Former suggests he was his teammate at one point in his career rather than when he died...

...same as using 'ex', hence why I went with 'lost' as he was his teammate right up until the point he lost his life.

Yeah I get what you're saying about Astana and normally I would never cheer them on or any other team with a dubious past.

I'd definitely have been able to pick MS out of a line-up of Italian nearly men as I've loved him for a good few years now and had picked up on him from Italian language post-race interviews on the Gazzetto website. I just loved the way he always started each answer with what I assumed was the Italian equivalent of 'errr' - sounded a bit like if Manuel from Fawlty Towers (yes I know, 'Spanish') said 'may' with some heavy wavy vowel sound creating a syllable out of nowhere and rising then lowering the inflection. As you say, without dear old Ned and an hour of quality telly and without a laboured session on Google translate, it's the simplest things that stick. I also loved his grubby little face and whispy balding bonce that I could relate to. I'm getting simultaneously happy and tearful typing this right now. He made me smile, that's all I needed.

My answer of Nibali was more out of his was the first name that came to mind than he's a favoured rider/sportsman in general and then, as I say, it was by proxy really.

Posted By: DJ Ginga, May 17, 22:06:34