seconds out...

he might look like a bare knuckle boxer who's just gone 35 rounds, but ian stannard is, at 22, a newcomer, a young gun if you will. but this young gun rides bikes for a living. and this past sunday, he had the (mis)fortune to be riding in the kuurne-bruxelles-kuurne semi-classic race.

the race was run, as many of the early season belgian races are, under difficult conditions. as a cyclist, you expect this, and you plan your moves around the inevitable rain and crosswinds. on sunday, nature outdid itself. on sunday, the elements were sufficiently powerful to fell a tree, which forced the course to be shortened by 20km. perhaps unsurprisingly, only 26 riders finished, and stannard, in only his 2nd season in a sport where you peak in your late 20's, finished 3rd, after holding off the chasing pack (such as it was), with his 2 breakaway companions. all that, and he only finished 3rd.

it may sound like hell, in fact, i would imagine it's fairly close (apart from the cold), but it's races like these that can make careers. personally, i always look out for the riders who say they enjoy such murderous conditions- it marks them out as a special kind of masochist in a sport defined by its masochism. to ride is to suffer. the more that you suffer, the more you ride. simple really. judging by his performance on sunday, stannard is one such rider. the stoic relentlessness with which he attacked the cracked, cobbled and uneven belgian roads was something to savour, and it bodes well for his future career.

his performance was perhaps even more impressive when you consider that on saturday, he'd lined up at the start of the weekend's other, bigger race, the het volk. although stannard dropped out, he was a key early protector of his team mate juan antonio flecha, who went on to win the traditional season opener. 1 win in a weekend is better than fine, and none of team sky would have been under any pressure to go for broke on sunday. but stannard did, and for that, he'll have won himself a lot of fans, and a succession of stinking colds.