“What sort of person wants to hurt children?” Vandals destroy teen cyclists’ DIY bike track; Angry German cyclist gives rival the middle finger after losing sprint, and claimed it was “agreed” he could win; Weirdest altitude camp? + more on the live blog

Back in July, you may remember, a housing association in south Wales came under fire after it fenced off the entrance to a woodland that was being used by children as a cycle track after the youngsters allegedly cleared it of litter – but which led to the young cyclists being sworn at and threatened by local residents.

And now, in Hadleigh, Suffolk, vandals have targeted a bike track created by two teenagers, destroying their ramps and reportedly placing branches over parts of the DIY course.

Ethan J and Ethan R, both 16 – who have permission to ride on the track in woodland at The Fuzz, just off Hadleigh’s Railway Walk – told the BBC that they do now know who is targeting them, but that it won’t put them off riding their bikes on the land.

> “They threatened to pop their tyres!” Local kids who cleared woodland of rubbish to create bike track accused of anti-social behaviour and causing “severe damage” by residents, as housing association fences off entrances to ward off young cyclists

“It’s really frustrating because we don’t know who it is,” Ethan R said. “They’ve clocked on what times we come down here and what times we haven’t, and they wait for us to go so we can’t really do anything about it.

“This is what we love, this is what we do and we can’t do it now because it’s been destroyed.”

The boys and their friends were given permission by the landowner to use the land for their bike track and to ensure it is kept litter free.

“We’re really nice lads, we’re friendly to everyone that comes down here and we like to help people with their bike riding,” Ethan R continued. “We’ll build [the ramps] back up because it’s a nice thing for everyone to [use].”

“We spend hours and hours in the afternoons and at night with torches building away trying to make sure that they are perfect for the community and for us to ride,” Ethan J added.

“There’s not much in this town that we can really do besides riding... we get great enjoyment out of it and a lot of other people do.”

> “It will be like living next to a motorway!”: Residents oppose school’s BMX cycle track project out of fears that they’d lose their “peace” and “privacy”

Meanwhile, Charlotte, one of the boys’ mothers, was scathing of those putting the teenagers in danger.

“This is what kids should be doing, being outside and playing,” she said. “It is just very sad that some people think they shouldn’t be here and taken it upon themselves to destroy their work.

“They’re not harming anybody and people are actively coming out here and laying branches so they will fall off their bikes.

“They're laying out brambles – who does that? What sort of person would want to hurt children?”

> Huge discounts spotted as bike and cycling clothing prices slashed in summer clearance sales at Wiggle, Trek, Rapha, Evans Cycles and more

What a day for young Pavel Bittner, who took on Wout van Aert in a drag race to the line in Seville this afternoon at the Vuelta a España, and beat the Dutch star with a superb throw to the line to secure the biggest win so far of his promising career.

At the end of another largely uneventful flat, hot day at the Spanish Grand Tour, punctuated only by Rui Costa’s late race-ending crash with EF teammate Owain Doull, Alpecin-Deceuninck once again took control in the closing kilometres for Kaden Groves.

𝑺𝒐 𝒄𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒆! 👀

📸 Pavel Bittner takes Stage 5 victory after a photo finish sprint with Wout van Aert 💪#LaVuelta24 pic.twitter.com/fTsvXxygmf

— Eurosport (@eurosport) August 21, 2024

But when, with 250m to go, Groves inexplicably looked over his right shoulder, green jersey Van Aert immediately launched to his left.

Undeterred by the Belgian’s long-range sprint, DSM-Firmenich’s 21-year-old Czech all-rounder Bittner – who entered this Vuelta in top form off the back of two stage wins in Burgos – also accelerated into the wind, setting up a hard-fought drag race sprint with Van Aert.

Pavel Bittner (DSM Firmenich-PostNL) wins Stage 5 of the Vuelta pic.twitter.com/pdjdVr0q0r

— the Inner Ring (@inrng) August 21, 2024

And while another of the peloton’s young guns was caught out by a throw for the line yesterday, Bittner had no such problems, hurling his bike at the finish to pip Van Aert to take his third win of the month – which just so happen to be the only pro wins of his young career so far – and the biggest of the lot.

Pavel Bittner has arrived.

After almost two decades as a professional cyclist and 81 victories, Edvald Boasson Hagen has today announced his decision to retire at the end of the 2024 season.

Regarded as one of the sport’s most exciting and promising talents when he burst onto the scene in the late 2000s, the 37-year-old Norwegian was one of many riders over the years unfairly burdened with the ‘New Eddy Merckx’ tag, especially after his stunning win at Gent-Wevelgem in 2009, while riding for HTC-High Road as a 21-year-old.

One of Team Sky’s marquee signings when the British squad was formed in 2010, Boasson Hagen – who was stubbornly referred to by commentator Carlton Kirby as ‘Eddy Boss’ throughout his career – underlined his staggering all-round ability with two stage wins at the 2011 Tour de France, one from a bunch sprint and one from a breakaway in the Alps.

(Unipublic:Graham Watson)

However, his career was viewed by many to have stagnated while at Sky, where he was often confined to domestique duty in stage races while failing to make the mark expected of him in the classics.

Things picked up again after a move to MTN-Qhubeka, winning the Tour of Britain in 2015 (his second overall victory at the race) and grabbing his third and final Tour de France stage in 2017.

The Norwegian’s last pro win, however, would come at the 2019 Critérium du Dauphiné, where he won five stages throughout his career. He then spent three increasingly lean years at TotalEnergies, before securing a last-minute deal at Decathlon-AG2R for 2024, in what has proved his final pro season.

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by edvaldbh (@edvaldbh)

“There is a time for everything and after 17 years in the pro peloton, I’m proud of what I have accomplished during my career,” Boasson Hagen posted on Instagram today.

“2024 will be my last season and I am looking forward to spending more time with my family and exploring new opportunities in my life beyond cycling.

“I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone that have supported me and cheered me on, the teams I’ve been a part of and especially my family and wife, who have always been there for me. I’ve been very lucky and happy to have been able to do this for so long, and for all the friendships, and cherished memories I am left with.

“Still some races left this season, going to do my best as always!”

One of those races will be the Renewi Tour, which Boasson Hagen has won twice before, in 2009 and 2011, in its old Eneco Tour incarnation.

Now one more stage win there would be a fitting way to bow out of the sport, Eddy Boss…

A year after being provisionally suspended by the UCI over alleged abnormalities in his biological passport, Australian pro Robert Stannard is set to make an “immediate” return to the World Tour with Bahrain-Victorious, and will make his comeback at the Tour of Britain at the start of September.

Stannard, who won the Tour de Wallonie, finished in the top ten of two stages of the Criterium du Dauphiné, and second in the mountains classification at the Vuelta a España while riding for Alpecin-Deceuninck in 2022 and 2023, was provisionally banned last August for the “use of prohibited methods and/or prohibited substances”.

In June, the 25-year-old accepted a back-dated four-year suspension for what the UCI described as “unexplained” abnormal values in his Athlete Biological Passport in 2018 and 2019, when he was racing for Mitchelton-Scott, now known as Jayco-AlUla.

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Team Bahrain Victorious (@teambahrainvictorious)

The backdated nature of his ban means Stannard is free to return to racing, with the Australian immediately snapped up by Bahrain-Victorious.

“It’s awesome to be able to ride my bike again, to be able to continue my cycling career,” Stannard, who continues to deny any wrongdoing, said in a team press release announcing his signing.

“I had to make a hard choice: accept the ruling and be able to do the sport I love again, or fight to clear my name. I believe I’ve made the wisest choice. I hope to be able to do both in the long run, but for now, I am seizing with both hands the opportunity to race again!

“I feel like I’ve got my life back, in a way. I can’t wait to return to racing, and I'm so grateful to have been given this opportunity by Bahrain.”

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Robert Stannard (@robert_stannard)

Reflecting on his case, and asserting that he has never intentionally used banned substances, Stannard continued: “Athletes with ABP violations have not returned positive blood or urine tests for anything.

“They alleged that it could only have been caused by ‘illegal means’, but throughout the entire process, provided no evidence of any wrongdoing. No evidence of doping is collected or required for them to reach this judgment.

“I hope the Tribunal ruling will be published in the future, and then people will be able to read the details and make up their own minds. But it’s certainly changed my perspective on things, on cycling, and life as a whole.”

“We are happy to have Robert joining us. Robert went through a difficult period, with a lot of confusion, but we support him, and through our medical teams’ analysis we could not conclude any wrongdoing,” Bahrain-Victorious’ performance manager Vladimir Miholjevič added.

“He has been cleared to race in the professional peloton again, and is a talented rider who we think has great potential.”

> Track cyclist who won three Olympic medals for Australia before “secret switch” to Team GB could face two-year ban from UCI, as AusCycling says Matthew Richardson would have been left out of Paris 2024 squad if they knew about defection plans

Speaking of the Tour de l’Avenir, check out the brutal-looking profile of today’s stage, which crams three monster climbs into just 70km, and where GB’s up-and-coming multidisciplinary star Joe Blackmore will be hoping to improve on his current fifth place on GC:

Ouch.

And if that wasn’t enough, the Tour de l’Avenir Femmes – which last year boasted a staggeringly impressive podium of Shirin van Anrooij, Anna Shackley, and Gaia Realini – gets underway today with a two-kilometre prologue… that also finishes at altitude at La Rosière:

A hill climb to kick off a mountainous stage race? Now that’s just cruel.

Though with good old fashioned hill climbing in mind, keep an eye out for Great Britain’s extremely strong six-rider line-up, which includes Flora Perkins (who picked up two top tens at the Tour of Britain), Awen Roberts, Tour de Normandie stage winner Josie Nelson, Eilidh Shaw, Millie Couzens, and all-rounder Zoe Bäckstedt.

Is another impressive GB showing on the cards at the ‘Tour of the Future’?

Let’s just hope Thomas De Gendt didn’t place a bet on his Lotto Dstny teammate Lennert Van Eetvelt winning yesterday’s Vuelta stage to Pico Villuercas – because things might have got a bit frosty around the dinner table.

Two weeks ago, De Gendt took to the social media cesspit formerly known as Twitter to confidently predict that “Lennert will win a stage in La Vuelta”.

But after yesterday’s summit finish – which saw the young Belgian prodigy ‘do an Alaphilippe’, as we call it in the cycling world, by throwing his arm in the air just as Primož Roglič nipped by for the win – veteran breakaway artist De Gendt, riding the Vuelta alongside Van Eetvelt, reassessed his pre-race prediction, adding the caveat: “But he needs to keep sprinting to the line.”

(Unipublic/Sprint Cycling Agency)

The 23-year-old, meanwhile, was well aware of where he went wrong yesterday, telling reporters after the stage that his premature celebration was “a kind of stupid thing to do, but there will be more opportunities”.

“Did I think I had won when I made that arm movement? Yes,” he continued. “That’s something you learn as a rookie, that you have to sprint right to the line, and not before it.

“I didn’t sense Roglič was coming up, though, so I more or less thought I had the victory. What did I feel? Did you hear me shout? That’s what I felt.”

Nevertheless, Van Eetvelt also said he can take heart from his climbing performance, which saw him match three-time Vuelta winner Roglič on the final climb’s savage 20 per cent slopes, and almost – almost – beat him in the sprint.

“For sure, I can be more than happy with the form I had and with how the race went today. If I had been beaten in a different way, it would also have been a really nice result. But now it hurts a bit. I think in a couple of days I can be pleased with this result,” he said.

“I came here for GC and this is good confirmation of my condition. It will give me and the team confidence to go for it in the Vuelta. Of course I also have a sour feeling right now. But there are still plenty of days to come and if you see where I am in the rankings. I can only be happy.”