Vicenzo Nibali (Liquigas) and Jurgen Van de Walle (Quick Step) notched a pair of victories Wednesday in mid-week racing. Nibali won the Giro dell’Appennino in Italy after slipping away in a lone breakaway, revealing top shape at the dawn of the Tour de France with a solo, 47-second victory. Coming across the line second was Leonardo Bertagnolli (Diquigiovanni), with Marco Marzano (Lampre) rounding out the podium in third.
Ten days before the start of the Tour de France is a busy time for any ProTour team manager, but Wednesday was a particularly crazy day for Garmin-Slipstream team manager Jonathan Vaughters. During the same news cycle that reported rumors of Garmin’s interest in signing 2007 Tour de France champion Alberto Contador, the team also released its nine-man Tour roster, leaving off three active riders from last year’s squad.
The Cervélo TestTeam named an experienced team on Wednesday to support Spanish reigning champion Carlos Sastre in this year's Tour de France, which begins in Monaco on July 4. Sastre, 34, will be notably supported by his 40-year-old compatriot Inigo Cuesta. Norway's Thor Hushovd, 31, will be the other leader in the team, along with Germany's 25-year-old Heinrich Haussler, who finished second in Milan-San Remo and the Tour of Flanders this year. Australia's Simon Gerrans, who won one stage in last year's Tour and another at the Giro d'Italia in May, was not selected.
The Nature Valley Grand Prix, the top race on the USA Cycling National Racing Calendar held on June 10 - 14, will air on Universal Sports, the event’s worldwide broadcast partner. Originally slotted for a half hour, the program has been expanded to a full hour because there were far too many compelling storylines to cover in the shorter program. Airings will be: Saturday, 6/27, 2:00 PM Sunday, 6/28, 6:00 PM Tuesday, 6/30, 11:00 AM Sunday, 7/5, 4:00 PM Monday, 7/6, 6:00 PM All Eastern Time
The Caisse d'Epargne cycling team on Wednesday released a short-list of 10 riders from which the team will select nine to start the Tour de France, which runs from July 4-26. Six of them, the Spaniards David Arroyo, Ivan Gutierrez, Luis Pasamontes, Luis Leon Sanchez, Xabier Zandio and 2006 Tour winner Oscar Pereiro are assured of their places on the start line in Monaco. The three final places are being contested by Portugal's Rui Costa, Frenchman Arnaud Coyot, Spain's Jose Joaquin Rojas and the Colombian Rigoberto Uran.
The Versus cable network will broadcast the 2009 Tour de France in high definition for the first time. The network will begin its coverage on July 4 and 8:30 a.m. Eastern with a one-hour feature on Lance Armstrong. The race coverage will start at 9:30. The network says it will broadcast an average of 13 hours of Tour coverage each day. A complete schedule is available at Versus.com.
Garmin-Slipstream brings back some familiar faces with a few new ones for the 2009 Tour de France. The squad released its nine names for next months’ Tour, with Christian Vande Velde as the team captain and Tour debutante Tyler Farrar the man for the sprints. Returning with Vande Velde from last year’s Tour team are David Millar, Ryder Hesjedal, Danny Pate, Dave Zabriskie and Julian Dean. New riders for the team’s Tour hopes this year include Farrar, Irish national champion Dan Martin and Olympic gold medalist Bradley Wiggins.
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Rabobank’s Pedro Horrillo, the rider who suffered a disastrous crash in last month’s Giro d’Italia, was released from a Spanish hospital on Wednesday and said that he wants to ride again. The 34-year-old Spaniard fell nearly 150 feet after vaulting over a traffic barrier on a treacherous descent of the Culmine di San Petro in the eighth stage of the Giro on May 16. Horrillo suffered a broken femur and knee, several broken ribs and a punctured lung, plus head and chest trauma.
Don’t tell Alessandro Ballan that there’s some sort of curse that goes with the world champion’s rainbow jersey. Most world champions are highly marked in races, making it even harder to win, but at least they’re racing. Ballan’s world champion season has been short-circuited by illness, but the gangly Lampre-NGC rider is hoping to get things back on track for the Tour de France. “I am about 60-70 percent my condition, nothing more, I must rebuild,” Ballan told L’Equipe.
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Do vintage Campy rear derailleurs have non-standard mounting bolt threads?
USA Cycling and the Colorado-based American Cycling Association (ACA) have renewed a reciprocity agreement that allows riders to compete in races sanctioned by both organizations. The agreement restores the provisions of an earlier cooperative arrangement that expired at the end of 2008. “The agreement aims to provide the best cycling experience for the riders in both organizations by honoring equivalent ability categories within each organization,” USA Cycling noted in a press release issued on Tuesday.
A French judge is expected to hear arguments on Thursday in Tom Boonen’s bid to overturn his exclusion from Tour de France, the rider's lawyer said on Tuesday. Boonen’s attorneys filed a civil court challenge to a decision by the Amaury Sports Organization (ASO) to keep Boonen out of the Tour after he had tested positive for cocaine this past spring. The cyclist's legal team decided their case stood a better chance in a civil court rather than before the French sports tribunal, in the limited time available before the race starts at Monaco on July 4.
In 1999, Lance Armstrong came into the Tour de France as a cancer survivor, not a favorite for the overall. In this exclusive video series, VeloNews takes a look back at how he won what was to become his first of seven consecutive Tour de France titles. VeloNews.tv will release segments of this 15-video series daily right up until the eve of the 2009 Tour de France.
Controversial Spanish rider Alejandro Valverde will not take part in this year's Tour de France, his Caisse d'Epargne team announced on Tuesday. His absence removes a potentially embarrassing stand-off as the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) last month banned Valverde from racing in Italy for two years due to his alleged involvement in the Operation Puerto blood doping scandal. That ostensibly ruled him out of the race in any case, as this year it passes through Italy's Val D'Aosta region on July 21.
Milram, the peloton’s lone German team starting the Tour de France, will place its trust and hopes on a pair of young talented but untested riders. Linus Gerdemann and Gerald Ciolek headline Milram’s nine-man Tour squad that includes six German riders.
Silence-Lotto confirmed Tuesday it has signed a contract with promising Belgian rider Kenny Dehaes through the 2010 season. The 24-year-old sprinter had joined Katusha for the 2009 campaign, but wasn’t happy with the Russian organization and wanted an early exit. Silence-Lotto was more than happy to step in, offering to take over his contract starting July 1. Dehaes will stay with the Belgian team next year, with an option for 2011.
The UCI has tabled a process to pull the Astana team's ProTour license, after the team's sponsors have come up with the money promised to keep the team afloat. The group's licensing commission is leaving a door open to renew the process, however, it said in a brief press release issued Tuesday morning.
Suspension of procedure to withdraw Astana’s license Following a request by the UCI ProTour Council (CUPT) on June 17th, the Licenses Commission announces that the procedure opened against Astana to withdraw its license has been provisionally suspended, with immediate effect and for an unspecified length of time. This suspension will be lifted either at the request of the CUPT if it wishes to reactivate the procedure in question, or if the procedure is permanently dropped. UCI Press Service
This past May the Food and Drug Administration moved to ban the diet product Hydroxycut after receiving 23 reports of health problems
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France’s Française des Jeux team has narrowed its Tour de France list down to eight. The team will largely forget about challenging for the GC, and instead hope to earn some headlines through attacks, perhaps a spell in some of the jerseys early on or, ideally, win a stage or two. “We want to be in breakaways, add a spark to the race and give something for the fans to cheer about,” said team manager Marc Madiot. “Casar will be our top man, but is it better for him to try to win another stage or finish in the top 15 again?”
The 2010 UCI mountain bike World Cup will open on April 24 at Dalby Forest in Great Britain, a new venue for the sport’s premier series. The event will include only cross-country racing, and is aimed at promoting the sport in the lead-up to the 2012 Olympics in London. “The idea was to take the cross-country away from Fort William (Scotland) but leave the downhill and four-cross there, then bring (the cross-country) in England so the local media could latch onto it,” said Simon Burney, a technical delegate with the UCI.
Andrew Bajadali (Kelly Benefit Strategies) won Sunday's Tour de Winghaven road race in Missouri, but OUCH-Maxxis's defending National Racing Calendar champ Rory Sutherland remains solidly atop the NRC standings. Bajadali's win was the second NRC victory of the year for the Kelly team, following Zach Bell's win at the Bank of America Wilmington Grand Prix last month.