Svein Tuft's David and Goliath ride

Wow, wow, wow. What a ride by Svein in the time trial. Did you see it? Wow. Seventh - the only rider in the top ten not on a ProTour team. Sitting in the medal postions of the leader board untill the very end of the final wave of top seeded riders. Ahead of all riders from standout cycling nations like: France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Russia and Denmark. Here's a nugget of perspective to show the scale of Svein's David vs. the giants acheivement

Svein has slowly and progressively developed on this team over the last four years. Symmetrics in contrast to a rider like Cancellera -who won gold- operates for the entire year on about 1/5th of what CSC spends on Cancellera's salary alone.

Here's some more numbers on Svein's incredible ride, when you look at the top 30 riders in the Olympic TT:

• 23 riders were from Pro Tour teams
• 4 riders were from Pro Continental teams
• Only 3 were from Continental teams
• The next placed Continental rider was Santiago Botero - he was 25th. He's a former Pro Tour rider and former Time Trial World Champion and winner of TT stages in the Tour de France

We are simply awestruck by what Svein's achieved and couldn't be happier him.

				TEAM			ProTour	ProConti Conti
1 Fabian Cancellara (Sui)	CSC			x
2 Gustav Erik Larsson (swe)	CSC			x
3 Levi Leipheimer (USA)		Astana			x
4 Alberto Contador (Esp)	Astana			x
5 Cadel Evans 	(Aus)		Lotto			x
6 Samuel Sánchez  (Esp)		Euskadi			x
7 Svein Tuft (Can)		Symmetrics		 		  x
8 Michael Rogers (Aus)		Columbia		x
9 Stef Clement 	(Ned)		Bouygues Télécom	x
10 Robert Gesink (Ned)		Rabobank		x
11 Stephen Cummings(GB)		Barloworld  		 	x
12 David Zabriskie (USA)	Garmin				x
13 Stefan Schumacher (Ger)	Gerolsteiner		x
14 Bert Grabsch (Ger)		Columbia		x
15 Vincenzo Nibali (It)		Liqigas			x
16 Ryder Hesjedal (Can)		Garmin			 	x
17 Rein Taaramae (Est)		Cofidis			x
18 Vladimir Karpets (Rus)	Caisse D'espargne	x
19 Chris Anker Sørensen 	CSC			x
20 Denis Menchov (Russia)   	Rabobank		x
21 Vasil Kiryienka (Belarus)  	Tinkoff				x
22 Marzio Bruseghin (Italy)   	Lampre                  x
23 Kim Kirchen (Luxembourg)   	Columbia		x
24 Andrey Mizurov (Kazakhstan)  Astana			x
25 Santiago Botero (Colombia)  	Rock Racing				 x
26 Maxime Monfort (Belgium)   	Cofidis			x
27 Laszlo Bodrogi (Hungary)  	Credit Agricole		x
28 Simon Spilak (Slovenia)   	Lampre			x
29 Matej Jurco (Slovakia)    	Milram			x
30 Matias Medici (Argentina)    Scott-Marcondes			         x

Ah Gastown….what a race. For the past five years Symmetrics Pro Cycling has been trying to win THAT race and every year has been oh so close. Finally in 2008 we did it in style. The guys put on an amazing show and Svein clearly won the hearts of the fans with his solo attempt at the win. Unfortunately for Svein he got swallowed up on the final stretch leaving Pinner and Zach to take care of business in the sprint. And what a sprint it was….Pinner won by almost two bike lengths over the likes of Chris Horner, Kirk Obee, Hilton Clark and a charging field pro cyclists. It was an impressive display of timing, tactics speed.

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The boys did a great job this weekend takin' care of business at the Tour de Delta. Each year the team has gotten progressively better at Superweek and this year they really put the icing on the cake. We won all three stages and the overall GC not to mention the $2000 crowd prime at the Delta criterium on Saturday night. Can you remember the days when Wohlberg and his Saturn team used to show up and do that? God we hated them! We hated them so much we signed Wohlberg! :-) Ok we didn't really hate them but it definitely inspired the creation of this team to a certain extent.

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St. Georges Quebec. We were joking with Isabelle today that we really do need to buy a house here in St. Georges. We were here just 10 days ago, and we are back again for the Canadian National Championships. Today was the Time Trial and with some big name non-starters like Ryder and Rollin not here Svein was the clear favourite. And Svein won. Svein was almost two minutes (1:52) faster than second place Ryan Roth from Team RACE Pro . After Ryan Zach Bell rounded out the podium in third. We placed four riders in the top six today, and are really happy with how the guys are riding heading into Sunday's road race. (more…)

St. Georges Quebec, June 19. Just three days after leaving la Beauce, Svein Tuft was back in St. Georges again. This time for the joint press conference to announce the 2008 Canadian Championships and for the CCA to announce the road selections for the Beijing Olympic Games. Svein has been -rightfully- named to the 2008 Beijing Olympic team for both Road and Time Trial.
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Symmetrics Pro Cycling Rider Svein Tuft Wins 2008 Tour de la Beauce - Canada's Premiere Professional Bicycle Race. Sets up strong candidacy for Beijing Olympic Selection

St. Georges Quebec, June 16 - 2008. Langley BC's Svein Tuft took a big step towards selection to the Canadian Olympic team yesterday cinching the final overall classification at the 2008 Tour de Beauce. The Tour de Beauce is Canada’s longest running and most prestigious professional cycling race and attracts a strong field of international cyclists to the tough and hilly roads of the Chaudierre Appalaches region of Quebec every June. This year’s event held special significance to a small group of Canadian cyclists who were in the final running for selection to the Canadian Beijing Olympic team. (more…)

Tour de Beauce - stage 5. Svein and the boys defended the GC today. One more day to go. We were confident and nervous for today. That's maybe the best way to be in bike racing, it keeps you on your toes but also kinda fearless. It's a wierd mental dichotomy to be in, and if there is any magic in cycling its having that state of mind and form. We now have one day to go. (more…)

Coming into the race this year we talked about ideal situations. At the top of the list was Svein taking the GC lead in the Time Trial. And that is exactly what happened today. Svein ripped the race a new one winning the stage by 40 seconds and going faster than Ben Day's impressive time from last year. Coming into this block of racing Svein was quietly confident with the indicators he was getting from training and we were hoping for the best. (more…)

Tour de Beauce - stage 3. The stage that inspires the most oohs and ahhs of fear in la Beauce is without a doubt Mont Megantic. Wether or not this beast of a mountain deserves its rep in recent years though is in doubt. Biking has changed a lot since the 90s… and more and more it seems the strong TT men can climb with the waife like climbers. (more…)