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Early in his cycling career, Paolo Bettini picked up the nickname El Grillo, "The Cricket," because he could not stay in a group and instead jumped ahead to attack the course. He made his Olympic debut in 2000, placing ninth in the road race. He improved to second at the 2001 World Championship in Lisbon and then won the overall World Cup in both 2002 and 2003.
Riding for the Quick.Step-Davitamon team, Bettini earned the International Cycling Union's (UCI) first place ranking for the year 2003. He entered the Athens Olympics as the favourite, but the road race was held in extreme heat and it was difficult to predict the outcome. In fact, 69 of the 144 starters did not finish the 224.4km race. Bettini pulled away from the peleton on the 15th of 17 laps, with only Sergio Paulinho of Portugal going with him. The two worked together until the final kilometre.
Bettini forced Paulinho to take the lead with 700m to go in order to have a better chance of controlling the final sprint. Bettini turned around to check the position of the group behind (they were not close) and when he turned back he discovered that Paulinho had risen from his saddle and begun his sprint. Bettini was able to catch Paulinho 200m from the finish and win by one second. Later in the season, Bettini earned his third straight World Cup title.
在他自行车运动生涯的早期，保罗•贝蒂尼有一个绰号叫“蟋蟀”，因为他不愿意老实的呆在队伍里训练，而是经常跳到前面去挑战。2000年年仅16岁的他第一次参加了在澳大利亚悉尼举办的夏季奥运会，在公路自行车项目中名列第九。第二年在里斯本举办的世界锦标赛上，他的成绩进一步的提升，获得了第二名的好成绩，随后两年，他达到了世界自行车运动员顶尖水平，在2002和2003世界锦标赛中两次夺冠。
在加入比利时快克车队后，贝蒂尼在2003年首次在国际自行车联合会运动员积分中排名第一。到2004年希腊雅典夏季奥运会时，他已经成为自行车冠军的头号热门选手，这届奥运会的自行车比赛在极热的天气情况下进行，比赛还是存在很大的变数。在144名参赛选手中，有69名没有骑完全部的224.4公里到达终点。比赛开始后，贝蒂尼一直处于车队的第一集团位置，第15圈时，他和葡萄牙的保林霍开始发力，摆脱大部队的追赶，最后700米时开始强力冲刺，最终他以1秒的优势战胜保林霍，夺得自己的第一枚奥运金牌。在同年稍晚时间进行的世界锦标赛的比赛中，贝蒂尼实现了世界冠军的三连冠，确立了自己在世界自行车运动中的头号运动员地位。 |
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发表于 2016-7-10 18:31:13