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The case involving Andrey Kashechkin’s challenge to the fundamental structure of doping controls by sports bodies got under way on Tuesday in Belgium. Kashechkin, a former member of the Astana team, tested positive for homologous blood doping - the injection of donated blood to boost endurance - while on holiday in Turkey this past August. His teammate Alexander Vinokourov also tested positive for the same method during the Tour de France in July. The two are the first athletes to test positive for homologous blood doping since American Tyler Hamilton and Spaniard Santiago Perez were charged

Our latest reader-submitted Photo Gallery is now ready for your viewing pleasure. Of course, a new gallery also means the naming of the winner of our most recent contest. Randall Levere sent in a terrific shot of one of our favorite riders with his shot “Tim Johnson fully focused at Cross Nationals 2006, Providence, RI.” Great work, Randall. That’s a nicely composed shot that shows the intensity of cyclocross racing quite well. Please drop us a note at Rosters@InsideInc.comto work out the details and we’ll send you a copy of our new Coors Classic DVD. Meanwhile, go ahead and take a look

Nathan O’Neill was terminated from the Health Net Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis following confirmation of a positive test for the prescription appetite suppressant Phentermine. The team was informed on September 24 that O’Neill’s A sample returned the positive result in a test performed on August 12, following the Tour of Elk Grove. His B sample confirmed the positive result in a test performed on October 24. The team terminated his contract immediately upon notification of the positive B sample on October 29. According to UCI/WADA code, riders can legally use Phentermine out of

Redline’s new Conquest Team

TRP supplied its Euro X brake anodized Red, a special color for its sponsored athletes. The fender mounts on the seatstay bridge are new for 2008.

If you peek behind the Shimano Dura-Ace crank you can see the CNC machined chainstay yoke and chainstay bridge.

The scandium Conquest Team bike and frame comes with Ritchey’s WCS carbon ’cross fork. The consumer version of the Conquest Team bike comes with an Ultegra transmission instead of Dura-Ace.

Travis Brown (Trek-FRS) trumped the goat head thorn problem with NoTubes.com rims and sealant. The tires are the Jones Cross model by Bontrager.

Johnson (Cannondale-Leer-cyclocrossworld.com) and Jeremy Powers (cyclocrossworld.com-Leer-Ridley) rode Mavic’s R-SYS clincher wheels with Michelin tires on Saturday.

On Sunday Powers and Johnson rode the new Mavic Cosmic Ultimate wheel with Dugast Typhoon rubber. He took his seat bag off for the race, in case you were wondering.

Powers rides Ridley’s new X-Fire, the red paint scheme is custom for the cyclocrossworld.com team.

The cyclocrosswold.com riders were using Swiss Stop’s green GHP compound instead of the Yellow King carbon compound on the carbon Mavic wheels. They claimed the green compound is quieter.

Steve Elmes, former Independent Fabrications front man who's now retired from the industry, helped out Stu Thorne (cyclocrossworld.com) in the pits this past weekend. In lieu of a repair stand he demonstrates the bass guitar derailleur tuning met

Barry Wicks (Kona-Yourkey.com) rode file tread tires on Sunday.

His were from the ultra-exclusive French maker FMB.

His teammate Trebon was on the new Dugast Pipistrello.

Trebon had FSA’s new SL-K Light crank with a ceramic bottom bracket. He chooses the SL-K over the K-Force because it comes with the choice of a 130mm BCD, which he prefers.

Geoff Kabush was sporting a new cap from Dopers Suck.

Dopers Suck founder and front man Brandon Dwight was in the top 10 on Sunday.

Todd Wells (GT) was on the podium Saturday and came back from a broken chain on Sunday to finish in the top 10.

Wells was riding SRAM’s new Red group with a single 42-tooth chainring and the guts removed from the left shifter.

KORE supplies Wells with his stem, bar and brakes.

Katie Compton (Spike Shooter) spent the weekend in her new UCI points leader skinsuit made by her sponsor Vermarc.

Compton had a few new sponsors to show off including Challenge and Enduro bearings.

She rode the Grifo XS in the rear on Sunday.

Her Primus Mootry has a welded scandium rear triangle that is mated via scandium lugs to carbon top, down and seat tubes manufactured by Reynolds.

Tech Report, with Lennard Zinn - A visit to Guerciotti

Paolo and Alessandro Guerciotti run a tight ship

The warehouse serves as a distribution point for a host of venerated Italian brands

Drum roll.....

.... the Guerciotti Ducati. Now how cool is that?

Di Luca is having a tough time finding a job for '08.

Tim Johnson fully focused

Levi Leipheimer’s trophy collection improved dramatically in 2007 with some quality wins that included his first-ever Tour de France stage victory, the Tour podium with third, the overall at the Tour of California and the U.S. national pro title. The return to the friendly vibe at Discovery Channel seemed to make all the difference for the 34-year-old. All the pieces came together as the Montana-native was back with the U.S. team after racing six seasons for foreign teams. Following Discovery Channel boss Johan Bruyneel to the new-look Astana team will keep Leipheimer in the familiar -

Trek-VW teammates Jeremiah Bishop and Sue Haywood won the Tacchino Cyclocross on Sunday at Ida Lee Park in Leesburg, Virginia. Lining up beside Haywood were some of the East Coast’s fastest women, including three-time Verge MAC champion Betsy Shogren (Fort Factory Team), defending BikeReg.com MABRAcross champion Lisa Vible, Team Kenda Tire’s Jennifer Maxwell, Vanderkitten’s Mandy Lozano and Libbey Sheldon of Tokyo Joe’s. Roaring out of the prologue loop, Shogren and Maxwell had the advantage as they powered up the finishing-hill straight to begin the first of their laps. By the time they

An appeal by a lawyer for disgraced cyclist Andriy Kashechkin over the right to submit athletes to doping tests could threaten to change the face of sport when the case is heard Tuesday. Kashechkin tested positive for homologous blood doping following the 2007 Tour de France, during which his team, Astana, was thrown out when team leader Alexandre Vinokourov tested positive for blood doping. Kashechkin claims he did not inject his own blood to enhance his performance, and has even protested the legitimacy of the principle of being tested by the sports authorities. Now his lawyer is hoping

Leipheimer scored an impressive win in the Tour's final time trial.

Staying together: Both Contador and Leipheimer are making the jump to Astana.

Repeating their dominant performances from 24 hours earlier at Saturday’s Redline Cup, reigning U.S. national cyclocross champions Ryan Trebon and Katie Compton crushed the competition on Sunday at the UCI C1 Boulder Cup cyclocross in Boulder, Colorado.

Mother Nature's about-face to Saturday's hurricane rains motivated 'cross fans to come out and witness commanding wins by Lyne Bessette (Cyclocrossworld.com) and Jesse Anthony (Jamis) on Sunday at the Cycle-Smart International, round four in the Verge New England Championship Cyclocross Series. Anthony, Chris Jones (Nerac), Mark McCormack (Clif Bar), and Adam Myerson (Nerac) surged ahead in an early break set up by Troy Wells (Clif Bar).

Compton shot away early and stayed gone

There can be only one!

Mark McCormack, Jesse Anthony, Chris Jones and Troy Wells

Bessette says bye-bye

Annnnnd he's off!

Horner had a good ride, finishing fifth

Johnson and Powers working the wind

Gould got the hole shot

But Compton wins again

With many of their usual competitors in Colorado for the second weekend of the U.S. Grand Prix of cyclo-cross, Lyne Bessette (cyclocrossworld.com) and Chris Jones (Nerac) took big wins in Connecticut’s Chainbiter UCI Cyclo-cross race, hit by wet weather as Hurricane Noel moved up the Atlantic coast on Saturday. Bessette back in formNoel threatened to turn the Chainbiter into a messy affair. Less than 50 miles away, the winds whipped across southern Connecticut. The skies were ominous though relatively calm during the earlier events, but as the women’s race began the rain and winds picked up.

Bessette took an early - and permanent lead

Bessette is clearly back in form

Wellons and Elliott give chase

The storm hit just before the women's start

The Nerac boys got the hole shot

The chase was frantic

Wet sand made things tough

Jones finishes on his own

Former T-Mobile rider Patrik Sinkewitz has admitted having banned blood transfusions and using illegal blood-booster erythropoietin (EPO) since 2003 in an interview slated to appear on Monday. The 27-year-old was fired by T-Mobile during this year's Tour de France after he failed a doping test when it was discovered he had abnormally high levels of testosterone. Sinkewitz spent five hours giving evidence to the German Cycling Federation's (BDR) disciplinary committee ten days ago in an effort to get his expected two-year ban reduced. And in Monday's edition of magazine Der

Reigning U.S. cyclocross champions Katie Compton (Spike Shooter) and Ryan Trebon (Kona-Yourkey.com) scored crushing wins at Boulder, Colorado’s Redline Cup on Saturday. A dusty Boulder Reservoir played host to the UCI Category 2 race, and what its long 1.5-mile course lacked in mud and climbing, it made up for with sections of loose sand. Riders powered through rim-deep sediment in a volleyball court and a long beach section — the latter forced less-skilled racers to dismount and run.

Sinkewitz wants to ride again. It's doubtful he'll do so in a T-Mobile kit, though.

Was Cipo's race in Vegas the signal of a comeback? His lawyer says no.

Even after his win Saturday, Trebon is still bothered by successive losses last week.

Compton continues to dominate.

Wicks was on form

Wells takes third

Compton made it a solo ride on Saturday.

Dear Readers,
Welcome to the latest edition of The Prologue, the weekly summary of news from the world of competitive cycling by your friends at VeloNews.com.

Rick Crawford and his Fort Lewis College mountain-bike team rolled into the 2007 USA Cycling mountain-bike national championships toting a secret weapon — German mountain biker Ben Sonntag. When they left the race, held October 26-28 at Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, North Carolina, the Skyhawks had their second-consecutive Division I team title, and Sonntag had the individual championship. Sonntag is a former Nordic skiing ace and two-time world champion in the sport of winter triathlon. After racing mountain bikes professionally during the summer of 2007, he decided to return to school

Can anyone beat Katie Compton? Will the cyclocrossworld.com keep their Kona-beating streak alive? And what about Todd Wells — how is he going these days? These are a few of the questions to be answered this weekend as the heavy hitters of American ’cross line up for a pair of UCI races in Boulder, Colorado. Saturday’s Redline Cup and Sunday’s Boulder Cup are put on by Chris Grealish and Denver/Boulder Couriers, the same outfit that hosted last year’s Boulder stop of the U.S. Gran Prix of Cyclocross. “We’re going on like we’re our own USGP,” DBC owner Grealish said. “And we think we can do

Juan José Haedo admits that winning in Europe wasn’t as easy as he expected after he made the high-profile switch from the U.S. domestic scene to join Team CSC for the 2007 season. The Argentine ace won six races – four in the U.S. and two in Europe – in his first of two years with the Danish outfit, but he admits victories were harder to come by than on the U.S. domestic scene where he says he could snag wins when he wasn’t at 100 percent. “Some things were harder than I thought they would be while others were slightly easier than expected. It’s a whole other way of doing things over here

Compton was the woman to beat in Boulder last year, too.

The UCI unveiled its 2008 continental calendars earlier this month, with a few noteworthy changes to its America Tour schedule. In addition to national championship events, the ’08 calendar offers 16 elite men’s and espoirs’ races in the United States and Canada. Six elite UCI women’s events are slated for 2008, solely during the months of May and June. Four UCI elite men’s events, all stage races, will be held in Mexico, with none scheduled for elite women. Returning U.S. events include the season-opening Amgen Tour of California, April’s Tour de Georgia and September’s Tour of Missouri,

Before I started composing this week’s journal I sat lazily on my room bed, in what has to be the world’s most dilapidated Days Inn, looking at my road rash from Saturday’s crash wondering what I should write about. I pondered over a long list of reasons why I had such a poor showing at the races, but I didn’t want to bore you with the same excuses you’ve heard from every bike racer in the world as to why he or she didn’t do well. Let me just say this, before, during and after every race you should know your equipment, know your ability and stay focused. So, instead of giving you a whine

Raids: No links to UllrichA raid by German federal investigators on the premises of two doctors who have admitted supplying cyclists with doping products found no evidence linking them to former Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich, according to German press reports on Thursday. Senior federal criminal investigator Wolfgang Maier said Wednesday’s raids on Freiburg University's clinic, plus the homes of doctors Lothar Heinrich and Andreas Schmid, found nothing to link 1997 Tour winner Ullrich to the medical facility. Ullrich, 33, has been under a cloud of suspicion since he was sacked by

Earning a ticket to the Olympic Games is always a tense and nervous experience for any athlete, but two already have their boarding passes for Beijing thanks to strong performances this season. On the road team, Kristin Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer have already locked up berths for next summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing. According to Andy Lee at USA Cycling, Leipheimer qualified thanks to his third-place overall and stage win at the Tour de France while Armstrong is in after scoring a silver medal at the Stuttgart world championships in September. For Leipheimer, the 34-year-old says

Canadian Svein Tuft took top honors in the 2007 UCI America Tour

Intergalactic Single Speed Pilot Peter Webber refueling.

Chuck D, Flava Flav and Professor Griff can still rock 'da mic.

This note awaited me a host housing in Kentucky.