Lance Armstrong speaks with Oprah Winfrey in his first interview since he was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned for life following the USADA investigation into doping by Armstrong and his US Postal Service team.(Image credit: AFP Photo /Harpo Studios, Inc/George Burns)
The Milan-San Remo peloton in the snow(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Cancellara tracks Vanmarcke on the Roubaix velodrome(Image credit: Sirotti)
He's behind you: Dan Martin checks to see if the group are in pursuit(Image credit: Sirotti)
A split-second decision by Michael Rogers led to Saxo-Tinkoff blowing the lead group apart in the final hour of stage 13(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Christopher Froome (Sky) makes history, winning on Mont Ventoux and extending his race lead(Image credit: Fotoreporter Sirotti)
Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) spent 174 kilometres off the front but just missed out on stage honours.(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Chris Horner (RadioShack) takes a famous win at the Vuelta a Espana(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
UCI president Brian Cookson(Image credit: briancookson.org)
Joaquim Rodriguez and Rui Costa fight it out for the Worlds(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Now that the 2013 season is over, it's time to look back and decide what was the year's biggest moment. Cyclingnews has provided 10 nominees in the category as part of the 2013 Reader Poll for you to choose from.
Moment 1: 2013 kicked off with the blockbuster television interview of Lance Armstrong by Oprah Winfrey. While Armstrong had already been stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and permanently banned from any sport adhering to the WADA code, there was still the question of whether the Texan would ever confess to the doping activities USASA detailed in their Reasoned Decision. That speculation came to a conclusion in mid-January as Armstrong admitted to doping during all of his Tour de France victories straight off in the two-night interview with Winfrey.
Moment 2: Mother Nature bombarded the European road peloton with an extended bout of wintry weather in the opening months of the 2013 season and one of the most spectacular instances of inclement weather occurred during Milano-Sanremo. Snow forced the organizers to suspend the race after 120km and remove the first two climbs - the Turchino and La Manie - with the nearly-frozen riders re-starting the race in Cogoleto, after almost a two-hour break. Germany's Gerald Ciolek would ultimately prevail in the biggest victory of his career.
Moment 3: The 2013 Paris-Roubaix was decided in a thrilling endgame, with Fabian Cancellara and Sep Vanmarcke sprinting head-to-head in the Roubaix velodrome for the coveted cobblestone trophy. Cancellara would dig very deep to add a third Paris-Roubaix title to his palmares as he completed the Tour of Flanders/Paris-Roubaix double for the second time in his career.
Moment 4: Dan Martin and pandas will be forever linked as the Irishman won the first Monument of his career at Liège-Bastogne-Liège in a hard-fought duel with Spain's Joaquim Rodriguez in the closing kilometres.
Moment 5: On paper the Tour de France's 13th stage from Tours to Saint-Amand-Montrond looked to be a typical transfer stage, but crosswinds and aggressive racing from Alberto Contador's Saxo-Tinkoff squad detonated the peloton and enabled the Spaniard, as well as Dutchman Bauke Mollema (Belkin), to pull back more than a minute on yellow jersey-clad Chris Froome (Sky).
Moment 6: In an incredible display of strength and climbing prowess, Chris Froome (Sky) won the Tour de France's 15th stage atop the legendary Mont Ventoux climb. It looked to be the day for Colombian climbing ace Nairo Quintana (Movistar), who attacked on the lower slopes and rode into the lead, but Froome, resplendent in the race leader's yellow jersey, dropped all of his surrounding rivals, bridged up to Quintana, and then dispatched the Colombian just outside the flamme rouge en route to an emphatic stage win.
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Moment 7: While there's no doubting Tony Martin's considerable time trial talents, the German chrono star's solo escape during stage 6 of the Vuelta a Espana became the stuff of legend as his solo effort for nearly the entire 175km stage was brought back mere meters from the finish line. Martin built up a lead of more than seven minutes after he attacked moments after the start and with 20km remaining his lead fell under one minute, but he refused to concede and nearly pulled off the unimaginable.
Moment 8: Speaking of the unimaginable, who would have thought that Chris Horner (RadioShack Leopard), at age 41, would become the oldest Grand Tour winner at the Vuelta a Espana? Horner waged a magnificent duel with this year's Giro winner Vincenzo Nibali at the Vuelta and it all came down to the penultimate day's ascent of the feared Angliru climb to ultimately seal the overall victory in Horner's favor.
Moment 9: There was intrigue up to the final moments in the election for the UCI presidency as questions were still being regarding the validity of incumbent Pat McQuaid's nomination, but Brian Cookson ultimately prevailed versus the Irishman at the UCI's Congress in Florence, Italy, concluding a bitterly contested campaign replete with more than its fair share of electoral shenanigans.
Moment 10: While road race world championships are contested by nation rather than trade team, sometimes the underlying effects of trade team loyalties may seem to muddy the waters when the chips are down and a rainbow jersey is at stake. Spain played a strong hand in the end of the elite men's road race world championship with both Alejandro Valverde and Joaquim Rodriguez in for the kill, but when Portugal's Rui Costa jumped away from Valverde, both teammates on Movistar, and chased down Joaquim Rodriguez, whose trade team is Katusha, was it merely a case of exhaustion for Valverde's inability to respond? Valverde said yes afterwards, but a bitterly disappointed Rodriguez, who lost the championship in a two-man sprint against Costa, didn't seem so sure...
Enter the 2013 Cyclingnews Reader Poll today! The poll comes to a conclusion later this week at midnight on Friday, November 29.
