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Valenciana gives the Astana team a chance to try its legs.

Ullrich insists he did nothing wrong

Innocent or guilty, Ullrich closes a spectacular career on a sad note.

Ullrich struggled to stay at fighting weight, providing comedic fodder for a certain cartoonist

Overall 1. Levi Leipheimer (USA), Discovery Channel, 24:57:24 2. Jens Voigt (G), CSC, at 0:21 3. Jason McCartney (USA), Discovery Channel, at 0:54 4. Bobby Julich (USA), CSC, at 1:06 5. Stuart O'Grady (Aus), CSC, at 1:16 6. Christian Vandevelde (USA), CSC, at 1:24 7. Michael Rogers (Aus), T-Mobile, at 1:32 8. Ben Day (Aus), Navigators Insurance, at 1:38 9. Franco Pellizotti (I), Liquigas-Bianchi, at 1:41 10. Ryder Hesjedal (Can), Health Net Maxxis, at 1:57

Shoreline Drive in Long Beach may not be the Champs-Élysées, but just as the Tour de France traditionally ends with a sprinters’ showdown, so the 2007 Amgen Tour of California climaxed Sunday afternoon with a spectacular mass charge to the line. And just as a surprising winner often takes the Tour’s final stage, so Cuban Ivan Dominguez shocked the heavy hitters of the UCI ProTour and give the stage 7 victory to his domestic American team, Toyota-United.

Eusebio Unzué has had a front-row seat to some of the most exciting exploits in cycling. The affable and passionate sport director for Spain’s Navarra region helped guide Pedro Delgado and then Miguel Indurain into the record books during what were the golden years of Spanish cycling in the late 1980s and mid-1990s. As sport director at Caisse d’Epargne-Illes Balears, Unzué is already well into his third decade behind the wheel in Spain’s most consistent and successful team. Unzué, who celebrates his 52nd birthday on Monday, has been the right-hand man to team manager José Miguel Echávvari

Pozzato snags Haut VarItalian Filippo Pozzato snagged an impressive victory Sunday in the 39th Tour du Haut-Var as a warm-up toward defending his Milan-San Remo crown next month. The Liquigas captain edged Simon Gerrans (Ag2r) and Spanish rider Ricardo Serrano (Tinkoff) to win the 200km race in the hilly country around Draguignan that also kick-started the season-long French Cup series. Pozzato, the heavy pre-race favorite, covered an early move that included 22 riders in the open half of the race. Leonardo Giordani was the day’s main protagonist after slipping away in a solo move for some

That's a wrap, as they say in Hollywood (hey, it's Oscar night; so sue us). Here's Casey Gibson's final envelope from the Amgen Tour of California.

The big Cuban pulls it off

Unzué is optimistic regarding Valverde's Tour chances

The big Cuban scores the only victory by a non-ProTour rider in this year's race

The break built a lead of three minutes and change

But once the chase was on, the escapees were pulled back

Leipheimer finished in the bunch to take the final overall title

The pace wasn't exactly killer

Leipheimer takes the overall

And away we go

Basso leads Discovery on the circuits

Danielson and Basso lead Leipheimer up Ocean Boulevard

Bettini at the back, enjoying the view

The break nearly went all the way

But it was Dominguez who took the stage and the podium, in front of family and friends

Leipheimer finished a little later

His biggest problem to date: a balky champagne bottle

The top three overall

And who's this? Homeland Security? Hey, wait a minute . . . .

[nid:37650]When people look back at the developing history of the Amgen Tour of California they will say that the race came of age on stage 6 of the 2007 edition. Even though Saturday’s 105.4-mile stage from Santa Barbara ended in a mass sprint in sunny Santa Clarita, won by Team CSC’s J.J. Haedo from T-Mobile’s Greg Henderson and Quick Step’s world champion Paolo Bettini, this was no parade.

Professional teams caught up in a mounting feud between cycling's world ruling body and major race organizers have announced they will not boycott the first major race of the season next week. The UCI ruled last week that teams aiming to take part in the Paris-Nice stage race would be doing so against the rules of the ProTour, which the UCI introduced more than two years ago. Paris-Nice organizer Amaury Sports Organization (ASO), which also runs the Tour de France, recently declared that it would remove the event from the ProTour calendar and conduct it under the auspices of the French

You can’t mention the words "mountain biking" and "USA Cycling" without dropping the name Matt Cramer. Cramer heads up USA Cycling’s mountain-bike development team of Sam Jurekovic, Collin Cares and newcomer Tad Elliot, and helps keep elite athletes informed on the ever-changing rules, regulations and policies governing fat-tire racing in America. With the 2008 Olympics in Beijing looming on the horizon, Cramer will be an integral cog in USA Cycling’s machine for picking the America’s Olympic cross-country team. VeloNews readers may remember that USA Cycling’s lack of action led to much

Olympic champion Bradley Wiggins returned to the track with a winning individual-pursuit ride on Friday during the final round of the 2006-07 UCI Track World Cup series in Manchester, Great Britain. In his first individual pursuit since winning gold in Athens in 2004, the 26-year-old beat Russia's Alexander Serov in a time of 4 minutes, 17.864 seconds while Australia's Brad McGee was almost five seconds slower. "To do that in a first competitive race - I'm really pleased," said Wiggins. "Because you can go as hard as you like in training but you never know until you get on the

It was one for the books today — CSC's Stuart O'Grady nearly pulled off a race-changing break, Discovery's George Hincapie was one of the main engines in the successful pursuit, despite a broken arm, and record crowds saw it all happen. So did Casey Gibson, and he was taking pictures. Here they are.

Wiggins ripping it up

Haedo takes another win

The audacious break

Another day, another jersey

Leipheimer and Voigt, mano a mano

Hincapie and Cruz hit the deck

Back in the battle

And leading the chase

Discovery gets some backup from Health Net

Glad this day's over with

Rolling out of Santa Barbara

But not before official Carla Geyer does a little donut business off the back of her moto

Lagutin meets the fans

And O'Grady drives the break

Disco' chases

Leipheimer pitched in, too

Johnson gets in on the action for Health Net

But it was CSC's Haedo doing all the celebrating at the line

As for Hincapie, his reward was a visit to the race doc, who diagnosed a broken arm

The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you havea comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen incycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write toWebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name andhome town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writersare encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month.The letters published here contain the opinions of the submittingauthors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, policies or positionsof VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company, InsideCommunications,

[nid:37630]Seconds after Discovery Channel’s Levi Leipheimer hurtled across the finish line in Solvang to win Friday’s time-trial stage of the Amgen Tour of California, he repeatedly punched the air and let out a guttural scream of excitement. The thousands of fans lining the finishing straight roared their approval for his stunning performance, realizing that it virtually wraps up his overall victory in the eight-day race.

The UCI fired back at rebel race organizers Friday and officially banned ProTour and second-tier continental teams from starting next month’s Paris-Nice race in France. The stern ruling threatens to throw the cycling into turmoil at the start of the 2007 season and marks a definitive split between cycling’s governing body and Amaury Sports Organization, the powerful media conglomerate that also owns such events as the Tour de France and Paris-Roubaix. In a tersely written statement issued Friday afternoon, cycling’s governing body said “teams holding a UCI ProTour license and UCI

Embattled Tour de France winner Floyd Landis received a boost in his fight against a positive doping test from French lab records that show a protocol violation, the Los Angeles Times reported on Friday. The newspaper reported Tuesday that the French laboratory which found the positive results against Landis had two technicians, involved in the original urinalysis and the confirming test, validating their own findings. Such access to both samples violates anti-doping regulations and supports Landis's contention that numerous errors in the chain of care regarding the tests and samples

Petacchi takes win in AlgarveAlessandro Petacchi scored another confidence-boosting win ahead of Milan-San Remo after charging to victory in the third stage of the Tour of the Algarve while Bernard Eisel (T-Mobile) snagged second and moved into the overall lead. Petacchi held off Eisel, the winner of Thursday’s stage, to claim victory for the second time this year and makes up for a relegation earlier this week for dangerous sprinting. Eisel came through second to take the time bonuses to move into the leader’s jersey while Roman Vaitkus (Discovery Channel) was third. "Today was finally

Some people think time trials are boring. Not us. We like to see the 22nd-century aero' technology, parched tongues dragging on the front tire, and those first hints of a fatigue wobble that tell you, "Mmm, hmm, stick a fork in him." Casey Gibson must like them, too, 'cause he sent back a ton of shots from today's Amgen Tour of California ITT in and around Solvang. Then again, we do pay him. . . .

Leipheimer extends Amgen Tour lead with superb TT victory

Leipheimer putting the hammer down

Another golden fleece for his collection

Voigt hammered it, but conceded Leipheimer was the faster man today

The stage podium

McCartney was the top dog — until Voigt and Leipheimer threw down

Cancellara had to settle for fourth on the day

We're not the only one who likes time trials, judging by the crowds in Solvang

Scenic? You bet

Former U-23 world ITT champ Danny Pate

Another former rainbow jersey, Michael Rogers

The reigning world titlist, Cancellara, looking sharp

And Aussie Ben Day, bound for 16th

American road champ Hincapie lays down his mark

CSC's Voigt nearly did the job

McCartney put in a powerful ride to and was happy to make the podium

But Leipheimer smoked it

The happy podium

No word on where this guy finished . . . but the UCI is looking for him

The Tour of California is starting to become interesting as there are still several riders with a good shot at winning the overall classification after Wednesday’s hard and fast stage into San Jose. It seems every team wants to make the race hard on race leader, Levi Leipheimer’s team, Discovery Channel, and today they had to control the race on the front for most of the stage—and it was certainly not an easy stage to control as it was hilly and windy, and the peloton that sat in their draft feisty. Since the start, we, T-Mobile, have been fighting hard for a stage win. We narrowly missed

[nid:37614]Just as sunshine followed rain on Thursday’s beautiful ride along the Big Sur coast at the Amgen Tour of California, so the stage 4 victory in San Luis Obispo by world champ Paolo Bettini of Italy was just a trailer for Friday’s time-trial showdown. Going into the rolling 14.5-mile TT in Solvang, Discovery Channel’s Levi Leipheimer still has a three-second margin over his main challenger, Jens Voigt of CSC, but a half-dozen others remain in contention, including three-time world TT champion Michael Rogers of T-Mobile, who’s 19 seconds back.

Freire takes Ruta by a second over CioniSpaniard Oscar Freire (Rabobank) won the final stage and the overall at the Ruta del Sol on Thursday, taking the victory from Dario Cioni (Predictor-Lotto) by a single second. The 170.9km stage from Ecija to Antequera was marked by an early break by Netherlander Piet Rooijakkers (Skil-Shimano) and Spaniard Benat Albizuri (Euskaltel-Euskadi), who built a lead of six minutes before being retrieved as the peloton entered Antequera. There, Freire finished two seconds up on a small group containing Cioni, who had led the race since Sunday. Ruta del