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Sevilla chases

Stage 11 Today was one of those stages that you try and put in the back of your mind until the day arrives. I remember looking at the entire Vuelta profile on line stage by stage. I thought to myself, OK, oooh, oh that's a good one, and then stage 11 comes up and you don't say anything, you just move onto the next stage as if nothing had been seen. Down at breakfast the mood was relaxed with everyone eating a little extra to help fuel those legs to victory. At our team meeting Johan gave the specific orders to each of the riders as to their role for the stage. Mine was to go with the early

There was no calm before the storm in Saturday’s transition stage along Spain’s Mediterranean Coast. Heavy rains pounded the peloton during the 170-km (105-mile) 14th stage from Tarragona to Vinaros on the eve of the difficult and decisive climbing stage to Alto de Aitana. Lampre’s Juan Manuel Garate won his first-ever professional victory, easily beating iBanesto.com’s Jon Odriozola after the pair pulled away from a 14-man breakaway. Kelme’s Oscar Sevilla retained the overall lead, but racers were already thinking about Sunday’s long, steep climb to Alto de Aitana. “It’s going to be a very

Sevilla still in the lead

Elli drives the break

Markus Zberg was the first rider to abandon the 56th Vuelta a España when he crashed in the opening time trial on Sept. 8 in Salamanca and dislocated his shoulder. In Friday’s 206-km (128-mile) 13th stage, brother and Rabobank teammate Beat Zberg won one for the family. Zberg held off seven other riders in a breakaway in a frenetic sprint to take his first stage victory in a three-week grand tour. But his victory was just as much for his brother as it was for himself. “This victory means a lot to me. My brother was very distraught when he crashed and I dedicate this victory to him,” said

Joseba Beloki is unlikely to start Saturday's 14th stage of the Vuelta a España, a source close to the Spaniard's ONCE team reported Friday. Beloki, who has placed third in the past two editions of the Tour de France and was a co-favorite for the Vuelta here, is thought to have a viral infection. ONCE team officials sent blood tests away for analysis on Wednesday afternoon and Friday's subsequent results indicated that Beloki had the start of a respiratory infection. Beloki was seen in tears on Tuesday as he struggled in the 12th stage in the Pyrenees while he was wearing the leader's

Sevilla still in the lead

Kelme powers the peloton

The great escape

Elli and the Telekoms drove the chase for Zabel

Beloki in happier times

The three-day battle of the Pyrénées is over and Kelme’s Oscar Sevilla walked away standing tall in the overall leader’s jersey. There were no major shake-ups in the overall standings in 12th stage of the 2001 Vuelta a España, a 17-km (10.5-mile) climbing time trial Thursday to Arcalis, deep in the heart of the Andorran Pyrenees. The top-four riders in the overall maintained their positions but defending Vuelta champion Roberto Heras (U.S. Postal Service) slipped to sixth as stage-winner Jose Maria Jimenez (ibanesto.com) continues his steady climb in the g.c. Jimenez won his third

The Canadian Cycling Association announced its rider selections on Wednesday for the UCI Road Race World Championships to be held October 9-14 in Lisbon, Portugal. Roland Green, who became the first Canadian man to win a cross-country world championship with his victory at Vail, Colorado, Sunday, will ride the elite men’s time trial along with national teammate and 2000 Canadian time trial champion Eric Wohlberg. Green is not the only selected rider with impressive palmarés. Michael Barry, 1996 Canadian espoir national road race champion and Mark Walters, 1998 Canadian road race champion,

Chris Horner has been granted clearance by the UCI to leave the troubled Mercury team and finish out the 2001 season as a member of Prime Alliance. Horner is making the move to Prime Alliance in time to race this weekend in Irvine, California, and has contracted to race for the team in 2002. Horner will be joined by fellow Mercury rider John Peters for the 2002 season. Prime Alliance general manager Roy Knickman said Horner will serve as "a sort of co-leader with Danny Pate," the team's most promising young rider. Knickman said that the team's title sponsor has been pleased with the

Green will trade in the fat tires for skinny ones and head to Portugal.

Jiminez has an almost Zabel-like win streak

Sevilla's seventh was good enough to keep him in the jersey

Leipheimer continues to wow 'em

It was the best of times and the worst of times in the 11th stage of the Vuelta a España, depending, of course, on who you talked to. Wednesday was very good for Kelme’s Oscar Sevilla, who regained the overall lead. It was very bad for ONCE’s Joseba Beloki, who bonked and dropped like a rock to 26th in the overall standings after losing nearly 20 minutes to the leaders in the tough, six-climb 154-km (95-mile) stage over the Andorran Pyrénées. It was pretty good for U.S. Postal’s Levi Leipheimer and Roberto Heras, who moved up to fourth and fifth overall, respectively. It was better still

Giro d’Italia winner Gilberto Simoni appears to be on his way out of the Lampre team, which on Wednesday released its official team roster for the 2002 season - without his name. Lampre said it had not received word from the 30-year-old Simoni about his future plans, and seemed to anticipate any decision by thanking him for his two years service and wishing him good luck for the future. The Italian outfit will also be without departing Swiss rider Oscar Camenzind, winner of Liege-Bastogne-Liege. However, Lampre will welcome back former team member Pavel Tonkov of Russia, who arrives from

Sevilla: back on top

Jimenez on his own

Leipheimer

The Vuelta entered Andorra Wednesday

Simoni's plans for next year probably don't include wearing a Lampre jersey.

The first day of the Vuelta a España’s shootout of the Pyrénées ended with puff instead of bang in the first of three-straight climbing stages, but everyone expects the fireworks to begin for real in Wednesday’s six-climb etapa reina. Santiago Blanco won his biggest stage of his career, delivering a dramatic solo victory high in the Catalan Pyrénées during Tuesday’s 168-km (104-mile) 10th stage from Sabadell, a suburb of Barcelona, to La Molina, a ski resort already sprinkled with the first snow of the season. ONCE’s Joseba Beloki easily retained his overall lead for the third day when he

My rest day started at 9:30 on Monday morning with a knock on the door from one of our staff. I think I could have easily slept another 10 hours. That probably wouldn't have been too wise. Breakfast was more on the light side, since in the past I've had a tendency to eat too much between races and then paid the price. Juice, bread, cereal, and fruit were plenty for the training we had planned. Roberto Herras knew exactly where to ride in the busy streets of Barcelona to get us out of town quickly and into the surrounding hills. Johan thought between two and two-and-a-half hours was plenty

The final day of the Tour de l’Avenir in France belonged to a Russian and an Australian, who dashed French hopes at the world’s premier stage race for riders 25 years and younger. iBanesto.com’s Denis Menchov snuck away for the overall victory, snatching the race lead from Frenchman Florent Brard (Festina), while Mercury’s Baden Cooke took his second stage win of the race and the green points jersey. Cooke and Menchov escaped the peloton on the last of five climbs up the Cat. 1 Côte du Chauffaud, escaping 4km from the summit of the climb. They crested the climb with 28 seconds on the chase

Germany’s Judith Arndt won the final round of the UCI Women’s World Cup, the 140km Rotterdam Tour in the Netherlands on Sunday. Saturn’s Anna Millward took the overall World Cup title, despite abandoning the final round on a rainy, windy day in the Netherlands. At the start of the final finishing circuit, with about 20km to go, Arndt escaped from a group of seven which had gone off earlier in the race. Despite the wind and the rain, the German powered away on the final lap, putting more than three minutes on the closest chaser in those closing kilometers. At the finish, Arndt had her first

Riders from the U.S. Postal Service team went on a three-hour training ride during Monday’s rest day to keep their legs fresh for the upcoming battle in the Pyrenees. The 56th Vuelta a España hits a trio climbing stages Tuesday to Thursday that will determine whether or not Roberto Heras can repeat as Vuelta champion. So far, the quiet Spanish rider has had difficulty in the Vuelta’s first two climbing stages and sits in eighth place overall at 2:47 back. “I haven’t thrown in the towel yet,” Heras said. “It’s true I am not going well right now. I don’t know exactly why, but at the same

My apologies for not having any reports for the last few days. Due to the tragedy in New York and the spotty phone and Internet service that followed, my agent – who lives about a mile away from the World Trade Center – was unable to consistently reach me. I will be filing a catch up report tomorrow along with the daily report. Yesterday was the last day before the rest day. The peloton was definitely not ready to rest quite yet. We set a record time of around 55km an hour! The day was extremely windy and everyone -- including our team -- seemed to be on the attack, hoping to split up

Heras

Leipheimer

Strong crosswinds and tailwinds blasted the peloton in Sunday’s 179-km (111-mile) ninth stage of the Vuelta a España from Logrono to Zaragoza, splitting the race into echelons across the flats of northern Spain. ONCE’s Igor Galdeano shot free of the lead group of 40 riders in the final three kilometres. He finished alone to earn his third career Vuelta stage victory as well as the record for the fastest-ever road race at an average speed of 55.17kph. Teammate Joseba Beloki retained the overall lead Sunday and Galdeano says his ONCE team is reinvigorated following Beloki’s big ride

Spanish junior Iñaki Lejarreta says, "Of course my uncle (former Teka and ONCE star Marino Lejarreta, the 1982 Vuelta champion and the last man to complete the Tour, Giro and Vuelta in the same year – all in the top ten) is my hero." Well, the way his nephew dominated the junior men’s field, maybe the roles will soon be reversed. But unlike Marino in his famous 1990 mountain stage win in the Tour at Pontarlier, Iñaki knew that there was nobody ahead of him and raised his arms victoriously as he crossed the line more than two minutes ahead of his nearest competitor. At the end of the first

Great Britain’s Nicole Cooke, the reigning world junior road champion, added another laurel to her collection in the junior women’s cross-country in Vail on Sunday morning. As in Plouay last October, she finished alone, but this time, she got a little help from the confusion of her breakaway companion on the course’s final turn. From the start, Maja Wloszczowska of Poland, last year’s world junior cross-country champion and the reigning European champion, applied pressure on the long, 700-vertical-foot climb of the Vail Village Loop. Wloszczowska crashed on the technical descent but

The under-23 men’s cross-country category is one that breeds rivalries. It’s this middle ground between junior and elite categories where young riders looking to make a career of it have a lot to prove. Junior achievements spell potential, under-23 achievements spell contracts. Past all-star rivalries have included Cadel Evans versus Miguel Martinez, and today’s top battle seems to be the one between 21-year-old Julien Absalon of France and 20-year-old Ryder Hesjedal of Canada. Both are top World Cup threats — Absalon scored his first win at Durango this year — and both came to the world

Alison Dunlap said she started thinking about the 2001 world championships when she hit a tree during the cross-country race at last year’s Olympics in Sydney. On that day, the Colorado Springs, Colorado resident would have to settle for seventh, but she vowed things would be different when the world championships came to her home state. A year later, the 32-year-old made good on that pledge, putting together a stunning last-lap charge to win the cross country on the damp slopes of Vail Mountain. Dunlap entered the final lap of the race in third place, 54 seconds behind race leader Gunn-Rita

With the sun setting on the Vail Valley and the 2001 UCI World Mountain Bike Championships in Colorado on Sunday, Canadian Roland Green put the finishing touches on an historic season that saw many firsts for him and for Canada. First Canadian male to win a World Cup, first Canadian male to win the overall World Cup, and now, first to win the world championship. Green, who made it clear all year long that the world championship was the main focus of his season, started the day as one of a handful of favorites. In the end, the man who put up the toughest battle against the Canadian was Dane

Galdeano

Wind forced the peloton into echelons

Beloki: still Golden

Postal and ONCE drove the train

Lejarreta wore his uncle's picture during the race.

Absalon repeated the 1998 win over Hesjedal when both were juniors.

Hesjedal couldn't match Absalon on the climbs.

Cooke (right) bides her time before making the winning move

Dunlap powers to the win.

Ferguson heads down Vail Mounatin.

Sydor led early, but settled for second.

Dahle ended up dropping out.

Green is the first Canadian male to win a rainbow jersey.

Frischknecht picked up yet another silver medal.

On Saturday morning, members of the French national team reported that reigning world and Olympic champion Miguel Martinez would be arriving at the venue after all. According to team officials, the diminutive climber would be in Vail by Saturday evening. In other news, the schedule for Saturday morning has been pushed back to allow more training time on the downhill course. The junior women’s downhill, originally scheduled for 10:30 a.m., was pushed back to noon. The elite women will start at 1:10 p.m., followed by the elite men at 2:05 p.m. The schedule for the dual finals remains

The topsy-turvy 2001 Vuelta a España delivered up its fifth leadership change in eight days in Saturday’s 195-km (121-mile) stage from Reinosa to the first-category summit finish at Alto Cruz de la Demanda. Joseba Beloki (ONCE) took the “maillot oro” after finishing second behind stage-winner Jose Maria Jimenez (ibanesto.com), marking the first time the young Basque rider has ever led a major three-week stage race despite twice finishing third overall in the Tour de France. Beloki accelerated with two kilometers to go and opened up a gap on the struggling Oscar Sevilla (Kelme), who started

In one of few sporting events happening worldwide only four days after Tuesday’s tragic terrorist attacks, Japan gets to celebrate its first downhill world championship. Eighteen-year-old Mio Suemasa beat the heavily-favored Céline Gros of France by almost two seconds on the difficult American Flyer course at Vail. Suemasa had already thrown down the gauntlet in Thursday’s seeding run by posting the fastest time by 7.33 seconds. She rides for Team GT in Japan and improved on the fifth place she managed at the 2000 world’s in Sierra Nevada, Spain by handling the large rock drops on the

All is back to normal in the world of downhill racing, with the rainbow jerseys draped safely over the shoulders of their rightful owners. Those owners, of course, are French. On a picturesque autumn day in Colorado’s Vail Valley, Anne-Caroline Chausson and Nicolas Vouilloz won the elite world downhill championships during the second day of competition on Saturday. Between them, the two French downhillers now have 18 world downhill championships. For Vouilloz, whose time of 3:35.20 on the 1.43-mile course was more than two seconds faster than his nearest competitor, it was a bit of

In an exciting race in front of a huge crowd on a chilly night under the lights of Vail’s Golden Peak, the two most successful riders in dual history donned the crowns once again. On a course designed by American rider Eric Carter that made for some gripping races, there were some successful passes in some of the pairings, something too often missing on the majority of World Cup dual courses. Chausson and Lopes had been the fastest qualifiers and consequently got to choose their course every run. "Lane choice was definitely key," said Lopes afterwards. "You saw some people pass, but

Beloki takes over the jersey

Leipheimer

Suemasa

Cory and Hill

It's mine: Nico took back the stripes.

She's No. 1: Chausson was nervous but she delivered again.

Night rider: Lopes took the world title in typical form.

Eric Carter was taken out by Scott Beaumont in this round two battle

Kelme´s Santiago Botero got revenge Friday in the hills overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and regained the overall lead of the 56th Vuelta a España after a blistering victory in the 44-km individual time trial. The Colombian won his first stage of this year’s Vuelta after finishing second twice to Cofidis´ David Millar. Pre-race pick Millar was not in peak form, finishing 8th, but American Levi Leipheimer continued to surprise the Europeans with another electrifying ride, finishing second on the hilly, technical course just 29 seconds behind Botero. "I normally start slow in a time trial and

After skipping the second half of the World Cup dual season because of nagging injuries, Anne-Caroline Chausson is back. On Thursday the French Volvo-Cannondale rider was fastest in dual qualifying, posting a time of 44.93 on the world championship course in Vail, Colorado. Just a breath behind Chausson was 2001 World Cup dual champion Leigh Donovan (Schwinn), who was .06 seconds behind Chausson. Australia’s Katrina Miller (Jamis) was third, followed by Tai-Lee Muxlow (Dirt Works), Tara Llanes (Yeti-Pearl Izumi) and Sabrina Jonnier (Intense). Only 13 women started on Thursday, meaning the

Festina’s Florent Brard retained the overall lead at the Tour de l’Avenir as Italian Graziano Gasparre won the second-to-last stage, 175.5km from Belfort to Montbenoit, France. Brard leads the race for the second straight day, eight seconds ahead of another Frenchman, Sylvain Chavanel (Bonjour), in the overall standings. Mercury’s Baden Cooke, already a stage winner earlier in the week, took second on the day. Another French rider, Big Mat’s Guillaume Auger, set off on the first serious attack of the day, 55km into the race, and was joined by Kevin Hulsmans (Mapei-Quick Step) and Eddy Lembo

American Kimberly Bruckner (Saturn) took the overall victory at the Tour de Suisse Féminin in Switzerland after she and her Saturn team won the prologue and three other stages in the four-day race. Saturn began the week with Anna Millward winning the prologue, and then following up with sprint wins on stage 1 and 2. Saturn was defending Millward’s lead, but on Thursday, a group of five riders escaped and gained nearly six minutes. Bruckner not only marked the break, but attacked on the final climb to take the stage win and the overall lead. On Friday, Germany’s Trixi Worrack took the win in

We were hoping it would happen and SuperCup promoter Lyle Fulkerson did not disappoint… he just kept us waiting for a while. Fulkerson said Friday that he has overcome logistical problems and the lack of a title sponsor to hammer together a four-race, three-venue series, beginning in Gloucester, Massachusetts on October 13, moving on to Chicago on November 17 and wrapping up in Baltimore on the weekend of December 14-16. No, it won’t be a truly national series, but it joins other UCI-sanctioned events in the Eastern U.S. to make for a tough group of events, that will each play a role in

There would be no racing today at the 2001 World Mountain-bike Championships. Events for the junior and under-23 cross-country riders were postponed in keeping with the national day of mourning in honor of the victims of this past Tuesday’s terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania. Instead, riders, spectators and support personnel took time, stopped, mourned the victims and celebrated each other in the beauty of this high mountain setting. As a video displayed breathtaking vistas of this great country to background music of “America the Beautiful,” the large “family”

Botero's TT performance put him in the overall lead

Leipheimer continues to surprise 'em