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Van Gilder and Damiani score at Iron Hill USA Crits race
Veteran sprinter Laura Van Gilder (Mellow Mushrooms) lit up the night at the fifth annual Iron Hill Twilight Criterium Saturday, taking the win and the lead in the USA Crits series. In the men's race at the Westchester, Pennsylvania, event, Luca Damiani (Colavita-Sutter Home) took a hard-fought victory from a field of hardcore sprinters. Tom Soladay (Team Mountain Khakis) took the lead in the men's USA CRITS overall standings.
Early break in the women's race
Fedrigo pips Pellizotti to win stage 9; Nocentini holds lead
Pierrick Fedrigo (Bbox Bouygues Telecom) countered a late attack by fellow breakaway Franco Pellizotti (Liquigas) to win stage 9 of the 2009 Tour de France on Sunday. The two were the survivors of a 13-rider break that went clear early on in the 160.5km race from Saint Gaudens to Tarbes, which took in two of the most storied climbs of this part of France, the Category 1 Col d’Aspin and the hors categorie Col du Tourmalet.
Kabush, Pendrel take Canadian cross-country championship titles
Geoff Kabush and Catherine Pendrel will wear the red maple leaf jersey for the next 12 months after winning the Canadian national cross-country championships Saturday at St-Felicien, Quebec. The winding course, which hosted a round of the UCI World Cup in 2007, was soaked by an afternoon of rain.
Armstrong on Astana leadership: ‘We’ll see who’s really strongest’
Lance Armstrong believes six days of hard climbing will reveal whether he, or teammate Alberto Contador, will emerge as Astana's real yellow jersey contender in the Tour de France. Heading into stage 9 Sunday, seven-time champion Armstrong was only two seconds behind 2007 winner Contador in the race's overall classification. With another two teammates, Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Klöden, in the top ten, Astana will be the team to beat when the race heads towards the Vosges and Alps mountains next week.
Giant’s Adam Craig wins stage 1 at the Downieville Classic
Day one of the legendary Downieville Classic Mountain Bike Race is in the record books with more than 800 riders having faced up to the grueling 29-mile point-to-point cross-country race – stage one of Downieville’s hotly contested All-Mountain World Championship. Giant's Adam Craig was the hot shot of the day as he casually destroyed the course record and took the All-Mountain pro men’s stage victory. Pedaling into the streets of Downieville in 1:52:04, Craig’s time bested reigning All-Mountain champion Ross Schnell’s record-setting 2008 performance by nearly five minutes.
Inside the Tour – Marginalizing the Tourmalet?
This year’s Tour de France is laid out so strangely that even though two of the toughest Pyrenean climbs, the Aspin and Tourmalet, are included in Sunday’s stage 9 they will be virtually marginalized. That’s because from the top of the Tourmalet — the most difficult climb in the Tour’s first two weeks — to the finish in Tarbes is a yawningly long 70 kilometers. So any contenders who make a move on the hors-catégorie mountain and gain even as much as three minutes are sure to be caught — unless something extraordinary occurs.
Wiggins explains his new-found road abilities
Olympic pursuit king Bradley Wiggins has moved to end doubts surrounding his superb form on the Tour de France by insisting his performances are not drugs-related. The Garmin-Slipstream rider started and finished the eighth stage of the race Saturday in fifth place overall at 46 seconds behind overnight race leader Rinaldo Nocentini (Ag2r-La Mondiale), who is being trailed by Astana teammates Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong. As part of a team aiming to put Christian Vande Velde into race contention after his fifth place finish last year, Wiggins has so far stolen most of the
Cadel Evans attacks again, but can’t seem to get a break
Cadel Evans just can’t catch a break in this Tour de France, even when he tries to break away. To the surprise of many, the two-time Tour runner-up went on a daring, potentially dangerous attack on the first climb up the Cat. 1 Port d’Envalira in the opening 23km of Saturday’s 176.5km eighth stage from Andorra to Saint-Girons. But instead of riding away from his rivals and bouncing back into contention, all he caught was grief.
Colby, Shea repeat at Newton’s Revenge hillclimb
Repeating the top of the leader sheet from the previous year, 30-year-old Anthony Colby and 46-year-old Marti Shea won Newton’s Revenge, a 7.6-mile bike race to the summit of Mt. Washington, the highest mountain in the northeastern United States.
A Casey Gibson Gallery – Back to France
After a brief foray into Spain and Andorra, the Tour de France has returned home. Photographer Casey Gibson was there for stage 8.
Teams petition over radio ban
Top Tour de France teams will protest plans to ban radio contact between riders and their team managers on two of next week's stages. Johan Bruyneel, the team manager of Astana which includes yellow jersey favorites Alberto Contador, Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer, has described the decision as "unjustified and unacceptable". Astana is one of 14 teams who have already signed a petition against radio silence for stages 10 and 13 and will submit it later Saturday.
Coach Dirk Friel looks at stage 7 power readings
Stage 7 between Barcelona and Arcalis in Andorra was the first major test of the Tour de France, and would ultimately show who had arrived in Spain prepared to fight to the end in Paris. Even though there are still many more category 1 and hors category climbs to be raced in this year’s Tour, Arcalis was the first major obstacle.