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Ilan Vardi
August 6th 03, 02:09 AM
The Grande Boucle is underway again, and as strange as ever.
In Sunday's L'Equipe, Catherine Marsal wrote an article detailing the
legal woes of the race over last few years, and the race almost didn't
happen this year, due to rider complaints (too many transfers, etc.)
and subsequent problems with the UCI. I knew that already, but
she also described a more intrinsic problem, which is that the race is
run by two organisations which don't get along. There is the
organisation
Team France Organisation (TFO),
of the organiser Pierre Boue, and another one, Racing Club
Organisation
(RCO), which owns the dates of the race,
whatever that means. This RCO has been run by Marianne Mezin since
1997,
and things have been rocky ever since. Since Boue was firing his
employees in seemingly random fashion, RCO took him to court,
and I can't figure out what happened from the article, but the upshot
is that RCO wasn't in the picture, and the race no longer had
the dates for the race. Since TFO was no longer viable, Boue created
a new company, Velo Feminin (they have a website), and
asked to get dates fhave the for the race from the UCI and French
Cycling Federation,
who refused. He then went to court and manged to convince them that
Mezin had been elected president of RCO under irregular circumstances,
and Mezin had to resign. However TFO still had to pay RCO the 22,445
Euros owed for the prize money put up by RCO for the 2002 grande
Boucle.
This situation has still not been settled.

The UCI and French Federation agreed that the club of the
Midi-Pyrenees
could temporarily have the dates of the race and this club also had
to pay the prize money for the 2003 race, and make sure that UCI
regulations are followed. There is an UCI observer present at the
race.

In the meantime, Boue is facing a debt of 300,000 Euros, and has had
to make drastic cutbacks in the race. In particular, he says he had
to replace three star hotels with Formule I hotels (the cheapest
hotels, where you there is no front desk, you pay with a credit card,
no restaurant, etc.), he only had money for one car per team on
the ferry to Corsica, and meals have been replaced by meal vouchers
honoured by some restaurants, usually the cheapest ones, these meal
tickets are best known because that is what homeless people ask for
when begging on the Paris Metro.

Otherwise, more mystery surrounding the Grande Boucle. In particular,
last year's "godmother", Cynthia Compain. She was listed as riding
in the race on the velo feminin website, riding for the team
Pruneau d'Agen, but is not listed in the Stage 1 and 2 results.
In fact, there are 72 in the list of riders on the website, but
only 66 riders listed as finishing stages 1 and 2, without any
mention of people abandoning the race, or missing the time cut.

Cynthia has also had her share of problems. She was riding for
team Mazza, which was scheduled to ride in the race, but Mr. Mazza
decided at the last minute that he didn't want his team to
participate,
and she had to find a new ride. Last Tuesday, someone at Vincennes
asked her if she was riding, she said yes, but refused to state which
team (4 days before the race!). Riding in the Grande Boucle is
essential to her career, modeling career, that is, since that is the
only race those people seem to understand. Her level is as bad as
ever,
she finished second to last in the French ITT championships, and
that's supposed to be her strong point. She has a website now.

-ilan

Davey Crockett
August 6th 03, 08:00 AM
(Ilan Vardi) writes:

> she finished second to last in the French ITT championships, and
> that's supposed to be her strong point. She has a website now.

I knew there had been problems, but didn't realize the extent
of them.

But Cynthia - She's welcome in Davey's covered wagon any day:
http://members.rogers.com/worlds2003/cynthia.gif

And performance wise, I admired her guts finishing every stage
last year in those attrocious conditions.

I was surprized at times that she wasn't hors delai, but maybe
The Lido being a sponsor of the event had something to do with
that!!

But in all fairness, her results are as good as some of the other
non-star-quality riders in the Grande Boucle Feminin.

Admittedly, Mama Italia (Canins) or Jeannie Longo, she ain't,
but her performance last year made me a fan for life.

But she hasn't done too badly:

Championne de France UFOLEP
Stage win Tour de Vendee
2nd - Ile de France Pursuite Championships
3rd - Ile de France ITT
25th - Tour du Haut Var
Lanterne Rouge -la Grande Boucle F?minine 2002

But this year it's hard to tell what's happening.

I got an e-mail a few days back from TFO pointing me to their
website: http://velo-feminin.com

And it isn't too bad as far as websites go.

But I'm having to assume that Cynthia was DNS. The other five
women on the Les Pruneaux d'Agen squad are listed in the results
for stage 1, but Cynthia isn't amongst them.

And it does seem that (assuming no abandons on stage 1) only
66 out of the anticipated women started.

--
le vent a Dos

Davey Crockett

Ilan Vardi
August 6th 03, 11:36 AM
Davey Crockett > wrote in message >...
> (Ilan Vardi) writes:
>
> > she finished second to last in the French ITT championships, and
> > that's supposed to be her strong point. She has a website now.
>
> I knew there had been problems, but didn't realize the extent
> of them.
>
> But Cynthia - She's welcome in Davey's covered wagon any day:
> http://members.rogers.com/worlds2003/cynthia.gif

Compare with her true appearance
http://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/~ilan/cynthia2.gif

> And performance wise, I admired her guts finishing every stage
> last year in those attrocious conditions.
>
> I was surprized at times that she wasn't hors delai, but maybe
> The Lido being a sponsor of the event had something to do with
> that!!

The reliable information is that she got help from the organisers,
her being the "marraine" and her sponsor sponsoring of the race as well.
I thought that this was limited to tows on the climbs, however, I had
an opportunity to see her ride last week, and I started wondering whether
she actually got lifts during the race. This because her bike handling
skills are so weak - I am convinced she can't ride no hands and looked
pretty shaky with one hand off the bars also when she rides at 24 kph alone
at the flat Vincennes course, every time she passes a rider, she always
looks left to see if anyone is coming, and this even though she does not
have to change her line, not exactly the kind of confidence you would
expect from someone about to ride in the biggest and fastest bike race
in the world. Also, lifts are consistent with the fact that she had never
done any real climbs before last year's Grande Boucle, so had never
done any real descents, so the organisers might have been worried about
her getting hurt of dying on the descents on the day in which it was
pouring rain.

> But in all fairness, her results are as good as some of the other
> non-star-quality riders in the Grande Boucle Feminin.

Eh, she was 6 hours back.

> Admittedly, Mama Italia (Canins) or Jeannie Longo, she ain't,
> but her performance last year made me a fan for life.

She was preparing for the Grande Boucle by riding alone at 24 kph on the flat
course at Vincennes. It seems difficult for me to believe that a novice
rider would prepare for such a race riding alone, for numerous reasons.
When I knew people preparing for Ore-Ida or any other big race,
no one would ever let them ride
alone in the weeks before the race, just so that they would find the
necessary mileage less stressful. The fact that she can ride alone
at a course she's been going to for 2 years is also a good
indication that there is something seriously wrong.

-ilan

Robert Chung
August 6th 03, 11:57 AM
"Ilan Vardi" > wrote in message
om...
> The fact that she can ride alone at a course she's been going
> to for 2 years is also a good indication that there is something
> seriously wrong.

I was about to protest that I can go to Vincennes and ride alone, but then I
realized that this may not be as strong a bit of evidence as I might have
hoped.

Ilan Vardi
August 6th 03, 03:20 PM
"Robert Chung" > wrote in message >...
> "Ilan Vardi" > wrote in message
> om...
> > The fact that she can ride alone at a course she's been going
> > to for 2 years is also a good indication that there is something
> > seriously wrong.
>
> I was about to protest that I can go to Vincennes and ride alone, but then I
> realized that this may not be as strong a bit of evidence as I might have
> hoped.

If you're going to do mass start races and if you're starting out and
have almost zero knowledge of the sport (I don't think either
of these alternatives applies to you) then it is essential that
most of your training be done in group rides. Riding alone when you
are a beginner magnifies bad habits. If you are a female, then it
should be even easier to find any number of people to ride with,
especially if you;ve been training on a closed 3 km circuit for 2 years.

-ilan

matabala
August 6th 03, 04:24 PM
Championee de France UFOLEP? She couldn't be as weak as all that if she led
the points in the categorie feminine. Those gals aren't full-time but
several are darn strong.


"Davey Crockett" > wrote in message
...
> (Ilan Vardi) writes:
>
> > she finished second to last in the French ITT championships, and
> > that's supposed to be her strong point. She has a website now.
>
> I knew there had been problems, but didn't realize the extent
> of them.
>
> But Cynthia - She's welcome in Davey's covered wagon any day:
> http://members.rogers.com/worlds2003/cynthia.gif
>
> And performance wise, I admired her guts finishing every stage
> last year in those attrocious conditions.
>
> I was surprized at times that she wasn't hors delai, but maybe
> The Lido being a sponsor of the event had something to do with
> that!!
>
> But in all fairness, her results are as good as some of the other
> non-star-quality riders in the Grande Boucle Feminin.
>
> Admittedly, Mama Italia (Canins) or Jeannie Longo, she ain't,
> but her performance last year made me a fan for life.
>
> But she hasn't done too badly:
>
> Championne de France UFOLEP
> Stage win Tour de Vendee
> 2nd - Ile de France Pursuite Championships
> 3rd - Ile de France ITT
> 25th - Tour du Haut Var
> Lanterne Rouge -la Grande Boucle F?minine 2002
>
> But this year it's hard to tell what's happening.
>
> I got an e-mail a few days back from TFO pointing me to their
> website: http://velo-feminin.com
>
> And it isn't too bad as far as websites go.
>
> But I'm having to assume that Cynthia was DNS. The other five
> women on the Les Pruneaux d'Agen squad are listed in the results
> for stage 1, but Cynthia isn't amongst them.
>
> And it does seem that (assuming no abandons on stage 1) only
> 66 out of the anticipated women started.
>
> --
> le vent a Dos
>
> Davey Crockett

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