News, reactions and information on what's happening in cycling in Scotland.

Sunday 3 January 2010

Scottish Commonwealth Games selections

We don't know who's on the team for Delhi in 2010 yet, but there are some pretty strong indications of what's going to happen, but I can't find anywhere the listings of the amount of riders that are allocated for each nation in the road race. The news that David Millar is now eligible to ride after his supposed lifelong ban from Olympics & Commonwealth games has been withdrawn, has both plusses and minuses.
Millar is now a reformed character from the performance enhancing drug taker which haunts his past in cycling, it's hard to believe that he's gone back to his old ways with his public stance and obviously lower performances since the comeback, but he's also proved it's possible to take a TT stage win in a grand tour clean, which is a ray of hope for the sport. The previous time he was going to ride the Commonwealth Games in a Scotland jersey, he chose to change his mind at the last minute and ride a 2-Up time trial in Germany instead, scuppering the Scotland teams plans in the process, so there is some bitterness there from the domestic scene, including some vocal former officials who are unsurprisingly not willing to see him back in the fold after cleaning up the mess last time, he now has a chance to redeem himself.
If we're honest, Scotland doesn't really have an obvious medal winner in the road race apart from Millar, so supporting him against the might of the Australian and Sky (England) team is probably the only hope of success in what is a highly competitive event, one which the Ausies don't want to lose to the poms. The Endura pairing of Evan Oliphant and James McCallum have spent some time in Australia during the winter training for the new season, are they the likely candidates to support the assualt on a medal in the road race, only time will tell, but it looks very likely. The other protagonists are also likely to come from the Endura stable, with the likes of Ross Creber & Gary Hand being highly likely inclusions to the squad.

No comments:

Post a Comment