King Philippe

If I was a betting man, I’d be richer today. That’s because my guess to win the World Road Championships, Philippe Gilbert of Belgium won it last 8 days ago.Until that fateful day, the race had evaded Gilbert. In 2010, he was in a solo break but was caught with about 3 kilometers to go. In 2011, Mark Cavendish was too good.

However, he was the most dominant rider in 2011, winning at the start and at the end of the season. Any one-day race with a climb at the end, Gilbert owned it.In fact, he won 8 major of them.

Entering, the 2012 season, Gilbert raised a lot of eyebrows when he signed for team BMC, a team that had 2011 Tour de France champ Cadel Evans and the World champions Thor Hushovd (road) and Taylor Phinney (pursuit). BMC, on paper, looked liked the Miami Heat but who was to take the second, third and fourth fiddle?

But as the season started, everything started to fall apart with the team. Hushovd got sick and never recovered for this season. Gilbert, expected to pick up the slack, didn’t show the kick he had the previous season. It took Gilbert 9 months to get his first win in the VueltaaEspana three weeks ago.

The 2012 Worlds was held in Valkenburg, Netherlands and while Gilbert is Belgian, he knows that course like the back of his hand. The only classic in Holland, Amstel Gold, is raced around the area and he won it twice. In both cases, he attacked in the final 1.2 kilometer climb of the notoriously steep hill, the Cauberg. In the Worlds, the Cauberg was used in the finale but this time the route planners added 1.7 kilometers more.

The strength of the Belgians showed when it placed 4 riders in the first 5 at the foot of the Cauberg. Gilbert, who was positioned as the climber ramped up, stepped on the gas, dropping everybody like dead flies. It was an exhibition of physical domination, so awesome to watch and Gilbert is worth every centavo of the win.

Now we all know that there is a “curse” of the World Champion - that those who wear the rainbow jersey usually has bad luck. For Gilbert, it didn’t take long for the curse to work. Last Saturday, in the Tour of Lombardy, a race he has won in 2009 and 2010, he crashed and had to abandon the race. Gilbert had promised to win the ToL in the rainbow stripes but he was 60km short. Fortunately, he escaped major injuries.

Finally, the state of the National Football League (NFL)is clearly more important to the Americans than the some state officials. I’m not in anyway trying to make light of what happened to the US Ambassador to Libya and three other US citizens who were murdered a few weeks ago by a mob but I couldn’t help but agree to what a friend of mine, Dr. Gerald Lim, said that the Americans reacted with more anger to a blown call in the NFL than what happened in Libya……The Ormoc City Medical Society road race will be on October 14, 2012.