Lance Armstrong crashed hard in Monday’s opening stage of the Vuelta a Castilla y León and was transported by ambulance to a hospital in nearby Palencia, Spain.
Race organizers and the Astana team doctor confirmed that the seven-time Tour de France champion had broken his right collarbone after Armstrong underwent an X-ray at a hospital in the city of Valladolid.
“Lance suffered a fracture of the middle third of the right collarbone as well as some bruises on his right hip and arm,” said team doctor Pedro Celaya, who was with Armstrong at the hospital.
Fly V Australia's Ben Day turned a blistering opening time trial performance into an overall victory at the three-day San Dimas Stage Race in California this weekend.
Day's teammate Jonathan Cantwell won the final stage criterium, ahead of Colavita's Lucas Haedo and OUCH-Maxxis' John Murphy.
Team Type 1's Shawn Milne added to Team Type 1’s polka dot jersey collection by winning the King of the Mountains classification.
An unnamed cyclist and former Austrian Nordic ski coach Walter Mayer, who was involved in the 2006 Turin Olympics doping scandal, have been arrested in connection with new doping allegations, Vienna prosecutors said Monday.
Mayer, who was arrested Sunday, is suspected of having provided a top Austrian cyclist with the banned blood booster EPO, prosecution spokesman Gerhard Jarosch said.
The cyclist, who has not been named, was arrested on March 13 for trafficking.
Stuart O'Grady, who was injured in a fall during Milan-San Remo on Saturday, will be forced to skip the Spring Classics, his Saxo Bank team said Sunday.
The 35-year-old Australian fractured his right collarbone and has broken a rib. He also suffered bruising between the lungs and the ribs.
"It is extremely sad to see the Classics disappear because of a crash," O'Grady said. "The past several months of hard work had a purpose and focus – the classics and especially Paris-Roubaix. Now I've seen it all crumble, but hopefully I'll get the opportunity to come back later."
Alberto Contador has downplayed the significance of his first race alongside new Astana teammate Lance Armstrong in the Vuelta a Castilla y León that gets underway on Monday.
The pair will be joined by 2009 Tour of California winner Levi Leipheimer, but Contador rejected suggestions the race would be a dry-run for this summer's Tour de France.
"It's a coincidence (that we're racing together), but it will help us see how things go in a race," he said on his personal website.
If there was any doubt about who is cycling’s most exciting sprinter, Mark Cavendish erased it Saturday with an explosive victory in the 100th Milan-San Remo.
Judges had to break out the zoom lens to determine Cavendish the winner in a photo-finish to a devastated Heinrich Haussler as Cervélo TestTeam went two-three with Thor Hushovd rounding out the podium.
Haussler pounced out of the left side of the pack with 350 meters to go —he said to set up Hushovd — only to look back and see that Hushovd wasn’t on his wheel and a surging Cavendish was closing in fast.
Milan-San Remo didn’t end the way Tyler Farrar would have liked.
The Garmin-Slipstream rider -- fresh off beating eventual winner Mark Cavendish in a bunch sprint this week at Tirreno-Adriatico – crashed out with a possible broken clavicle.
Farrar flew back to his home base in Belgium on Saturday night and will be treated by doctors there, but team officials are worried that the injury could take Farrar out of the upcoming northern classics.
Lance Armstrong wanted a long, hard day at the office and that’s what he got in Saturday’s Milan-San Remo.
In his first race back on European roads since winning the 2005 Tour de France, Armstrong lost contact with the fast-charging peloton near the top of the Cipressa climb with about 25km to go.
A lead group of about 40 riders stayed clear to fight for the victory while the seven-time Tour champion -- racing for the first time since the conclusion of Tour of California on Feb. 22 -- crossed the line in 125th at 8:19 in the second group.
Fly V Australia's Ben Day and Columbia-Highroad's Mara Abbott won Friday evening's 3.7-mile prologue up a piece of Glendora Mountain Road in the San Gabriel Mountains.[nid:89496]
Mitchell Clinton was there to photograph the action for VeloNews. The race continues Saturday with a 84-mile circuit race for the men; pro women will do 56 miles.
Mark Cavendish proved the skeptics wrong yet again. After most experts believed he couldn’t get over the late-race climbs, the Columbia-Highroad rider sprinted to a dramatic victory to win the 100th Milan-San Remo.
Here are excerpts from his post-race press conference:
Question: What does it mean to you to win a classic?
Professional endurance competitor Rebecca Rusch has tackled her fair share of adventure races and 24-Hour mountain bike races throughout the years. Now, the Idahoan is back in South Africa, competing for the second time in the Absa Cape Epic, endurance mountain bike stage race across the country’s scenic Western Cape. And we’re along for the ride. — Editor
Lance Armstrong says his return to the top spot of the winner’s podium at the Tour de France is no guarantee.
The seven-time Tour champion is confident he will attain a high level come July, but admitted he cannot take for granted he will be the same rider who won barnstormed to seven consecutive titles from 1999-2005.
Lance Armstrong clicks into his pedals Saturday for the 100th Milan-San Remo in his first European race since winning the 2005 Tour de France, but even he admits he isn’t expecting to stand on the winner’s podium.
The seven-time Tour champ acknowledges the Italian classic doesn’t suit his style of racing, yet Armstrong is promising to make a strong showing in the 298km race.
Fabian Cancellara won’t be defending his Milan-San Remo title on Saturday and admits that he likely won’t be back at his best in time for the northern classics.
A training crash and illness have derailed Cancellara’s hopes of repeating his extraordinary spring campaign last year that saw him win Monte Paschi, Tirreno-Adriatico and San Remo and claim second in Paris-Roubaix.
Cancellara told VeloNews his spring campaign is all but a wash this year.
BMC is one of three American teams invited to this year's Paris-Roubaix. Garmin-Slipstream and Columbia-Highroad are the other teams invited to the April 12 event.
"It shows the level of confidence that the race organizations have in our future," team directeur sportif John Lelangue said.
Spain's triple world champion Oscar Freire was on Thursday forced to shelve his return to action which had been penciled in for the Tour of Castille and Leon from March 23-27, his Rabobank team said.
Freire, who suffered broken ribs in a nasty fall during the Tour of California in February, has not recovered fully from the accident.
"Oscar can't train normally," said Rabobank team sporting director Erik Breukink.
Mark Cavendish isn’t expecting to win his first crack at Milan-San Remo, but he’s getting some advice from someone who has.
Four-time winner Erik Zabel has been quietly working and training with the British sprinter since retiring.
Cavendish is expecting that expert advice to pay dividends sooner than later.
“He knows every race by the back of his hand, so it’s perfect for me,” Cavendish told VeloNews. “It takes away at least one year for experience. We’re talking and training together all the time, at the races or after.”