian rider bags a GT stage. But the Kazakh only got fourth.

Also, we saw a bit of Robbie McEwen in there tonight, but he only managed seventh. For Silence-Lotto's Australian, a stage win in May is always a bonus. Just watch him go in July.

Still three stages before the GC comes under attack in the first of the real mountains and Franco Pellizotti still in the maglia rosa, albeit by a second from Christian Van de Velde. that makes two jerseys on Liquigas shoulders with Bennati in the cilamino (points jersey). Can't predict Stage Five. Just let it happen.