Tuesday’s first mountain stage provided an interesting antipasti of who’s going to be the main attraction in this centenary Giro d’Italia. Danilo Di Luca (LPR), the 2007 Giro champion, sprinted to victory ahead of 2000 Giro winner Stefano Garzelli (Acqua e Sapone) out of an elite group of about 40 riders to remind everyone that he’s still a force to reckon with.
Rarely has a modern grand tour entered the mountains as early as does this year’s Giro. After a brief team time trial and two flattish stages disrupted by crashes (because of the maximum-size field of 198 riders racing on narrow, technical finishing circuits), the three-week race heads for the Dolomites on Tuesday.
Framebuilder Ugo De Rosa can look back on a glorious past, having built steel bicycles for a long line of champions, among them Eddy Merckx and Francesco Moser. But the De Rosa family continues to press forward, producing frames in a variety of materials to meet the demands of a rapidly changing market. The rise of carbon fiber “changed the Italian bicycle industry,” said Doriano De Rosa, one of Ugo’s sons.
Great Britain’s Steve Peat (Santa Cruz Syndicate) won his 16th World Cup race May 10 in La Bresse, France, tying Frenchman Nicolas Vouilloz’ record for wins in the series. Vouilloz, mountain biking’s winningest male downhiller, collected 16 World Cup victories and seven world championships between 1993 and 2002. Peat also took over the series lead from teammate Greg Minnaar, who won the opener in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. “I’m very happy to win after such a long time,” said Peat. “It’s good to keep the jersey in the team.”
San Francisco, Calif. (May 11, 2009) – Organizers of the San Francisco Twilight Criterium say the event will be postponed until September of 2010, due to a lack of adequate sponsorship. “Unfortunately, in this lackluster economic climate, securing sponsorship dollars is a tough task,” said race director Ryan Dawkins of Project Sport, LLC. “We had a choice between putting on a smaller event or waiting until next year to do it right, and on the grand scale our fans expect.”
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Christian Vande Velde came into his own last season with a run of stunning successes: A strong showing at the Tour of California, the pink jersey at the Giro, a stellar fourth place in the Tour de France, and to cap the season, the Tour of Missouri overall win. This year Vande Velde scored a stage win at Paris-Nice, and looks set for another top season that he hopes is set back only slightly by his injuries in Monday's stage 3 crash at the Giro.
Team Quick Step’s management has urged Tom Boonen to undergo professional counseling after his second positive test for cocaine, but added that it would stand by him while he serves a suspension. The 28-year-old Boonen, Belgium's top cyclist, is facing up to what could be a premature end to his impressive career after his second positive test for cocaine, which came just two weeks after winning Paris-Roubaix for the third time. He first tested positive for the drug in May 2008.
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It was a bittersweet day for Garmin-Slipstream in Monday’s third stage at the Giro d’Italia. Tyler Farrar bolted to second place in the stage, climbed into second place overall at eight seconds back of race leader Alessandro Petacchi (LPR) as well as second in the points jersey and earned some prime podium time with the best young rider’s jersey. That was the good news. Team captain Christian Vande Velde crashed out of the Giro in a spill with about 50km to go and suffered serious injuries that will complicate his preparations for the Tour de France.
There’s never a dull moment at the Giro d’Italia. Just when it seemed like things were bordering on routine, all hell broke loose and the final 50km of the 198km march from Grado to Valdobbiadene turned into a crash derby. Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Slipstream) was the primary victim, crashing out with a broken rib with about 50km to go before another spill with about 12km to go completely blocked the entire breadth of the road just as the peloton ramped up for the sprint.
The anti-doping tribunal of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) on Monday banned Spanish cyclist Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d'Epargne) from competing on Italian soil for two years, the Ansa news agency announced. Valverde was cited for his role in the Operación Puerto blood doping scandal, which first came to light in May of 2006. The Spaniard can therefore not compete in any race that takes place in Italian territory, ruling him out of the next Tour de France, the 16th stage of which passes through Italy's Val D'Aosta region on July 21.
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This year, Ted King is making his professional European racing debut with the upstart Cervélo TestTeam.
UC-Davis made its mark in Division 1 competition Sunday at collegiate nationals, defending its men's time trial title, scoring a surprise victory in the women's TTT, and, when the numbers were all crunched, coming away with the prestigious overall team omnium title. In Div. 2, the Furman University men defended their TTT title while Whitman College upset MIT for the women. Whitman took the Div. 2 overall team ominum title.
On the final day of the Joe Martin Stage Race, a technical criterium with over 100 feet of climbing per one-mile lap, OUCH-Maxxis played perfect defense to secure Rory Sutherland’s third consecutive victory. At the race’s finish, it was Team Type 1’s Chris Jones and Luis Amaran of Colavita-Sutter Home emerging from the remnants of a 10-rider break to finish first and second in the stage, respectively. Amaran’s teammate, Lucas Sebastian Haedo, won the field sprint, putting him on the podium for the third time in the three days.
In a battle of the Olympic gold medalists, Kristin Armstrong (Cervélo TestTeam) outsprinted Marianne Vos (DSB Bank-Nederland Bloeit) to win the 86th Tour de Berne on Sunday. The American scored her first World Cup win by nipping her Dutch rival to win the 135.8km World Cup race in 3:30:19. Trixi Worrack (Equipe Nürnberger Versicherung) crossed third at 47 seconds back. Armstrong won gold last year in the Olympic time trial, while Vos — a three-time world champ on the road, in cyclocross and in the points race — collected gold in the Beijing points race.
Rui Alberto Faria Da Costa (Caisse d'Epargne) won the Four Days of Dunkirk following Sunday's sixth and final stage. Andre Greipel (Columbia-Highroad) took the 172.3km finale in a sprint finish ahead of Jurgen Roelandts (Silence-Lotto) and Frenchman Sebastien Chavanel (Française des Jeux). Da Costa, who assumed the overall lead on Saturday, became the first Portuguese to win the event. The 22-year-old turned pro just two years ago with the modest Benfica team before switching to Caisse d'Epargne.
Alessandro Petacchi (LPR) has won 164 races during his long career, but his relegation of British sprint ace Mark Cavendish (Columbia-Highroad) to second on Sunday was one of his sweetest victories. Only the 2005 Milan-San Remo and his first career Giro stage win in 2003 — versus Mario Cipollini — mean more to the 35-year-old, who was back in the Giro d’Italia winner’s circle Sunday for the first time since serving his controversial racing ban last year.
Quick Step’s management said Sunday that it would not beg the Tour de France to include Tom Boonen in this year's race. Boonen, a 28-year-old one-day specialist who was crowned world champion in 2005, is facing up to what could be a premature end to his impressive career after testing positive a second time for cocaine. He tested positive for cocaine two weeks ago, after winning his third Paris-Roubaix. It was barely a year after he first tested positive for the drug, in May 2008.