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Fred Rodriguez maintained his overall lead as Estonian Jaan Kirsipuu won the second stage of the Tour of Luxembourg Friday. Rodriguez, the Domo-Farm Frites rider who won the USPRO championships in Philadelphia June 10, is on a roll. He took the overall lead at Luxembourg when he won stage 1 on Thursday. Kirsipuu, riding for the AG2R team, won Friday’s 214km stage between Wormeldange and Beckerich in a sprint finish. Finishing second was Italian Alessandra Petacchi (Fassa Bortolo). Rodriguez holds a lead of 9 seconds over Frenchman Eddy Lembo of the Jean Delatour team. Bulgarian Ivaila

Hold on. The Tour hasn't started yet! But when it does, we'll offer minute-by-minute coverage of each stage, with info pouring in from our three editors in France. On the Continent for VeloNews.com at the 88th TDF will be:Bryan Jew, Senior WriterLennard Zinn, Senior Tech WriterJohn Wilcockson, VeloNews Editorial Director. If you've been on our site at all this season, you've seen their bylines on countless race reports and features. Ditto if you read the print edition of VeloNews. Relax. The race begins in less than a week. You're in the right spot to satisfy your Tour jones.

Tanya Lindenmuth’s stranglehold on women’s sprinting in America continued on Friday morning at the USCF elite track national championships. The diminutive 22-year-old from Trexlertown, Pennsylvania easily dispatched Jennie Reed in back-to-back heats to win her third straight national championship at the National Sports Center Velodrome in Blaine, Minnesota. "Jennie let me keep the front and that’s dangerous with me," Lindenmuth said. "I like to ride up there and today that worked for me." Earlier in the week Lindenmuth won her third straight 500-meter time trail title, giving her six

“You know, I think I really like this stage,” said Alison Dunlap as she stood in the middle of the main street through downtown Ketchum, Idaho. She should like this stage, she’s now won it three times. Dunlap, riding for a composite squad sponsored by Boise Cascade Office Products, won the 62.3-mile Stanley to Ketchum road in a fashion similar to the way she’s done before: stay in the mix up Galena Pass, rejoin the leader or leaders, notch the speed up on the long downhill and then time her sprint perfectly. While Dunlap did her stuff, the two women atop the overall standings – Jeannie Longo

It sounds outrageous, but one more national title and Marty Nothstein will have a stars-and-stripes jersey for every year of his life. On Friday night the 30-year-old added title No. 29 when he took the men’s sprint at the USCF elite track national championships at the National Sports Center Velodrome in Blaine, Minnesota. It was his third title at these championships. Already he’s won the kilometer time trail and the Olympic sprint. He’ll get the chance to add No. 30 on Saturday when he competes in the Madison. Like so many of the others, Friday night’s win came easy. After advancing to

Moreau took the jersey and a 1-second lead over Tonkov.

Kivilev scored his first professional stage win.

Rodriguez holds lead in Luxembourg

Lindenmuth takes out Reed to win the sprint.

The Prime Alliance train rolls to victory in the team pursuit.

The Carney brothers and the rest of the Prime Alliance squad don their new jerseys.

James Cullen was one of several riders to go down hard.

Longo maintains her grip

Acca Due had the wrong twin closing in on the leaders; the team's top GC rider, Rasa (left) was forced to chase her twin

Despite spending most of the summer on the road, Nothstein is still the king of the track.

Massie is one to watch in the coming years.

Mirabella (near) and Quinn were close all day.

American Jonathan Vaughters won Thursday’s time trial stage at the Dauphiné Libéré stage race in France. The Credit Agricole rider from Colorado covered the 43km time trial between Beaumes-de-Venise and Valreas in southeastern France three seconds faster than second-place David Millar (Cofidis), who took the overall lead. Vaughters is now second overall, 20 seconds behind Millar. Millar, who wore the first yellow jersey of last year's Tour de France after winning the prologue, is determined to win the Dauphiné and maintain the kind of form he will need going into this year's Grande Boucle.

It’s a good day for Americans racing in Europe. Just four days after winning the USPRO Championship in Philadelphia, Fred Rodriguez won stage 1 of the Tour of Luxembourg on Thursday. The Domo-Farm Frites rider covered the 182km stage in 4:26:22, beating Frenchman Eddy Lembo (Jean Delatour) in a sprint finish. Friday’s 214km stage is considered the most difficult of the four-day stage race in the small country of Luxembourg.

Marty Nothstein was just about to roll down the wooden start ramp for the time trial at the First Charter Criterium. "Hang on!" yelled a Mercury-Viatel staff support person. "Won’t need these." The staff member quickly removed a pair of water bottles from the two cages on Nothstein’s team issue LeMond race bike. It was a no-brainer that refreshments could wait until after Nothstein made his less-than-two-minute trip around the 1.4km TT course, but cut the guy some slack for not shedding the unnecessary weight. He’s used to racing bikes that don’t have water bottles — or gears for that

Lately, Josiah Ng has become known as "the guy who beat Nothstein." And beat him he did — twice. Sort of. But there’s a lot more to the 21-year-old from Carlsbad, California, than that simple label conveys. In April, Ng did surprise Olympic sprint champion Marty Nothstein at the American Velodrome Challenge in San Jose, California. In a three-up, one-ride final, Ng caught his two opponents eyeing each other and charged. He got a great jump and for 400 meters held off Nothstein and Jeff Solt to take a surprising win. "There was a lot of luck involved, but that’s part of bike racing, too," Ng

Jeannie Longo has held on to her overall lead in the HP Women’s Challenge, but the 42-year-old French rider may be facing serious challenges from three riders -- Germany’s Judith Arndt, Rasa Polikeviciute (Acca Due O-Hewlett-Packard) and Saturn’s Kimberly Bruckner – who joined a winning break in the closing miles of the 58-mile Lowman to Stanley road race on Thursday. Arndt powered in to the sprint of the lead group of four that included Longo’s Office Depot teammate, Joan Wilson, the last member of a break that started just a few miles into this hilly and wind-blown stage near the Sawtooth

Editor’s note: Jen Dial, racing in the HP Women’s Challenge with the Office Depot Team, will be checking into VeloNews.com daily with her view from inside the race. After Wednesday’s stage 1, Jen "had tea’ with the one and only Jeannie Longo, who happens to be Jen’s teammate at the Idaho stage race. Jeannie Longo asked us to "stop by and have tea" after our massages. And why wouldn't we? After suffering all day in the wind and winning the opening stage of the Hewlett Packard Women's Challenge, she has plenty to celebrate. Obviously the celebration has to be such that everyone can race again

Day 3 of the five-day USCF elite track national championships came to an abrupt halt at 6:35 p.m. local time when ever-threatening skies finally opened up and drenched the track at the National Sports Center velodrome in Blaine, Minnesota. Racing was immediately postponed until Friday, because even if the rain had receded quickly, there was no hope of the wooden track drying during the nighttime session. The men’s sprint 1/8th final was the only portion of the evening’s program contested. Those moving on to the next round were Olympic gold medalist Marty Nothstein, Garth Blackburn, Giddeon

With the TT win, Vaughters moved into second-place overall.

Millar took the Dauphine leader's jersey, but it's the yellow one up for grabs in July that he really wants.

Merckx gave up the leader's jersey after one day.

Rodriguez wins stage 1 at Luxembourg

Nothstein is sure he can win on the road, but that hasn't happened yet.

Arndt

Not exactly ideal riding conditions.

Dario Frigo, fired by his Fassa Bortolo team last week after drugs were found in his room during the Giro d'Italia, spoke publicly at a press conference in Biella, Italy, Friday. The 27-year-old claimed that he had not taken banned substances and also denied media reports that he had acted as a police informant. "I have never taken doping products and I never named any colleague," said Frigo who was flanked by a lawyer. "It was a weakness on my part to have these medicines, but I was conscious not to use them." Frigo admitted that he deserves to be punished after being found in

Marco Pantani will have his driver’s license confiscated and will be fined after being caught speeding, the Italian news agency ANSA reported Wednesday. The former Tour de France and Giro d'Italia winner was clocked at 118 mph on the E45 motorway Tuesday. Police temporarily gave him back the license so he could continue his journey to Rome and back to his Cesenatico home. Pantani, who made headlines last year when he lost control of his car and damaged a handful of others, could lose his license for one to three months.

Marty Nothstein added another national title to his resume Tuesday at the Great River Energy USCF track nationals in Blaine, Minnesota. While you might expect to see Nothstein, America’s only Olympic gold medalist in cycling at the 2000 Sydney Games, walk through the sprint competitions, his newest title is in the kilometer time trial. "I haven’t been able to spend much time on the track since the Olympics, but things came together," said Nothstein. "I didn’t consider myself the favorite out here today and I haven’t ridden the kilo in a long time. I really didn’t feel any pressure but I

Belgian champion Axel Merckx of the Domo-Farm Frites team took the overall leader's yellow-and-blue jersey at the Dauphiné Libéré stage race in France Wednesday. Merckx, the 28-year-old son of Eddy, who won Dauphiné 30 years ago, took over from Frenchman Laurent Roux after finishing 10th on the 184km stage between Guilherand-Granges and Carpentras. Venezuelan Unai Etxebarria won the stage, holding off a chase group led by Russian Denis Menchov of the iBanesto.com team. The chase group finished three seconds off Etxebarria's pace. American Jonathan Vaughters of the Credit Agricole team

All bike races in Italy will be suspended starting June 18. This shocking news from the French news agency AFP comes in response to the drug bust and scandals surrounding the Giro d’Italia. Italy’s Olympic committee (CONI) has made the decision to suspend "all national cycling activity from athletic and amateur categories," according to the Federation. An ethics committee presided by former national team coach Alfredo Martini and co-ordinated by Sergio Fusaro, the president of the Council of Professional Cycling, has been instructed to define a code of conduct. The federal committee of the

The Saturn women’s team has had a run of things this season, dominating individual events, stage races and even the World Cup. 2001 has pretty much belonged to Saturn, save the occasional run-in with a French-speaking rider usually willing to take on the entire squad by herself. And that’s what happened on the opening day of the 2001 HP Women’s Challenge…. Nope, Genevieve Jeanson is back training in Arizona. This time it was Jeannie Longo. Longo, riding for a composite team sponsored by Office Depot, joined and then dominated a decisive early break in the 69.5-mile road race from Boise to

Frigo speaks: 'I have never taken doping products'

Nothstein added another feather to his cap

Axel did dad proud by taking over the leader's jersey

Longo took charge of the winning break

Jean Delatour rider Laurent Roux won the second stage of the Dauphiné Libéré in France Tuesday. Roux outsprinted Axel Merckx of the Domo-Farm Frites team to win the 170km race between Bron and Firminy. Roux takes over the overall lead, with a pad of seven seconds over Merckx. Swede Glen Magnusson, also a Domo-Farm Frites rider, is third overall, at 1:31. American Bobby Julich (Credit Agricole) finished 22nd Monday and sits 33rd overall, 1:58 off Roux’s time.

In a three-sentence press release, LeMond Cycling announced that it has ended its contract with John Wordin Sports and the Mercury cycling team. Even when announcing the split, there were details that the two parties didn't agree on. The press release carried a June 12 date, but according to LeMond's manager, Warren Gibson, the termination was effective June 5. "Greg wanted the guys to get through the national championships," before the contact news was announced, Warren said. According to Wordin, the termination date is today, June 12, and said his office would distribute a

Roux took the yellow jersey in Firminy.

Danish rider Bo Hamburger, silver medalist at the 1997 road world’s, said Monday that he intends to take the UCI to court in a bid to clear his name after it was confirmed he failed a dope test. Hamburger looks set for a long suspension after his B sample Monday confirmed he had failed a dope test for EPO in Belgium on April 19. The 31-year-old had already been suspended by his Danish team CSC-Tiscalis on May 10 when it was revealed he had failed the test. But the classics and one-day specialist said he is "very surprised" at the test result. "I didn't expect the result of the B test

Fabian De Waele of the Lotto-Adecco team won the 227km first stage of the Dauphiné Libéré in Bron, France, on Monday. Prologue winner Didier Rous, a member of the Festina team ejected from the 1998 Tour de France for doping, retained the overall leader's jersey after winning Sunday's prologue. Rous now rides for the French Bonjour team. De Waele, a 26-year-old Belgian, won the stage in a sprint, holding off the challenges of Damien Nazon (Francaise des Jeux) and veteran Christophe Agnolutto (AG2R), who had tried to make a break for it on the final approach.

3:02 p.m. With half a mile to go Fred Rodriguez broke away from the lead group and held on to win the 17th USPRO Championship. Rodriguez finished the 156-mile race. Second place went to Saturn’s Trent Klasna. George Hincapie came across third, after winning a sprint with Fabrizio Guidi. Check back soon for full reports on both the men's and women's races. 2:54 The gap between the six leaders and the field has now grown back up to 22 seconds with just three miles to go. 2:51 The gap between the group of six and the field has been whittled to 15 seconds. Mercury’s Henk Vogels, who launched

12:42 p.m. German Petra Rossner has done it again. Saturn's German sprint power won the Liberty Classic in Philadelphia for the fifth straight time. Rossner's finishing time was 3:01:47. The good news for Saturn continued as Australian Anna Millward finished second to retain her overall World Cup lead. Dutch rider Debbie Mansfeld was third, followed by Canadian Sandy Espeseth (Intersports) and Mirjam Melchers (Acca Due-O). Stay tuned for a complete report on the race. 12:03 p.m. The sun has broken through the clouds, the temperature is 80 degrees, and the women's field went over the

The banned substance found in the personal belongings of sacked Italian rider Dario Frigo is used to regulate blood, according to the Italian press Sunday. Frigo was banned from all further participation in the Tour of Italy and sacked by his Fassa Bartolo team on Friday two days before the end of the three-week race when he was in the runners-up spot behind ultimate winner Gilberto Simoni. The name of the substance is Emassist, "a synthetic haemoglobin modifier, created by a genetic genius", according to the medical explanation for the drug on Sunday by Pierluigi Fiorella, a heart

Mario Cipollini won a sprint spread across the full width of the road to take the final stage and his fourth win of the 2001 Giro d’Italia and the 34th of his career. Once again, Danilo Hondo was right alongside him but lacked that little bit of extra speed and forcefulness. And eight years after he won the amateur Giro d’Italia, Gilberto Simoni has won the professional Giro by 7:31 over Abraham Olano, the largest margin since 1973, when Eddy Merckx beat Johan De Muynck by 7:42. Stage 21 traversed a flat, straight trajectory from Arona along Lago Maggiore and southeast to Milano, where 10

At the opening World Cup downhill of the 2001 season at Maribor, Slovenia, GT’s Steve Peat finally beat France’s Nicolas Vouilloz on this high-speed course, while Anne-Caroline Chausson (Volvo-Cannondale) did what she usually does — win. Vouilloz won at Maribor the first two years races had been held here, but Peat was fast enough to edge Vouilloz to win the year’s season opener. "I had a clean run; you have to, to beat Nico," said Peat, who won in 2 minutes, 54.30 seconds. Vouilloz was just 0.44 seconds slower. "I knew I had to go fast. I was clean through most of the run, just made one

Frenchman Didier Rous of the Bonjour team won the 4km prologue at the rain-soaked curtain raiser to the 53rd edition of the Dauphine Libere cycle race in Morzine, France, on Sunday. Rous, France's No. 1 rider this season who won the Four Days of Dunkirk race and the Climbers Trophy, finished a second faster than Australian Bradley McGee. Britain's David Millar, who won the Tour de France prologue last year in his first appearance in the world's greatest cycling race, came in third, 3 seconds adrift of Rous. Copyright AFP 2001

While the NBA Finals fever generated by the Sixers-Lakers series has swept over Philadelphia, a couple hundred thousand boisterous spectators used the First Union USPRO Championships as the perfect tailgate party. The fans were out in force, and they were treated to a spectacular show. In the finale, defending USPRO champion (and runner-up last year to winner Henk Vogels) Fred Rodriguez (Domo-Farm Frites) beat out Saturn’s Trent Klasna and U.S. Postal’s George Hincapie in an all-American, 1-2-3 finish. Rodriguez slipped away in the final 500 meters to became the first American winner since

It’s seems like it’s become one of those inevitable things in cycling, just like Domo (and before them Mapei) winning Paris-Roubaix, the Belgians dominating cyclo-cross and Mario Cipollini winning Giro stages. Petra Rossner will win the First Union Liberty Classic World Cup. If it’s the beginning of June and there are women racing in Philadelphia, you might as well just write Rossner’s name down in the win column. The crew-cut Saturn rider made it four in a row – and five overall - in Philadelphia, winning the inevitable field sprint while towing teammate Anna Millward into second place, to

After coming close twice, Peat finally won at Maribor.

Chausson made 2-for-2 on the weekend.

Decked out in pink, Simoni takes the Giro.

Rodriguez

Rodriguez was all alone at the finish

Hincapie, Rodriguez, Klasna

Friday's firing of Italian rider Dario Frigo by his Fassa Bortolo team after he admitted ownership of illegal drugs found in his possession during police raids Wednesday night is just the latest doping-related scandal to rock Italian sport this year. On Saturday it was reported that five riders of the Italian Liquigas team are under judicial investigation for doping-related matters after the police blitz on hotel rooms used by riders at the Giro d'Italia. Another Italian cyclist Ivan Gotti, twice a Giro winner, is also reportedly being probed. It is only recently that the Italian

I had not realized how much I had wanted to believe in Dario Frigo until the news came of his departure from the race. For weeks, I had been attending daily press conferences with him – every day that he was in the pink jersey and after his time trial stage win. I had started mulling over in my mind what I would be writing about him on Sunday night or Monday to wrap up the Giro in VeloNews. I would have been writing, whether he had managed to take back the jersey on the (cancelled) stage 18 or stage 20 or not, about what a breath of fresh air he had been. This young man’s appeal was

Spaniard Iban Mayo of the Euskaltel team eased over the finish line to win the 11th edition of the Alps Classic, a 175 km run between Aix-les-Bains and Chambery, France on Saturday. The 23-year-old Mayo, who recently collected his first major race win when victorious in the Grand Prix Midi-Libre last month, held off American double Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong to finish first. Armstrong beat Russian Pavel Tonkov in a sprint finish to come second, with Tonkov third. Mayo, who comes from the Basque country, launched a solitary attack in trying weather conditions and held off the

With Dario Frigo fired for doping, there was nobody else to worry about, and Gilberto Simoni could throw caution to the wind and make an audacious 49km solo to get the stage win he felt had been missing from his Giro victory. After this rainy, 181km stage amid dampened spirits, Simoni now leads second-placed Abraham Olano by 7:31. The riders ascended twice the first-category Mottarone climb rising above the western shore of Lago Maggiore. The first time up, Matthias Kessler broke away, and Danilo Di Luca caught and dropped him. Giuliano Figueras (Panaria) and Marzio Bruseghin (iBanesto.com)

Ina Teutenberg won the New York City Women's Challenge on Saturday. The race in New York is considered a warm-up event for Sunday’s First Union Liberty Classic, the sixth stop on the Women's World Cup Tour. Teutenberg got the win by taking the final sprint out of a five-woman break. The small group contained Teutenberg her Saturn teammate Kim Davidge, plus Jenny Eyerman (Jane's Cosmetics), and Intersports teammates Elizabeth Emery’ and Erin Carter. That group escaped half way through the race after a solo break by Saturn’s Anke Erlank was absorbed. In the final sprint, it was Teutenberg

Defending World Cup dual champions Brian Lopes and Anne-Caroline Chausson picked up where they left off last year, winning the opening round races of the 2001 season in Maribor, Slovenia. More than 10,000 fans lined the course under the lights in Maribor to cheer on racers in the World Cup season opener for dual downhill. Lopes didn’t put down his customary fastest time in the qualifier, so the Californian had tougher than usual competition, including a hard crash with Mickael Deldycke in the semis, to reach the finals against former Volvo-Cannondale teammate Cedric Gracia. Gracia crashed

George Hincapie, teammate of two-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, has signed a contract extension with the U.S. Postal team through the end of the 2004 season, it was announced Saturday. "George has been our team's leader for the World Cup and classic races for the past two years and this year he proved that he can win a big classic race," said the U.S. Postal team's director, Johan Bruyneel, in a statement. "His physical potential is still improving and he can count on all the support of the team in his attempt to win what we consider his race, Paris-Roubaix." The

Simoni on his winning solo effort.

The tifosi happy see the Giro on the move.

Savoldelli on the attack.

Chausson gets another World Cup win.

Flyin' Brian gets it done again.

Cyclists in the Giro d'Italia Friday arrived in Alba for the start of the 19th stage Friday, moving to put behind them the events that had led to the cancellation of Thursday's 18th stage. The riders arrived for the start just before at 1:00p.m. for the 163km run from Alba to Busto Arsizio with only Italian Marco Pantani, of the Mercatone Uno team, and Belgian Rik Verbrugghe of the Lotto outfit absent. Both had already indicated they would withdraw for health reasons in decisions that had nothing to do with the events that had briefly put the entire Giro in danger on Wednesday and

The Giro is continuing as scheduled today, although the atmosphere is almost surreal. At the start, it was if nothing had happened, yet everything had. There were crowds there as usual, the sign-in happened as usual, and riders hung out in the tent city next to the sign-in booth... all just as usual. What was different was the subject of every conversation going on, whether it was among the riders in the start village or among people in the cafés. Nobody was talking about whether Simoni would win the Giro or who would win this stage. Everyone was talking about the drug scandal. Even

After a gut-wrenching break from it, the riders got back to business today, and if anything is business as usual at the Giro, it is Mario Cipollini crossing the line with his arms upraised after a beautifully executed sprint. Marco Zanotti and Danilo Hondo followed the Lion King in after the 163km stage to Busto Arsizio. Marco Pantani had gone home the night before complaining of the flu, and Rik Verbrugghe also did not show up at sign-in. Otherwise, the setting was normal, but at the start in Alba the subject of every conversation among riders, fans, journalists and officials was the same,

The main contenders have two races under their belts at First Union Week and now turn their attention to the main event, the USPRO Championship in Philadelphia on Sunday. The two U.S. Division I teams, U.S. Postal Service and Mercury-Viatel, have each taken one win so far this week, and will again be two of the major players in Philadelphia. Of the two opening races, the First Union Invitational in Lancaster is the better indicator of who’s on form, and there were no big surprises. Leon Van Bon and Baden Cooke (Mercury-Viatel), George Hincapie (U.S. Postal Service), Trent Klasna (Saturn) and

Cycling's latest drug scandal widened late Friday as Fassa Bortolo's Dario Frigo was fired by his team and forced to withdraw from the Giro d'Italia on the heels of new drug allegations. Frigo, who was in second place in the Giro's overall standings, was released by his squad after admitting to team officials that Italian authorities had discovered performance-enhancing drugs in his room during the police sweep conducted in San Remo Wednesday night. In a telephone news conference Friday, Fassa Bortolo team manager Giancarlo Ferretti confirmed that Frigo had admitted to him that authorities

Cipo does it again.

Despite an assist from Ullrich, Hondo finished third.