Poor Saxobank - one blow after another!

How's that for a coincidence: just one day after writing about how SaxoBank have been allowed to keep their pro-team licence, despite only have a measly two points on the UCI ranking (won, for your information, by JJ Haedo and Manuele Boara, one each), we get more sad news for the team.

There was some good news last month, Jonathan Cantwell won a stage at the Tour of Taiwan. The less good news is that it's not a UCI points race (so why are they there? who knows, training, presumably), and the even less good news is that Saxo were the only pro-team in it, so they darn well ought to be up there at the front, shouldn't they?

However, leaving that aside, the really bad news is that in the Scheldeprijs yesterday, Cantwell slid over on the wet roads just past the finish line, and punctured a lung - poor boy, what dreadful luck, actually crashing once you have passed the finish line!

If Bjarne had any hair, I bet he'd be pulling it out by now.

The better news for RadioShack is that they are sitting at 12th, 13th, 15th, 33rd, 34th, 38th, 72nd and 85th in the individual rankings,  which may not sound that grand, but puts them at 5th in the team rankings, so well done lads!  The message is getting through: it's better to get three guys in the top 10 than to get just one in the top five....

Meanwhile, the invisible Circuit Cycliste Sarthe continues, unwatched by me (*sobs theatrically, back of hand to fevered brow) but I must say, I think their choice of Podium Girl is a bit odd. Podium Pig.  Is it me, or is there something obscene about putting a fuzzy pig into a chef's outfit, when we pretty much just eat pigs?  I mean, cows we eat, but we also keep them just for their milk, leading long and happy lives out in lovely green fields. But pigs? We eat them. Pork, bacon, gammon, ham, sausages you name it, we eat it. Their sole reason for existing and being bred, is to be eaten by us. Not to stand on podiums wearing, of all bizarre things, a chef's outfit.

On a happier note, ooh! ooh! it's Andy!

Here he is again, clearly eyeing up that Podium Pig and thinking of Frankie, and the "duuuurdy meat, greeeeeasy meat" of the barbecue.

Aw look, it's his favourite discipline, the TT. Never mind pet *sends big virtual hug to skinny cyclist in Luxembourg* (no, not Laurent Didier, you fools, Andypants!) you're still improving, no-one can be perfect at everything, and I'd rather see you still being a great climber, than being good at TT, which is arguably one of the dullest part of road racing anyway. So there.

So now we wait impatiently for Sunday, for it is Paris-Roubaix, yay! Alas, no Fabian, but it should still be a fascinating and terrifying race, full of crashes and punctures. As of right this minute, RadioShack have not put up their squad on their website, so presumably they are still juggling places to take into account the lack of Fab.

But we all remember what happened last year - Johan Van Summeren and his amazing, lucky, well-ridden solo victory, leading to high romance and a proposal in the finishing arena - d'aaaaw!