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VeloNews.com welcomes your letters. If you run across something in the pages of VeloNews magazine or see something on VeloNews.com that causes you to wantto write us, drop us a line.Please include your full name and home town. By submitting mail to this address, you are consenting to the publication of your letter.Short and to the pointRe: Chris Doig's letter. (see"But does he know the words?" in " Thursday's Mail bag ").You turd. How you can mention 9/11 and bicycle racing in the same sentence bewilders me.Ed BeaudetAustin, Texas Guido is not taking a roster spotChris Doig (USCF

Acqua & Sapone put down a text-book sprint Friday to deliver Mario Cipollini his third stage-win in the 2002 Vuelta a España that was executed so well it should be taught in Cycling 101. Cipo's boys in zebra stripes were flawless. They helped reel in a breakaway, hammered at the front leading into Malaga and then the Lion King rode the rails to victory in the 196-km seventh stage from Jaen to Malaga. With speeds topping 65kph, Mario Scirea pulled until 2 km to go, then Italian-American Guido Trenti took over until 1 km to go, followed by final set-up man Giovanni Lombardi pulled to 400

After repeatedly hinting at it during the world championships and World Cup finals, Nicolas Vouilloz made it official Friday, announcing his retirement from professional downhilling. In a news release posted on his Web site, www.NicolasVouilloz.com, the 26-year-old Frenchman said he wanted to focus more attention on product development, rally car racing, and possibly starting a family with his longtime girlfriend Sandrine. Vouilloz also said that he plans on competing in downhill marathon events like those of the Megavalanche series, where runs typically exceed an hour in length. Vouilloz

For the second year, big-time road racing hits the streets of San Francisco for Sunday’s San Francisco Grand Prix. Last year, with the presence of Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong to bolster interest, the inaugural event was a huge success, with people lining the streets of the 10-mile course, including crowds four and five deep on the two major climbs on the course, on Fillmore and Taylor Streets. This year, the hype machine has been turned up another notch. Not only will defending champion George Hincapie and U.S. Postal teammate Armstrong be on hand, but the event will feature

Three's a charm - Head-to-head against Zabel, Cipo' left no doubts.

Sevilla in Gold -- Friday was a day to relax.

Sevilla

The day was marked by another early escape.

Live updates from Stage 6 Good morning to our U.S. audience. Welcome to Thrsday’s live coverage ofthe sixth stage of the 2002 Vuelta a España. Stage six is a 153kmrace from Granada to Sierra de la Pandera. This is a difficult rolling stage leading to a "special category" summitfinish at La Pandera at 1840 meters. There are three point sprints en routeand the category-three Alto de la Encebras at 46 km, the category-two Puertode los Villares at 140 km and the eight-km climbing finish to La Pandera.The short, but steep climb features ramps as steep as 15 percent with anaverage grade of 6.4

Roberto Heras and Oscar Sevilla put the fiesta back into the Vuelta a Españain Thursday’s difficult 153-km climbing stage to La Pandera. The duel between U.S. Postal Service’s Heras and Kelme’s Sevilla isshaping up as the story of the 57th Vuelta. Heras attacked with 5 km togo up the “category especial” climb to La Pandera to win while Sevillafinished third at 18 seconds back to move into the “jersey oro” race leader’sjersey. Heras’ victory is the first stage-win by an American-sponsored teamat the Vuelta a España and his first Vuelta stage since 2000, whenhe won two stages and the overall

VeloNews.com welcomes your letters. If you run across something in thepages of VeloNews magazine or see something on VeloNews.com that causesyou to want to write us, drop us a line.Please include your full name and home town. By submitting mail to thisaddress, you are consenting to the publication of your letter.Trenti not unusualEditor:People are complaining about the Guido Trenti situation, but let usnot forget this is hardly an unprecedented situation. Max Sciandri is adual citizen of England and Italy. I remember him saying he took out aBritish license because he knew he would not get

Small amounts of human growth hormone and testosterone were among the bannedproducts seized by French customs officials from the car of Edita Rumsas,wife of Lithuania's Tour de France third-placed finisher Raimondas, theFrench newspaper L'Equipe reported Thursday. Edita Rumsas has been held in prison since being picked-up on July28 - the day of the final stage of the Tour de France - while her husbandhas refused to return to France to answer questions over the affair inwhich he claimed the products were for his mother-in-law. However L'Equipe now reports that Rumsas' wife

Jonathan Boyer, the first American to participate in the Tour de France, appeared in a Salinas, California, courtroom Thursday and entered guilty pleas to 10 felony counts of child molestation. During a scheduled arraignment, the 46-year-old Boyer pleaded guilty to seven counts of lewd acts with a child and three counts of penetration by foreign object in a case involving a single unnamed girl. Seaside police arrested Boyer on May 16 after the now-16-year-old girl told them Boyer had sexually molested her beginning when she was 11. At the time, Boyer posted $300,000 cash bail and was

Heras timed his move to perfection.

Heras was alone for the last 3km.

Sevilla didn't win this battle, but so far, he's winning the war

Simoni animated the stage.

Working man -- Vande Velde has been there when it counts

Heras timed his move perfectly

Today's Live UpdatesGood morning to our U.S. audience. Welcome to VeloNews.com’s live coverageof the fifth stage of the 2002 Vuelta a España, 198km between El Ejido and Sierra Nevada. Today’s stage includes two climbs of intermediate difficulty – the Category 2 climb of Bérchules at 62km and the Cat. 3 at Lanzarón at kilometer 117 – before the long “Special Category” climb to Sierra Nevada at the finish.That final climb will be the first real opportunity for those hoping to challenge Joseba Beloki for the overall lead in the Vuelta to mount a serious attack.The slopes on the way to Sierra

VeloNews.com welcomes your letters. If you run across something in thepages of VeloNews magazine or see something on VeloNews.com that causesyou to want to write us, drop usa line.Please include your full name and home town. By submitting mail to thisaddress, you are consenting to the publication of your letter.Why Guido?Hello:Just read that U.S. Cycling has appointed an Italian to the U.S. squadfor the world's just because he happens to have a U.S. license. (see"U.S. names world'sroad squad"). No wonder U.S. Cycling is in such ill repute. Theycan't even find U.S. citizens to put

Kelme's Oscar Sevilla finally did Wednesday what he couldn't do at theTour de France. Sevilla attacked hard on the first major climbing stage in the 2002Vuelta a España and, although he didn't deliver a knockout blow,he let everyone else know he's now the man to beat. Sevilla jumped with five kilometers to go and left the rest of the favoritesin his wake. U.S. Postal's Roberto Heras, ONCE's Joseba Beloki and ItaliansGilberto Simoni and Francesco Casagrande all lost nearly a full minuteto "El Nino." Sevilla couldn't reel in Cofidis' Guido Trentin, who scored Italy'sfourth straight stage at

Trentin wins.

Trentin wins.

Sevilla.

The Postal team and the rest of the peloton took a moment to remember the events of a year ago.

Zarrabeitia keeps the jersey in ONCE's hands.

La Vuelta: Live updates from Stage 4 Good morning to our American audience. Welcome to VeloNews.com's live coverage of Stage 4 of the 2002 Vuelta a España, another short and fast day that should favor sprinters like Erik Zabel and Mario Cipollini, who took yesterday’s 134-km stage to Murcia. Today’s 149.5-kilometer ride from Aguilas to Roquetas de Mar opens witha 60km jaunt along the Mediterranean and then cuts inland, across the Cabode Gata and then heads to a finishing flat again along the Mediterraneanat Roquetas de Mar. There are three "hot sprints" along the route and no mountain

For the third day in a row, an Italian won a stage in the 57th Vueltaa España. For the second day in a row, it was Mario Cipollini witharms wide spread. El Rey Leon, as the Lion King is called in Spanish, made it lookeasy in Tuesday’s 149-km fourth stage from Aguilas to Roquetas de Mar alongSpain’s white-hot Mediterranean Coast. Cipo easily won the stage and senta strong signal to his would-be rivals for next month’s world championships. “It was another fabulous work by my team. They put me in perfect positionand (Giovanni) Lombardi did great work as the last man,” said Cipolliniafter

The last two days have been pretty flat and not too hard... that is untilthe sprinters’ teams start winding it up for the finishes.Riding through one of the towns today we spotted a guy riding next tous on a side road. He was going pretty fast and not really watching wherehe was going. I said to Christian “he's going to go down.” I guess he didn'tsee the wall that suddenly stopped him. It looked painful but the bunchcouldn't help but laugh about it.On one of the downhills all I could see was the ocean down below I thinkit was a pretty steep cliff, it made me feel like I was in a video gamefor

USA Cycling on Tuesday released the U.S. team full roster for the upcoming2002 World Road Cycling Championships, Oct. 8-13, in Zolder, Belgium.Thirteen discretionary nominations were added to an earlier list ofautomatic slots released last week. The 25 athletes nominated earned theirberths on the World Championships team based on winning national road competitiontitles earlier this season and for consistent, outstanding results in internationalcompetition.The elite men's road race team, with the largest delegation of athletes(7 men), will be led by Domo-Farm Frites’ Fred Rodriquez. Among

Sea Otter Classic co-founders Rick Sutton and Frank Yohannan on Tuesday announced the formation of a new board of advisors, a step the two promoters say will movethe race to a higher level.“For the better part of 12 years, we’ve dedicated our efforts to the creationof a family-style festival, celebrating the unabashed joys of the sport ofbicycling,” said Sutton. “Today, we take a significant step toward our futuregrowth. The Classic is proud to announce a distinguished Board of Advisors.Our intent is to maximize the background and expertise that each of theseleaders brings to our

Cipo' is making his mark on the third major tour now, too.

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow. Beloki faces the hills in Stage 5.

A hot day in the saddle. Temperatures moved into the mid-90s on Tuesday.

Bruyneel sprints - Postal director helps Matt White regain his momentum.

Good morning to our American audience. Welcome to another day of live updatesfrom the Vuelta a España. Today's third stage is another short one:a 134.2 km from San Vicente del Raspieg to Murcia, dead flat along Spain'sCosta Blanca for the first 80 km, then heading west to the finish in Murcia.There are three "hot sprints" along the route and no mountain points. Thefinish is flat and straight on for the final two kilometers. The peloton'swill have a golden opportunity to measure their strength against each otherin one of the flattest stages in the whole Vuelta. This third stage, betweenSan

The Lion King came out of hibernation Monday to win the third stage of the 2002 Vuelta a España in an exciting shootout between the top sprinters. Mario Cipollini's retirement plans are definitely on hold again as the Italian superstar showed that missing more than 90 days of competition doesn't mean that much to cycling's top sprinter. "I'm here to prepare for the world championships. That is my mission, but it's nice to show I can still win. It's important for the sponsor and it's a good test," Cipollini said after winning in 3 hours, 7 minutes, 37 seconds with an average speed of 42.917

Here's an opportunity to own a collectors’ item and help out a good causeat the same time.The Ross Dillon Hope Fund is auctioning off one of Levi Leipheimer’sTour de France jerseys on E-Bay.The jersey is complete with Leipheimer’s official Tour numbers on theback. Signatures are located on the front and include all the members ofthe Rabobank tour team including Leipheimer, former Tour stage winner ErikDekker, and this year's Tour stage winners Michael Boogard and KarstenKroon. Leipheimer finished this – his first Tour de France – in eighthplace in the overall standings.All money from

Cipollini scores his first Vuelta stage win.

Beloki still in the lead.

Good morning to our U.S. audience and welcome to VeloNews.com’s live coverage of the second stage of the 2002 Vuelta a España. The second stage is a short 144.7km from Valencia to Alcoi.Sunny skies and huge crowds welcomed the peloton for the start of the second stage of the 57th Vuelta a Espana. Big cheers for Oscar Sevilla, Joseba Beloki and Roberto Heras as the joined the 206riders who signed in.It's warm today, highs in the upper 80s, and Mario Cipollini started with a sleeve-less Acqua & Sapone jersey. The race winds through some spectacular countryside just inland from the Med, passing

The first road stage of the 57th Vuelta delivered just what everyone expected since the advent of shorter stages and a peloton packed with 23 teams and more than 200 riders: attacks and more attacks.The final 27-km circuit of the 144-km second stage from Valencia into the finale at sun-baked Alcoi saw a string of blistering attacks over narrow roads. With 16 km to go, Kelme’s Oscar Sevilla shot off the front to try to grab a gap with five other riders and ONCE put the pedal to the metal to preserve its golden jersey for Joseba Beloki.The beneficiary of this in-fighting was Saeco’s Danilo Di

Okay, done with Stage 2. It didn't start out too fast so that was good, the field is really big here207 riders. The first climb was very hard but it broke up the field a littlebit. I went up the hill with Cipo's team knowing that they would ride sometempo to bring him back to the group for the sprint. After that hill therace went very fast, and on the last hill I was at my limit and the groupwas descending super fast too. My roommate, housemate, and dear friend Antonio Cruz hit the pavement hardtoday. I didn't know this until after the race and he walked into the roomreally bloody and in

Svetlana Boubnenkova (Edilsavino) took the win in the eighth round of the women’s road World Cup in Embrach, Switzerland, on Sunday, but Mirjam Melchers’ (Farm Frites) fourth place in the 118.8km event means that the back-and-forth contest for dominance in the nine-race series will continue down to the wire. The race drew a large and talented field, but the focus of early attention was largely on the two women vying for the Cup lead, with just six points separating Rossner and Melchers. Changed from previous years, the 10.8 kilometer course for 2002 featured narrow roads and two main

Beating the best, Di Luca edges Zabel

Joseba Beloki is back in the lead of the Vuelta a España. The question now is whether or not he’ll be wearing it when the race ends Sept. 29 in Madrid. Nearly a year after he abandoned the 2001 Vuelta in tears while leading the race into Andorra, Beloki grabbed the first “jersey oro” of the 57th Vuelta a España after his ONCE squad won the 24.6-km team time trial. Beloki enters the Vuelta with the pressure of an entire nation on his shoulders after finishing second in the Tour de France for his third consecutive podium appearance in cycling’s most important race. But Beloki’s never been

Today was the team time trial. The big debate the team has been having is if we should do a double line or a single line. So we did a little bit of both, we did a double line as long as we could because it is faster and then when guys started getting tired we called the audible for a single line. I'm so glad the race has started. I was going out of my head sitting in this hotel for the past few days. Victor and I were so bored we went swimming naked in the hotel pool. At lunch today my nerves started acting up and I was getting a lot of butterflies in my stomach. We rode to the start of

ONCE

Beloki

The Postal team delivers

It's Friday morning in Les Gets, France, and Alison Dunlap and Sabine Spitz are sitting on opposite sides of the Hotel Stella dinning hall having breakfast. The pair will exchange pleasantries before the meal is over, then head out with their team managers for another day of training. It's a routine that's been repeated for the last couple days, after both riders arrived here in the French Alps, following last weekend's world championships in Kaprun, Austria. Two days from now things will not be so friendly, though. With the final cross-country race of the World Cup season set for Sunday,

The wife of Lampre’s Raimondas Rumsas lost another round in her ongoing legal battle to be released from prison as a court in Grenoble, France, rejected a request to end her detention that began when she was arrested for possession of drugs in July. Edita Rumsas, wife of the third-place finisher in this year’s Tour de France, has been held in custody at Bonneville women's prison for more than six weeks on suspicion of provoking, inciting and offering drugs for consumption. The 28-year-old mother-of-three was picked up in the French Alps on July 29 - the day the Tour finished - with

USA Cycling named the winners of the first-annual Center of Excellence Awards on Friday. The new program is designed to recognize outstanding cycling clubs around the country with cash awards to assist in their structural development. Nine clubs across the country were selected for this honor, and each will receive a cash award of up to $2000.The Center of Excellence winners met certain criteria with respect toorganization, business management and athlete development programs forjuniors and under-23 athletes. The clubs provided evidence of long-termbusiness plans and solid structures for

The last major stage-race of the 2002 season kicks off Saturday in typicalSpanish fashion with fiesta, paella, pretty podium girls and bicycles alllined up and ready to go. Final destination: Madrid.The 57th Vuelta a España promises to be one of the most hotlycontested races of the year, perhaps topping the 2002 Giro d’Italia inthe nail-biter category. A bevy of stars come loaded to the 21-stage, 3128-kmSpanish tour looking for redemption, salvation, confirmation or simplyresults to snag a contract for next year.Only three Americans are scheduled to start – four if you count GuidoTrenti of

Already it will go down as the shortest World Cup season in the history of the series, but it also might end up being one of the most exciting. With only five races on the calendar this year, points have been harder than ever to come by. And unlike a year ago at the finals in Mont-Ste-Anne where three overall titles had been clinched before racing even started, every one of this year's crowns is still on the line as the finals in Les Gets, France get set to commence on Saturday. The tightest race is in the men's four-cross where Brian Lopes leads Cédric Gracia by just nine points — the

The final major tour of the 2002 season gets underway Saturday in Valencia, Spain. The Vuelta a España features shorter, livelier stages than the Giro or Tour, but remains a hotly contested battle nonetheless.This year's 3144-km (1949-mile), 21-stage race features three time trials and four very difficult climbing stages. The climber that can defend in the races against the clock will likely come out on top.The 2002 Vuelta features eight flats stages, 10 stages with medium to difficult mountains, including four summit finishes which will likely decide the race. There's no opening

The U.S. Postal team’s Dave Zabriskie is in Valencia, Spain, getting ready to ride in thisyear’s edition of the Vuelta a España, the American’s first major tour.The Postal squad will consist of team leader Roberto Heras, fellow Spaniard Jose Luis Rubiera, Americans Antonio Cruz, Christian Vande Velde and Zabriskie, Colombian Victor Hugo Pena, Steffen Kjaergaard of Norway,Canadian Michael Barry and Australian Matt White. Zabriskie will be sendingdiary entries to VeloNews.com throughout the Vuelta, which begins on Saturdaywith a team time trial in Valencia.Monday, September 2 -- So I'm getting

Nestor Evancevich, founder and principle officer of American BicycleRacing, died in his sleep during the night of Wednesday, September 4. ABR is a national membership organization that promotes the sport ofbicycle racing and was the first of a series of organizations to successfully break away from the sport's national governing body, USA Cycling and focus almost exclusively on grassroots cycling. During the 1980's, Evancevich was instrumental in the rapid growth ofbicycle racing in Illinois and the greater midwest. He became the Illinois USCF District Rep in 1985 when there were

Simoni and Casagrande want to finish this one. (file photo)

World champion Oscar Freire won’t be going to CSC-Tiscali after all,according to reports in the Spanish sports daily AS. Freire and the Danish team have been going back and forth for weeks and seemedpoised to sign a two-year deal. But according to AS, Freire sent an e-mailto Johnny Weltz declining the offer so the two-time world champion couldconsider others. Reportedly deals from Quick Step, worth more money and forthree years, and iBanesto.com are on the table. Banesto only has one yearleft with its title sponsor and seems to looking to reduce its roster nextyear, but a chance to grab

Editor's Note: Joe Friel is author of the successful "TrainingBible" series of books, a regular columnist for VeloNews and InsideTriathlon magazines and the founder of www.ultrafit.com. Dirk Frielraces professionally and coaches along with Joe at Ultrafit Associates.The Friels also offer answers to a selection of questions in this weeklycolumn here on VeloNews.com. Readers can send questions to Joe and DirkFriel in care of VeloNews.com at WebLetters@7Dogs.com.(Be sure to include "Friel" in the subject line.)Dear Joe,I will be eligible for social security benefit next year and currentlyusing

Freire -- (file photo)

Germany’s Telekom team is on the verge of signing Giro d’ Italia winnerPaolo Savoldelli, team manager Walter Godefroot said Tuesday.Godefroot said the team has also offered a new contract to 1997 Tourde France winner Jan Ullrich, who is sitting out a six-month banafter he tested positive for amphetamines in June. Godefroot said Savoldelli, of the Italian Index-Alexia team, has agreedterms with Telekom. "All we need is his signature," he said.The 29-year-old Italian is likely to be called to work for former Tourwinner Ullrich once and if he officially returns to competition on March23, 2003.It

VeloNews technical writer Lennard Zinn is a frame builder, a formerU.S. national team rider and author of several books on bikes and bikemaintenance. This is Zinn's VeloNews.com column devoted to addressing readers'technical questions about bikes, their care and feeding and how we as riderscan use them as comfortably and efficiently as possible. Readers can sendbrief technical questions directly toZinn. We'll try to print a representative sample of questions regularly.Question: One of my riding partners had a ticking (not a creak)sound in his ride.  It would only happen when pedaling

Editor's Note: Thomas Frischknecht of the Swiss Power racingteam took a bronze medal in Sunday's world championship cross-country mountain-bikerace. The following is his take on this and the 12 prior world championships.He has competed at world's since the beginning and holds the distinctionof winning a gold medal at the 1996 world's, though he and the rest ofcycling world didn't realize that until four years later when the apparentwinner, Jerome Chiotti, confessed to having used performance-enhancingsubstances in preparation for that win. Chiotti later apologized and gavehis medal and jersey

A letter from Frischy: I'll keep trying

The investigation into charges that the U.S. Postal team of Lance Armstrong used banned drugs during the 2000 Tour de France has been scrapped for lack of evidence, legal sources said Monday. The investigation was opened in November 2000, after French television reporters revealed film of team staff disposing of medical waste at a highway rest stop, prompting rumors that Armstrong's powerful team had won the Tour for him by using illegal substances. But investigators found it impossible to identify any doping agents used in blood samples given by members of the US Postal team and it had