Liege Bastogne Liege - The Race

Aha! I've found my notes!

Our Eurosport coverage started with a shot of Movistar's Jesus Herrada being dropped by the peloton: good grief, he looks about 12 years old!

Are we watching a Junior race by mistake?

But no, it appears to be the correct race. Here he is:

Later on it transpires that he is the youngest rider in the race today, being just 20 years old.

(Actually, I quite like the Movistar socks.....)

The commentators are speculating that Phil Gil might be going to Astana - where do these rumours come from?

Hold on while I have a quick search on google - ah, from Eddie Mercx, apparently: back on 1st Jan there he was, doubting Conti, saying that Phil Gil was the strongest rider and was a Tour contender, but suggesting that he might need to move teams to get a win at the Tour. He also said that Andy Schleck would win the Tour one day, yay! Go, Andy!

Now a quick digression about race numbers: I'm starting a conspiracy theory, right now. Here it is: I think that Andy's lucky or favourite number is 6.

You know how race numbers are created: they give out 1-9 to the first team, usually the one containing the rider who won the race last year: then a second team are 11-19, then 21-29, 31-19 etc. 9 is the biggest team, conveniently. Generally, number 1 goes to the Team Captain or Road Captain: not quite the same thing. Damn, I am going to have to write Auntie Coug's Intro To Pro Cycling, aren't I? Anyway, the rest of the numbers then get dished out to the rest of the team, and don't appear to be in any particular order. I mean, it's not by age, or alphabetically.

But it seems to be that Andy is usually either number 1 (71, 121, etc) or number 6.

So if I ever get to meet Andy Schleck (god forbid, I'd probably burble like an idiot or do something reprehensible) I shall attempt to behave like an adult and ask an intelligent Question, ie how do they allocate the race numbers, and does he ask for number 6 in particular.

For LBL, Team Leopard Trek were given the 70s, so Andy was 71 and Frankie got 76.

Criterium International: Andy 41, Frankie 46.

Tirreno-Adriatico it all went horribly wrong, Fabian was 171, Andy got lumbered with 172. Joost Posthooma got 176, perhaps there was a fight in the bus on the way there...

Fleche-Wallone: Andy 71, Frankie 76.

See what I mean? Definitely a pattern.

Back to the race: I was looking at the Garmin riders, and trying to spot Johan Van Summeren, part-time Schlecklander, but again he was no-where to be seen. Does he not need to race, ever again, now that he's won Paris-Roubaix?

More strange comments from Eurosport: Vinokourov (*boo*) is going to become a DS for Astana? ugh, what a horrible thought. But it means he would no longer be racing, so that's not all bad news, then!

In case you don't know why I dislike "Veeno" so much, he did drugs, you might remember, and got banned:  now he's back, and he has never said "I was wrong to do drugs" or "I'm sorry I did drugs" or "I won't do it again." So I dislike him for those reasons.

Also, he has no eyebrows, and that's just weird. Look for yourselves!

The strange comments go on: Little Fab was struggling, at one point, and the commentators were saying things like "He's not had much of a year..." (it's only April) "...so far, you've got to wonder what length contract he has with Leopard, probably only one year." Huh! (*huffs indignantly*) 10kms later, Little Fab is at the front and pulling, so yar boo sucks to them. He was also pulling terrible faces, but that's ok.

So, the actual race then: first crash of the day, Steffan'd'Neff'l down and not looking good: Jakob looking strong, as usual: one of the Omega guys pushes Jakob as though to say "you carry on working!" but Jakob sits up and says "No! You lot get up there and do some work!"

At 21kms to go, as we all know, Gilbert peels off with Andy and Frankie - are they going to do the Schleck Sandwich on him? Alas, no, they don't: Gilbert looks very strong indeed, and meets all attempts at a break.

Veeno gets a puncture, ha! ha! unsympathetic laughter from me.

The final downhill section: oooer, please don't let there be a ravine anywhere, in case Frankie takes a header over it... luckily, no ravines, everyone makes it safely to the line. OK, Gilbert got there first, but 2nd and 3rd, two Schlecks on the podium, not bad, chaps, not bad at all!  From the Eurosport footage, I could have sworn it was Andy second, Frankie 3rd, but they say it was the other way round, and they were there, so they must be right. No overhead shots for us today.

And my pet carrot, Anton, came in 14th, yay!

Well, that's Liege-Bastogne-Liege over for another year, pity Andy didn't win it again, but that's how life goes.

So, moving on to a pet obsession of mine, Search Terms. There is a determined person out there, who wants some particular information and keeps ending up on this site. They must be getting quite frustrated by now. Their search terms started with:

Andy Schleck girlfriend (as previously mentioned, yeah, we've all been there)

Then we had:

Andy Schleck new girlfriend

Andy Schleck girlfriend April 2011 ("interestingly specific" as I said at the time)
Andy Schleck girlfriend 2011 (they just can't let it go, can they?)
Andy Schleck shower (hang on, that could be someone else...)
does taking clenbuterol improve singing (huh?)
Jakob Fuglsang eyebrows (ah, happy days)
Singing eisen andy. (hey! they've heard of us!)

And, my personal favourite for the week so far:

What does the o mean for team leopard trek

You are not alone in wondering that, my friend!