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Scanlon hits form, Sciandri hits road
Mark Scanlon made an excellent debut for the Linda McCartney Pro Cycling
Team
at this weekend's Circuit Franco Belge. The 19-year old former World Junior
Champion was constantly in the action, and was a great help to his leader
for
this race, Dane Tayeb Braikia.
McKenzie, seen here at the Giro,
enjoyed the trip north (45kb)
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Tayeb had two top ten finishes: a 6th on the opening stage and then 9th on
the third, won by Aussie Jay Sweet. He was well placed overall in the hilly
border country race, but suffered a reversal in the time trial, losing a
minute to US Postal Service rider Levy Leipheimer. The race was won by
Mapei's excellent Italian Daniele Nardello, who has ridden strongly from
first to last this year.
Linda McCartney fielded an inexperienced team of Tayeb Braikia, David
McKenzie, Mirko Puglioli, Mark Scanlon, Brian Kenneally, Huw Pritchard and
Maurizio De Pasquale, so team manager Chris Lillywhite was pleased with the
performance.
"Mark was very strong. He has some weight to lose, but I don't think that's
a
bad thing for a guy of his age," said Chris. "Tayeb is going well too.
Unlike
the other guys, Tayeb likes to race through the winter on the track, so it's
nice to see him in good form."
Chris's favourite memory of this year's Franco-Belge will be the run in to
Jurbise on stage 3, where all his men lined out the bunch with a Linda
McCartney train.
Not such good news from Italy, where Max Sciandri has returned from Sydney
with a painful bruise on his hip and thigh.
"I was out riding with Dave Millar the day after the road race," explained
the GB team leader, "when a truck came very close to us. He swerved into me
to avoid it and I ended up coming down pretty hard."
Max is very motivated to carry his superb late season form to the World
Championships in Brittany in a fortnight's time. He is being examined by a
specialist today, and hopes to be joining his McCartney teammates again for
the Giro de la Provence di Luca, beginning tomorrow.
Report by John Deering
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