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Fly V Australia rider Ben Day won a snowy and rainy Boulevard road race in east San Diego County Saturday while Floyd Landis used the hilly 90-mile hometown event to quietly return to racing after a two-year suspension. Landis’ Canadian OUCH teammate Cameron Evans took second while Fly V Australia riders and Amgen Tour of California invitees David Kemp, Charles Dionne, and Bernard Sulzberger rounded out the third through fifth. The race rolled out in a driving snowstorm that had barreled into the mountains 60 miles east of downtown San Diego the morning of the event. [nid:87423]

Defending champions Diquigiovanni-Androni from Venezuela are favourites to claim the yellow jersey once again in this year's Tour de Langkawi, which begins Monday. Twenty teams are competing in the seven-stage event, which takes in some of Malaysia's top tourist spots over the 1,031.7 kilometer (641 mile) route — scaled down from nine stages last year.

Katusha went one-two in the opening leg of the Mallorca Challenge with Gert Steegmans flying across the line ahead of teammate Robbie McEwen. Caisse d’Epargne sprinter José Joaquin Rojas came through third.   The 116km circuit course in Palma de Mallorca officially opened the 2009 Spanish calendar and the Russian-sponsored Katusha had its way against an international field.  

Alessandro Petacchi (LPR) opened the Italian racing season in the same way he’s done the past five seasons, with victory in the GP Costa degli Etruschi. Just like he’s done every year since 2005, “Ale-Jet” crossed the line Saturday with his arms raised high in triumph in Italy’s first race of the season.

Belgian rider Björn Leukemans (Vacansoleil) won Saturday’s 153km fourth stage at Etoile de Bessèges for his first victory since a two-year ban was overturned last year. The Flemish cycling federation slapped Leukemans with a two-year racing ban for a case dating back to the 2007 world championships when he popped for synthetic testosterone. His Predictor-Lotto team sacked Leukemans in late 2007 and the team later fired a doctor who allegedly gave Leukemans a product called Prasteron that triggered the positive test.

Christophe Dupouey, pictured with Jerome Chiotti and Filip Meirhaeghe, was world champion in 1998.

'Cross worlds were crazy this year: the fans didn’t disappoint, the track was similar to the Leguna Seca raceway and the weather was pretty reasonable too. Thank you to all the people who came out and cheered on their fellow countrymen and women and especially the ones who cheered for me. It’s an amazing experience to be racing thousands of miles away and to hear so many people screaming your name. I was diggin’ the vibe in the morning watching Katie Compton give the ladies field a real leg whippin’. She rode strong and left it all out there on the course.

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Slovenian rider Jure Kocjan (Carmiooro A-Style) pulled the double, winning Friday’s third stage and taking the overall lead at the Etoile d’Bessèges in France. After two opening stages won in bunch sprints by Jimmy Casper (Besson Chaussures), Wednesday’s hilly profile was sure to decide the GC. A screw up that took the peloton down the wrong road and then nasty weather forced organizers to trim the stage from 133.4km down to 76.5km.

Danielson rides with a wireless PowerTap hub, which gives him power readings on his Garmin 705 computer on the handlebar, and his coach power readings on the PowerTap computer on the scooter behind.

Tom Danielson is champing at the bit to unleash at the Amgen Tour of California. Garmin-Slipstream’s climber is coming off of a team training camp down in Silver City, New Mexico, where he and teammate Christian Vande Velde arrived a week early to get in additional miles in the high desert mountains. Now, he’s spending a week with his old coach Rick Crawford, doing hours of motorpacing up into the mountains around Boulder, Colorado, and getting comfortable in his new time trial position.

Australian sprinter Aaron Kemps (Rock Racing) has withdrawn from the upcoming Amgen Tour of California after being treated for a hernia this week. Surgeons in his hometown of Bundaberg, Australia, operated on Kemps on Wednesday and he is expected to fully recover. That recovery, however, will not come in time for Kemps to toe the line at the California tour, which is scheduled to begin February 14.

Garmin-Slipstream’s Magnus Bäckstedt, winner of Paris-Roubaix in 2004, has announced that he will retire from cycling effective immediately.

Lance Armstrong didn’t turn up for his Astana team’s Wednesday meet-and-greet with the media, but the seven-time Tour de France champ’s presence was unmistakable.

Belgian Tom Boonen (Quick Step) won the Tour of Qatar in Doha on Friday following Columbia's Mark Cavendish's sprint victory in the sixth and final stage. The win was Cavendish's second stage win in a tour marked by the untimely death of 21-year-old Belgian Frederiek Nolf on Thursday. Cavendish dedicated his stage win to the young rider and his family.

Ivan Basso (Liquigas) makes his first race appearance on home roads since his Operación Puerto ban as the Italian and Spanish calendars open this weekend. Basso already debuted his 2009 season at the Tour de San Luís in Argentina last month, but will race on Italian roads for the first time since the 2007 Tirreno-Adriatico in Saturday’s GP Costa degli Etruschi.

After a taste of the yellow jersey in the 2008 Tour de France, Kim Kirchen is taking aim for even more in 2009. The 30-year-old isn’t standing up and calling himself a candidate for overall victory, but he is staking out a realistic goal of the top-5 and, with a little luck, the podium. With back-to-back seventh place Tour finishes, Kirchen has the confidence that his time trialing has improved enough to let him expect to make further improvements in 2009.

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Price: $17.99 Size: 4 ounces Web site: www.hincapie.com Hincapie Sportswear stepped up its retail line with SkinDefense, an advanced sunscreen perfected for cyclists and other endurance athletes. The 4-ounce non-aerosol spray bottle is perfect for a jersey pocket or saddlebag, though that might not be necessary because a single application provides sweat-proof solar protection for up to five hours.

Price: $59.95 Web site: www.silcapompe.it

Parlee Cycles has made a leap into the big leagues by committing to sponsor the Fly V Australia (presented by Successful Living) pro team. The official announcement is pending, but other team component sponsors include Edge Composites (wheels, stem, bar, seatpost and fork), SRAM Red drivetrain, TRP brakes, and Fi'zi:k saddles.

Jimmy Casper made it two in a row for his Besson Chassures team at the Etoile de Bessèges.   The veteran French sprinter out-kicked younger rivals Romain Feillu (Agritubel) and Alexandre Blain (Cofidis) in the 149.2km second stage to win for the second day in a row and solidify his grip on the leader’s jersey in the five-day stage race. With the win and time bonuses, Casper is nursing a 14-second lead to Feillu and Sébastian Chavanel (FDJeux) going into Friday’s third stage.  

Barloworld’s team training camp in Tuscany took a turn for the worst when 21 team bikes were stolen in Castagneto Carducci, the team reported Thursday. The team reported that the theft was discovered Thursday morning by the hotel management when they noticed that the lock of the storeroom where the 32 Bianchi team bikes were kept had been forced open.   Italian police in Donoratico were immediately contacted and investigations begun to try to determine the culprit behind the crime.  

Price: $175 to $380 Web site: www.rudyprojectusa.com KarbonEye