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On the bike, Hamilton is as tough as they come.

Hamilton - Too nice to beat Lance?

Hamilton - Too nice to beat Lance?

Vande Velde may be headed back to the Tour

Ullrich has spent much of 2004 training outside of the public eye.

Voeckler tops in France

Leipheimer - He loves a tough race

Leipheimer will be Rabobank's sole GC man at the '04 Tour.

Juré Robic continues to lead the soloists in the 2004 Insight Race Across America, and the four-time Slovenian national road champion appears to be on track to break the solo average-speed record in just his second outing. "Physically he was good in 2003, but not mentally," said crew member Janez Slapar. "This year he is very good, both physically and mentally." The current average-speed record for solo men is 15.40 mph. At present Robic is maintaining a pace of 15.53 mph. And veteran crew members say Robic's pace will only improve once the road turns skyward in the Appalachian Mountains.

Aussie Brad McGee said he wants to win the Tour de France – next year. The 28-year-old has made steady progress the past few years and is feeling more confident after his breakthrough eighth-place performance in the 2004 Giro d’Italia. “Going for overall victory next year is the goal, and a very realistic one at that,” McGee said in an interview with BBC Sport. “This has been the first year I've gone for the general classification in major races, so I'm a lot leaner to make life easier up the climbs. I'm probably two kilos short of where I need to be for the prologue, but I'm steadily

I’ve heard it said that it doesn’t matter if you win by one secondor five minutes, so long as you win. At the end of the day, being victoriousis more important than your margin of victory; but no one involved in LanceArmstrong’s bid to win a sixth Tour de France wants to experience anythinglike last year. Lance’s preparation for the 2004 Tour de France has beenfocused on building a substantial lead over the competition; we have nointention of repeating the “too close to call” scenarios from last summer. In a stage race, distancing yourself from your rivals is critical forreducing stress and

If Steve Peat (Orange) could race all his races on the Mont Sainte-Anne downhill, he’d be a happy man. The burly Englishman collected his third Mont Sainte-Anne World Cup in as many years as the tricky course claimed more than a few potential winners, including world champ Greg Minnaar (Team G-Cross Honda), who crashed twice in his final run. Peat overcame a hard crash in yesterday’s final practice run and a slow start in Saturday’s final to motor down the final kilometer of the course just fast enough to take the lead from Australian Sam Hill (Iron Horse-MadCatz). The tight, technical

It seems that Sabrina Jonnier may have found a cure for jet lag: a ton of bike racing. Jonnier (Intense), who rode little yesterday because of acute jet lag, had been off the downhill awards podium for less than 30 minutes when she entered the gate for the opening heat of Saturday night’s four-cross event at Mont Sainte-Anne. Having just won her first World Cup downhill of the year, Jonnier had a ready-made excuse for skipping the evening's four-cross. But given a course with high speeds, some nerve-rattling jumps, and an alternate route thrown in for good measure, Jonnier could hardly pass

Team ALS Lightning, the lone recumbent team in the 2004 Insight Race Across America, is expected to cross the finish line in Atlantic City, New Jersey, at approximately 11:30 Eastern time Saturday. Not far behind ALS Lightning are the top two four-man teams, Team Action Sports and Team Vail Go-Fast, which have rarely been separated by more than a half hour during the transcontinental competition, and at one point were only two minutes apart. When last checked, Action Sports was ahead by 35 minutes and expected to reach the finish line by 1:30 a.m. Sunday. For up-to-the-moment race news,

Coach Carmichael: Tailoring nutrition to training

Carmichael and Armstrong have put the emphasis on training quality rather than quantity.

Peat pounds the tricky course

Jonnier: Second no longer

Jonnier does the double

Prokop didn't care for the course — but he won anyway

June 25, 2002USA Cycling's board of directors named retail and food industry executive Gerard Bisceglia as the organization’s new chief executive officer on Tuesday, replacing Lisa Voight who left the post in May. Bisceglia, 52, most recently president of Shogun Express, a restaurant management firm in Scottsdale, Arizona, was national sales manager for the Southland Corporation’s 7-Eleven chain when the firm ventured into cycling sponsorship in the 1980s. Bisceglia served as a trustee on the board of U.S. PRO from 1997 to 2001. During a Tuesday conference call, the USA Cycling board

Tour de France organizers on Friday barred David Millar from this year's race after he allegedly told police that he has used doping products. Jean-Marie Leblanc, the Tour's director general, told The Associated Press that the reigning world time-trial champion was out. "We don't want to pollute the Tour,'" he said. The 27-year-old Millar, who has never failed a drug test in his eight-year professional career, is the highest-profile casualty of a decision announced Friday by Tour organizers that all riders investigated or implicated in doping probes will be barred from the event, which

The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com, appearing each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Say it ain't so, DavidVeloNews,It is sad to hear that David Millar has used banned substances (see“Paper reports that Millar admits to doping”). I was really rooting for him when his chain skipped in last year's Tour. The fact that he admitted

Sue Palmer-Komar (Genesis-Scuba) virtually assured herself a position on the Canadian Olympic team after winning the individual time trial Friday at the Canadian National Cycling Championships. Palmer-Komar covered the 30km out-and-back circuit in 43:20, 41 seconds ahead of defending champion Lyne Bessette (Quark). In the men's 40km event, Svein Tuft (Symmetrics) turned a 51:35.56 to decisively beat eight-time defending champion Eric Wohlberg (Sierra Nevada), who was 1:12.66 slower. The circuit was not particularly difficult, but the riders had to battle strong winds and extreme heat —

Five-time Tour de France runner-up Jan Ullrich admits it’s going to be tough to derail arch-rival Lance Armstrong as the Texan makes a run for a sixth straight Tour title. The T-Mobile captain brushed aside concerns about early-season fitness problems with his victory at the Tour de Suisse earlier this month. The 30-year-old German said he’s more motivated than ever to win the Tour. “Naturally, Lance is the man to beat,” Ullrich told AFP. “My win in Switzerland confirms my work since the beginning of the season. I had a good race thanks to the team, I showed a strength which I didn't have

Just in time for his attempt at a sixth consecutiveTour win, Rodale is set to release in July “Lance Armstrong: Images ofa Champion,” a 208-page volume chronicling the Texan’s extraordinary career,with images from renowned cycling photographer Graham Watson and photocaptions and commentary provided by Armstrong. While Watson’s decade of race photos takes center stage, the true gemscan be found in revealing testimonials written by five-time Tour winnersMiguel Induráin and Eddy Merckx, as well as U.S. Postal team director Johan Bruyneel. The photo album focuses on Armstrong’s

YELLOW JERSEYThe yellow jersey — or maillot jaune — is worn by the overallrace leader, the rider who has covered the overall distance in the leastamount of cumulative time. Time bonuses (12 seconds for winning a roadstage, six seconds for winning an intermediate sprint) are deducted, andtime penalties (for infractions like dangerous riding or accepting pushesfrom spectators on the climbs) are added to riders’ stage times beforecalculating their GC (general classification) times.A major change this year is that there will be a limit on the time lostby any team (and consequently by each rider

"I am afraid to add up all of the money we have spenton the development of this bike,” says Phil White, one of the two foundingowners of Cervélo. White is speaking about the R2.5, the carbon bikeon which Team CSC won three Tour stages in 2003, including Tyler Hamilton’sepic solo stage 16 win. Those stage wins, and even the presence of Cervéloat all on a top Division 1 pro team, may be a surprise to those accustomedto seeing Tour victories only from bigger companies or long-establishednames. To White and his partner, Gerard Vroomen, however, it is merelythe culmination of many years of hard

Although the official announcement of the USA Olympic track squad wasn’t made until Friday morning, that didn’t stop TIAA-CREF from throwing a celebratory gathering for team rider/manager Colby Pearce in Denver on Wednesday evening, 36 hours ahead of the U.S. Olympic Committee’s approval of USA Cycling’s nominations. Pearce will contest the Olympic points race based on his third-place finish in the overall World Cup standings. His highlight of the 2004 season came in the season’s final World Cup in Sydney, where he took a gold medal. A bronze in the fourth round of the World Cup also

When Lance Armstrong finished the 2003 Tour de France, even though he wonthe race for the fifth year in a row, he was full of doubts. Not much went right for him last year. His marriage broke up; he headed into the Tour with a gastro-intestinal infection picked up from his son; he developed sciatica from using new cleats in his shoes; and then he fell in the mass pileup on stage 1. And that was just the beginning. After that came the rubbing-brake-pad incident on the Col du Galibier, his near-crash at Gap, dehydration in the first time trial, and his fall at the foot of Luz-Ardiden. That he

New Graham Watson book documents Armstrong career in photos

Jersey winners Cooke, Armstrong, Virenque and Menchov on the 2003 final podium.

Gerard Vroomen, Phil White and Ivan Basso in the MIT wind tunnel.

Riis and Basso study the data.

Colby Pearce and Colby Pearce

Armstrong - Ready for No. 6

Tyler Hamilton better brush up on his Spanish as five of his eight Phonakteammates named to start the Tour de France hail from the Iberian Peninsula.Hamilton will be looking to improve on his fourth-place performancein last year’s Tour and will count on the Spanish mountain goats to usherhim through the Tour’s key moments in the Pyrénées and theAlps.Joining Hamilton for the 91st Tour are Spanish riders Oscar Sevilla,Santi Perez, Jose Gutierrez, Oscar Pereiro and Santos Gonzalez. The otherteam members are German rider Bert Grabsch, Frenchman Nicolas Jalabertand Swiss rider Martin Elmiger.

As recently as Wednesday, the folks at USA Cycling were still holding out hope that the UCI was going to award them a “kickback” start spot for the women’s Olympic cross-country race this summer in Athens, but now it looks like that won’t happen. Following an e-mail exchange with Régis Alexandre, the UCI’s mountain bike sports coordinator, VeloNews has learned that while one start spot in the women’s race has become available, the spot is “reserved only for a country without a place,” Alexandre wrote. That means the U.S. will not be getting back the spot it lost to the UCI’s special

Gutierrez and Hamilton at the Dauphine

The Mail Bag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com, appearing each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.Do Americans never cheat?Editor:Is it my almost-European persecution mania or am I right in the impression that some of your correspondents believe that European cyclists are all dirty drug users and all American riders are clean,

Just like Lance Armstrong, U.S. Postal Service sport director Johan Bruyneel believes Jan Ullrich (T-Mobile) is the most dangerous rival for the Texan going into next weekend’s start of the 2004 Tour de France. “He’s still the most dangerous,” Bruyneel said in an interview in the Spanish daily MARCA. “Of the rest of the favorites, Mayo is at the top of the list. There’s Mayo, Hamilton, Heras and Basso and I would also add Menchov. I’m sure I left somebody off.” Bruyneel said he believes Armstrong will be ready to win a record sixth Tour when the race begins July 3 in Liège, Belgium. “We’re

Lennard Zinn does it again! With the release of "Zinn’s Cycling Primer: Maintenance Tips and Skill Building for Cyclists" American cycling's übergeek brings our favorite pastime to a new level.Zinn,the author of the best-selling "Zinnand the Art of Mountain-Bike Maintenance" and "Zinnand the Art of Road Bike Maintenance," takes a comprehensive approachwith an understanding that successful, enjoyable cycling depends on a hostof factors, including a well-tuned bicycle, a balanced and healthy bodyand the proper interface between the two.Zinn takes the reader through the essentials of bicycle

The late Charles Bukowski and friend

Still Postal's main worry

Seven leading Australian track cyclists on Tuesday declared themselves drug-free, saying they were furious at being smeared by association with the sport's damaging doping scandal. The seven cyclists, all members of the shadow track sprint team for the Athens Olympics, issued a joint statement denying involvement in drug-taking allegations centering on banned cyclist Mark French. They are Olympians Shane Kelly and Sean Eadie, Ryan Bayley, Jobie Dajka, Rosealee Hubbard, Anna Meares and her sister Kerrie, who has withdrawn from the Athens team after suffering an injury. The eighth shadow

Dear Joe and Dirk,I am a first-year Category 2 racer. My training regime had followed, as closely as possible, given my work schedule, a program looking to peak in mid-June and then again in early August. Just as I was starting to build in much more intensity and longer interval work early in May, I began to find that my legs were not responding as I would have liked. I seemed to fall further into this hole, and now I am far behind where I was even a month ago. Basically, when I get on the bike, and try to put down any sort of sustained effort, it feels like I have been riding for three

Levi Leipheimer will lead Rabobank in the Tour de France as the 30-year-old American will be anxious to forget his early exit from last year’s edition. Leipheimer wants to improve on his eighth-place debut in 2002 and get past his opening stage crash that took him out of last year’s Tour as the Dutch team announced its nine-man lineup Tuesday. “I missed not doing it last year, so I’m excited to get back to the Tour,” Leipheimer told VeloNews last month. “There’s no way not to be excited about the Tour. I think every year gets better, I’m more experienced, I’m more comfortable in the

Six returning riders from last year’s Tour de France team will line up for U.S. Postal Service to support Lance Armstrong in his quest to win a record sixth Tour. There’s an added emphasis on strength in the mountains as Armstrong will be looking to get all the support he can in a decisive second half of the race, which starts July 3 in Liège, Belgium. “We will have a very strong team in the mountains, stronger than last year,” said U.S. Postal Service sport director Johan Bruyneel in a team press release. “We have six riders from last year and two new guys. Lance is confident he has a

Six returning riders from last year’s Tour de France team will line up for U.S. Postal Service to support Lance Armstrong in his quest to win a record sixth Tour. There’s an added emphasis on strength in the mountains as Armstrong will be looking to get all the support he can in a decisive second half of the race, which starts July 3 in Liège, Belgium. “We will have a very strong team in the mountains, stronger than last year,” said U.S. Postal Service sport director Johan Bruyneel in a team press release. “We have six riders from last year and two new guys. Lance is confident he has a

Aiming for six.

Aiming for six.

The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) banned Australian cyclist and former world junior champion Mark French for life on Monday over doping offenses, including the trafficking of banned substances. French, 19, was found guilty by the Court of Arbitration for Sport last month of trafficking gluco-corticosteroid and equine growth hormone and was handed a two-year suspension. Trafficking, however, attracts a lifetime ban under AOC rules. The AOC noted that the lifetime ban, the first time such a penalty has been imposed, could be reduced to a minimum of eight years if French gave evidence

A French judge on Monday rejected a bid by attorneys representing Lance Armstrong to insert a denial of accusations of doping published in a book released last week. Armstrong, 33, seeking a record sixth consecutive Tour de France in July, has vowed to take legal action over the new book "L.A. Confidential: The Secrets of Lance Armstrong" which alleges he used banned drugs. Armstrong's lawyer Christian Charriere-Bournazel told AFP on Monday he had filed an appeal of the ruling. "I am very disappointed," he said. "I don't share the court's view." Charriere-Bournazel said he hoped the

The Olympic trials this past weekend in Redlands, California, offered two automatic Olympic team nominations to the winner of the road race and the time trial. Having raced for 16 years, I have competed in a few Olympic trials. In past years, I felt a lot of pressure while trying to make the team; this year, as the first American in the UCI international points standings, I was fortunate enough to be automatically qualified before the trials began. This is not to say I was completely pressure-free, however. My T-Mobile team wanted all three slots on the women’s road squad, which meant we had

The last week I have been racing in the Volta Catalunya, a six-day race that starts on the Costa Brava, climbs through the Pyrénées and finishes back along the coast in downtown Barcelona. For me, and several of the other North Americans in the peloton, it is a race that is close to home, as several of us live in the Catalan town of Girona. This year, Martin Perdiguero dominated the first half of the week’s racing. He won stage 2’s uphill sprint finish, went on to take the mountaintop finish in Andorra with an explosive acceleration in the last meters, and then won the next day’s mountain

The Mail Bag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com, appearing each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.O’Grady isn’t a puppetEditor:Patrick, thank you for not joining the "Lance is a cycling god" chorus of the press (See "Friday's foaming rant: Shooting the messenger). Being a cyclist and a racing fan I have enjoyed watching Lance win the Tours

Two riders that are sure to face off in the Tour de France prologue July 3 in Liège went head-to-head in Monday’s 23.5km time trial in Stage 3 at the Route du Sud. Mark one up for Bradley McGee. The FDJeux.com rider held off world time trial champion David Millar (Cofidis) to win the stage from Loures-Barousse to Sarp and take the overall lead with one stage to go. McGee, 28, posted a time of 31 minutes, 45 seconds to take his fourth win of the season. Millar stopped the clock 23 seconds slower while German Andreas Kloden (T-Mobile) came through third at 27 seconds slower. McGee -- a winner

The recent announcement that Discovery Communications would be sponsoring Lance Armstrong and his mates for the next few seasons got me to wondering…. Do you suppose Armstrong might pop in from time to time as a special guest host on one or another of the TV network’s 14 channels, like Animal Planet or Discovery Español? Can’t you just imagine the wily Texan wrestling with an endangered white rhino and somehow relating his past Tour experiences to getting a friendly mauling from the giant albino beast? Or instead of trying to make a Tour de France winner fit its programming mold, might the

Five-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong heads the list of cyclists named to the U.S. Olympic team for the Athens Summer Games August 13-29, a spokesman for USA Cycling said on Monday. Armstrong, who will be competing in his fourth Olympics, has a bronze medal from the 2000 Sydney Games. He will be accompanied in Athens by Tyler Hamilton, George Hincapie, Bobby Julich and Jason McCartney. Armstrong and Hamilton were selected on the basis of their first- and fourth-place finishes in last year's Tour de France, while Julich and Hincapie qualified based on top-five finishes at

French in better times.

Jan Ullrich (T-Mobile) pulled off a one-second triumph in the 68th Tour de Suisse over a bitterly disappointed Fabian Jeker (Saunier Duval) after winning Sunday’s 25.6km race against the clock along the lakeshore at Lugano. Ullrich, who’s using the Swiss tour to fine-tune his form going into next month’s Tour de France, edged time-trial specialist Laszlo Bodrogi (Quick Step) by eight seconds to win the stage. Then all eyes were on the clock. Jeker, who began with a 41-second head start on Ullrich, quickly lost 26 seconds in the opening section, but seemed to be just hanging on to his

Paul Rowney (Yeti) took the adage of quitting while you’re ahead to heart in Sunday’s short-track race at Mount Snow, grabbing a solo win over Canadian Geoff Kabush (Maxxis) in the final race of his career. The 33-year-old attacked a lead group of nine with four laps to go and was quickly joined by Kabush. The duo worked together as the chasers failed to organize a concerted pursuit and pushed their gap out to nearly 10 seconds going into the last lap. Rowney attacked Kabush on the final run up the course’s small climb, and that was enough for the win. Rowney announced earlier in the year

Mount Snow drew a small women’s downhill field – only 26 riders – and Luna’s Kathy Pruitt made it feel even smaller. The former junior world champion smoked the course and the 25 other women, winning by an astonishing 18 seconds over runner-up Bernadita Pisaro (Red Bull-Michelin). Pruitt posted the fastest qualifying time and followed that up with a final run that would have put her in the top 50 of the men’s race. “This course was so fast, it suited someone who had raced motocross,” said Pruitt, who raced pro motocross as a teenager. “I was able to carry a lot of speed through the woods,

Aaron Olson took the biggest win of his career in the final stage of the Grand Prix Cycliste de Beauce on Sunday, giving Colavita-Bolla its third stage win of the race. Olson jumped off the front of a disintegrating breakaway to solo in, just ahead of a fast closing peloton. Viktor Rapinski (Navigators) beat Andrew Pinfold (Symmetrics) in the field sprint for second, wrapping up the points jersey in the process. In the overall standings, Tomasz Brozyna (Action ATI) faced no serious threats to his hold on the race lead, and retained his 41-second margin over Nathan O'Neill

Ullrich won the TT and took the overall by a single second

Rowney bows out with a win

Sydor skips the cross country and rules the short track

No one even came close to Pruitt

Minaar bounced back from an early miscue to win

Olson closes out Beauce with a win

Tomasz Brozyna (Action ATI) solidified his lead at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Beauce after finishing second behind Radoslaw Romanik (Hoop CCC) on the difficult climb up Mont Megantic. Scott Moninger (Health Net) managed a strong performance to finish third, and take over third in the general classification. The 5km climb to the Observatory at 1100 meters above sea level has become legendary at Beauce. Averaging 10 percent, with sections as steep as 16 percent in the final 2km, it usually reduces the contenders for the overall title to a handful. This year was no exception, with only Romanik

Paolo Bettini (Quick Step) scored a victory in the penultimate stage of the Tour de Suisse on a rainy day that saw Fabian Jeker (Saunier Duval) widen his lead going into Sunday’s time-trial finale. Bettini was part an early break that chugged away from the main pack early in the hilly stage, which pushed south into Switzerland’s Italian-speaking region of Ticino. The break dwindled, and Bettini dropped compatriot Alessandro Cortinovis and Switzerland’s Patrick Calcagni with 5km to go to claim the stage win in the 191km stage from Buchs to Bellinzone. “This is the first time in my career

On a day when timing was everything, Jason McCartney and Kristin Armstrong picked the most important moments to shine. Each took impressive wins at the 2004 Pool Gel USCF National Road Championships, and now both are headed to Athens come August to represent America in the Summer Olympics after winning the Team USA Selection races on Saturday in Redlands, California. Armstrong also picked up a national-championship jersey for her efforts. The genesis of Armstrong’s win came on the third of six laps during the 116.8km women’s race. Taking instructions from T-Mobile team manager Jim Miller to

Nathan O'Neill (Colavita-Bolla), won stage 5 of the Grand Prix Cycliste de Beauce on Saturday, less than a year after suffering a life-threatening injury at the Tour de 'Toona. O'Neill won the 14km individual time trial with a time of 17 minutes and 9.09 seconds, less than a second ahead of Viktor Rapinski (Navigators). Svein Tuft (Symmetrics), was the top North American finisher, in fifth place, 22.41 seconds behind O'Neill, and one spot ahead of Scott Moninger (Health Net). Overall race leader Tomasz Brozyna (Action ATI), finished third in the stage, and continues to hold the yellow