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This column originally appeared at FanNation from February to September 2008. It makes its inaugural transition to Informative Sports, where it will now be appearing weekly at the new site.

What an exciting time of the year for a non-traditional sports fan! While most people stateside bemoan the end of the football season, I’m getting revved up as the cycling season kicks off in earnest with the running of Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico, the two races formerly at the head of the top-tier UCI ProTour calendar. While many are starting to analyze college basketball, basking in numerology -- er, bracketology -- I sit here tantalized by the coming UEFA Champions League clashes as teams clamor for their spot in the quarterfinals. While most have to settle for news about Terrell Owens and his new zip code, I ponder the rise and fall and return and future fate of Dwain Chambers, freshly returned from his two-year suspension for doping and already under threat of further sanction by the IAAF. And while fans tuck in for the World Baseball Classic, I find an even more diverse group of competitors squaring off at Indian Wells...

So where to begin? Let’s head to the vast expanses of Alaska, where the Iditarod kicked off its 37th annual running this weekend. Lance Mackey, the two-time defending champion from Fairbanks, took over the lead today as the riders cleared Rainy Pass. Mackey, who completed an unprecedented run of victories when he took both the Yukon Quest and Iditarod races in consecutive seasons in 2007 and 2008, is attempting to become the first rider to three-peat since Doug Swingley completed the treble in 2001. He just passed Sebastian Schnuelle, the musher from Whitehorse who took the Yukon Quest this year after Mackey declined to start that race, focusing his energy on taking a third Iditarod instead.

The riders are already all holed up at the Rohn River checkpoint, now, and it looks as though Mackey is now seated all the way back in tenth. The lead is fluid in the Iditarod, changing hands as one lingers more or less in each checkpoint with his or her dogs. This is, however, a race of attrition, and we will only know for sure who is the winner once he or she crosses the line with the dogs at the lead. Next week we will know for certain if Mackey was able to complete his quest for a third victory or if Quest winner Schnuelle or one of the others -- perhaps current leader Paul Gebhardt? -- can unseat the defending champ...

In slightly less frigid weather, the cream of the international cycling crop spin the initial pedal strokes of the nascent European cycling season at Paris-Nice and, later this week, at Tirreno-Adriatico. With two stages complete in France, Alberto Contador is looking impressive in his efforts to maintain his primary leadership role on his Astana team. Contador, the youngest rider to ever win all three of cycling’s grand tours (Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, and Vuelta a España), must now not only battle the rest of his opponents in the peloton but also a new teammate.

For he is now the teammate of Lance Armstrong, the all-time Tour de France king. Contador was prevented from defending his 2007 Tour title last season when Astana found its invite withdrawn from the race by the organizers, ASO. Now his attempts to gain proper vengeance must be tempered with the desires of his even more famous co-leader. But that is not the case at Paris-Nice, where Armstrong has sat out the race in favor of training.

Contador started the event in dominant fashion, taking the opening-stage time trial by seven seconds over Olympic track-cycling champion Bradley Wiggins. With a time of 11:05 over the 9.3-kilometer (5.8-mile) course, Contador took over the leader’s jersey with a run averaging over thirty miles an hour. He certainly looks on good form for the coming season, and it will indeed be interesting to watch how the dynamic plays out on the team between he and Armstrong. Will one concede leadership come Tour time, or will Johan Bruyneel have a two-headed beast on his hands? Only time and a lot of hard miles prior to July will tell...

No such time awaits the final sixteen participants in the UEFA Champions League, club soccer’s preeminent annual tournament. Having already played the first legs of their home-and-home series two weeks prior, these clubs are ready to find out which among them will be headed to the quarterfinals... and which will be headed back to their domestic competitions, licking their wounds and waiting for next year.

Bayern Munich has the surest shot of going through, having defeated their overmatched opponent Sporting Lisbon in Portugal 5-0 in the first leg. Other teams sporting a lead are Arsenal, up 1-0 as they head to Italy to face Roma; Liverpool, who head back to Merseyside up 1-0 on Spanish giants Real Madrid; and Chelsea, who head to Turin to face Juventus with a 1-0 margin. All the leading teams save Bayern are still far from assured of a quarterfinal slot.

That goes without mentioning the four knotted contests as the teams head to the second leg. Porto must feel confident as they netted two crucial away goals in a draw against Atletico Madrid. A victory or a 1-1 or 0-0 draw would send the Portuguese side through. Villareal and Panathinaikos are all squared up 1-1 on aggregate score, with the Greek side hosting their return match. Lyon and Barcelona are also tied up at one apiece, with the next contest in Spain. And in the most defensive of matchups from the first leg, English powerhouse Manchester United failed to score in Milan -- though they also prevented home side Inter from scoring as well. One away goal in a drawn effort would be enough to send the Serie A leaders through.

The tournament is reaching a fever pitch, and it will be high drama over the next few days as the best of the best throughout Europe face off against one another in their quest to hoist the European Cup. Stay tuned here weekly for future updates as we draw closer to the final, held this year on 27 May in Rome...

Roger Federer is set to return to his first tournament after sitting out nearly a month following his Australian Open finals defeat to heir apparent Rafael Nadal. The Swiss and Spanish superstars of the tennis courts are on a collision course to meet again. The draws are released later today, but it appears that Nadal and Federer will likely be on opposite sides of the bracket once again -- setting up the possibility for yet another rematch in the ongoing duel between the sport’s biggest stars of the new millennium.

Nadal would appear to have the upper hand. He recently routed 2008 Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic in a straight-sets Davis Cup victory while playing for Spain. Federer, on the other hand, is still suffering from a back injury which first flared up at the end of the last season, one which proved to be the most lackluster of Federer’s career since he started his reign at the top.

The continued excellence of these two dynamos can only bode well for the sport. The French Open looms close on the horizon, something which won’t escape Federer’s mind. The one Grand Slam venue where the Swiss racketeer has never won, Roger has the potential in one tournament to make up for the past year’s slights. Nadal has become the new number one of the sport, with his victories at Roland Garros and Wimbledon last season as well as in Beijing, where he took Olympic gold. He has broken through from being a clay-court specialist to an all-around superstar. The rivalry continues, and will certainly be in full force once again this season...

One man wondering if his season has ended before it barely got started broods over his fate today. Dwain Chambers, the British sprinter who tumbled after his 2003 suspension by the IAAF for his involvement with BALCO and consumption of the designer steroid THG, bolted to the gold medal in the 60-meter dash at the European Indoor Championships He has appealed unsuccessfully for his lifetime Olympic ban to be lifted. Now it appears that he could be in hot water for his new exposé.

The book, Race Against Me, has the IAAF -- track and field’s international governing body -- in a panic. In the autobiography, Chambers speaks with candor about his involvement with Victor Conte and the BALCO scandal. The powers that be feel that Chambers is denigrating the sport with his revelations. The sprinter is still a long shot for events like the World Championships, and his Olympic status is still in question.

The chairman of UK Athletics, Ed Warner, recognizes that the time may be past for the aging fastman. “I have spoken to the IAAF at length over the weekend and they are concerned that he may have brought the sport into disrepute with what has been written in the book.” Chambers, who is racing once again in an effort to earn winnings great enough to pay back the monies earned in victories later adjudged to be achieved under synthetic enhancement, might have played his swan song with his 60-meter victory in Turin.

But what a swan song it is if it happens to be Chambers’ last. After his British teammate Simeon Williamson false-started from the blocks, Dwain took off on the restart and churned out of the blocks well ahead of his competition. Chambers would take gold, finishing a full tenth of a second ahead of silver medalist Fabio Cerutti of Italy. His long stride in full display once again, Chambers demonstrated why he was one of the fastest-rising stars in the sport in the early part of the decade... and offers a cautionary tale as to how performance-enhancing drugs can obliterate an athlete’s chances at glory...

Because that’s what it is all about in the end -- the glory of victory, of earning that place in the hearts of one’s fans and countrymen. Regardless the sport, we revel in the achievements of those who would strive to succeed. We must temper that giddiness with a healthy respect for the competition and the spirit of fair play. But these can be found everywhere from the frozen expanses of a sled-dog trail to the winding ribbons of French asphalt, from the grass of the soccer pitch to the grass of Wimbledon. Keep on striving to find your own pocket of spectator bliss...

Zach Bigalke

Submitted 3/11/09

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