American Chris Horner is back on his bike and confident he will make Astana’s Tour de France squad come July. He’s less sure about when his next paycheck might arrive. Horner, 37, had the strongest grand tour performance of his career in May at the Giro d’Italia, where he rode in support of compatriot Levi Leipheimer until abandoning the race at the start of stage 11.
Angelo Furlan (Lampre) upset Tom Boonen (Quick Step) in a mano-a-mano sprint to win the second stage at the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré on Monday while Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) retained the overall lead. A five-man breakaway — Iñaki Isasi (Euskaltel), Hector González (Fuji-Servetto), Paul Voss (Milram), Stéphane Augé (Cofidis) and Alexandre Pichot (Bbox Bouygues Telecom) — gained an advantage in the long, rolling 228km stage from Nancy to Dijon before Quick Step and Silence-Lotto joined forces to neutralize the aggression with 5km to go.
Bissell’s Paul Mach and Edwige Pitel (Sorella Forte) held off final-stage challenges to lock up overall victories in Oregon’s Pacific Power Mt. Hood Cycling Classic on Sunday. In the women’s race, Pitel ensured her victory over ValueAct Capital’s Leah Goldberg by winning Sunday’s Downtown Hood River Criterium. Similarly, in the men’s event, Chris Baldwin (OUCH-Maxxis) wasn’t able to fight past Bissell’s superior numbers to pull back 13 seconds from Mach, who won the overall GC on the time he gained in the first stage.
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There’s no stopping Team Columbia-Highroad’s blond German sprinter André Greipel. He has won race after race since he returned from the injured list a month ago. After a stage win at the Four Days of Dunkirk on May 10, three stages of the Tour of Bavaria in late May, and Germany’s Neuseen Classic last week, he made it six wins in four weeks on Sunday afternoon by taking the 25th anniversary edition of the TD Bank Philadelphia International Championship.
It was double delight for Saxo Bank on Sunday in the final stage of the Tour of Luxembourg as Matti Breschel dashed to a stage victory and Fränk Schleck wrapped up the overall. Breschel’s win made it three straight stage victories and the top prize as Saxo Bank dominated the five-day Luxembourg tour and held off a challenge from Andreas Klöden (Astana). Andy Schleck won Friday’s attack-riddled stage, winning an eight-up sprint that put Kazakh rider Assan Bazayev (Astana) into the leader’s jersey.
Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) powered to a morale-boosting time trial victory Sunday against archrival Alberto Contador (Astana) to open the 61st Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré. Evans covered the technical, 12km course in Nancy in 15 minutes, 36.64 seconds, posting the best time on a steep climb at 3km and then holding off Contador by eight seconds to win the stage and claim the leader’s jersey at the eight-day Dauphiné.
It all looked so easy for Team Columbia-Highroad’s Ina Teutenberg as she sped along Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway Sunday morning to win her third TD Bank Liberty Classic. At the line, the veteran German sprinter was two lengths clear of New Zealander Joanne Kiesanowski (Team Tibco) and the top American, third-placed Shelley Olds (Proman Hit Squad), at the head of a 12-strong breakaway group.
Three top riders on the Katusha cycling team are refusing to comply with new internal anti-doping rules imposed by the Russian-backed program, a team official said on Sunday. The trio who are refusing to sign contracts including the new conditions are Australian Robbie McEwen and Belgians Gert Steegmans and Kenny De Haes, Katusha's sporting director Serge Parsani told Agence France Presse. Under the stringent new conditions, racers testing positive would have to pay a fine amounting to five times their annual salary.