Checking the LA World Cup results this morning . . . at the age of 34, Italian Stallion Roberto Chiappa takes his first World Cup win over 20 year old Frenchmen Kevin Sireau. Holy Mother of God!
Some T-Town fans might remember Chiappa, who won the Red Robin Keirin Cup last summer in fabulous fashion. Sitting in 8th position, the Man turned on the heat with 400M to go, and came over the local boys and their lead out train like they were standing still. He then threw kisses to the hometown crowd as only a tall, dark, handsome man from Italy can.
Make sure you check out more great pics from the LA World Cup, taken by sports photographer Mitch Clinton. Better yet, click on the Chiappa pic to the right.
Nobody says it better than Cycling News. So I’ll step aside.
Chiappa stuns the French, takes his first World Cup sprint
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Italian Roberto Chiappa stunned the crowd, the other riders, himself – just about everyone – by powering to his first World Cup victory in the face of strong competition from the French team. His path to the gold medal began in the quarterfinal round when he defeated Mickaël Bourgain, the winner from the Sydney World Cup round. He then went on to defeat Dutch rider Teun Mulder in the semifinals with a razor thin margin in race one, but a comfortable lead in race two.
The two Frenchman, Kevin Sireau and Gregory Bauge faced off against each other in the semi’s, with Sireau easily defeating a clearly fading Bauge in the last two of three races, setting up a nail-biting final between the Italian sprint champion and the 20-year-old member of the gold medal winning Cofidis team sprint squad.
The rest of the article can be found here . . .
in the fall of ‘95 I participated in the test event at the Olympic Velodrome in Stone Mountain, GA. In the elimination I finished 3rd to Chiappa and one of his Italian teammates. I thought he was old then!!!
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Hah! If Chiappa’s old, what does that make me!? Just goes to show that it’s not the age that matters, but what you do with it.