Lance Armstrong began this year’s Tour of Switzerland in fine form on Tuesday, winning the 7.9km prologue time trial in the German town of Rust. Armstrong posted a time of 9:44.22 through the streets of Rust, and only Frenchman Laurent Jalabert prevented a Postal Service sweep of the podium. Jalabert was second in 9:49.36 followed by Armstrong teammates Tyler Hamilton and Viatcheslav Ekimov in third and fourth, respectively.
In an about-to-be-released book, former Festina team manager Bruno Roussel alleges that bribery among Tour de France rider was common practice when he was a manager. Roussel’s "Tour of vices" is due to be published on Wednesday, and the French newspaper Le Monde has been serializing the book.Roussel, who has admitted organizing doping allegedly for health reasons in his team before the Festina scandal erupted in 1998, claimed that former king of the mountains Richard Virenque had "bought" a stage victory from German rider Jan Ullrich in 1997.Roussel also said that Virenque's bribe offer
She may have been something of a surprise when she rode to a second-place finish, at U.S. road nationals in Redding, California this year, but Earthlink’s Amber Neben may have just pulled her last surprise performance. The 26-year-old mountain-bike racing immunologist is beginning to make a name for herself as a serious road racer, especially after chasing down a nearly successful break, and going to a solo win in Tuesday’s eighth stage of the HP Women’s Challenge in Idaho. Meanwhile Saturn’s Lyne Bessette maintains a tight hold on the overall lead of the Women’s Challenge, with a 3:13
Armstrong in yellow
Bruckner says she feels better racing than spectating, but found it impossible to ride Tuesday.
Neben realized she could beat the rest of the group and took off on her own.
Neben was on her own.
Prime Alliance’s Jonas Carney won the Nature Valley criterium in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Sunday after a controversial finish to the 90-minute event. Carney topped Navigators’ Franky Van Haesebroucke and U.S. Postal Service’s Robbie Ventura in the downtown event, the second race in the Nature Valley Grand Prix, part of the Touchstone Energy Classic which included the U.S. elite track nationals in Blaine, Minnesota. Sunday’s event came down to a field-sprint finish, with the Navigators train leading the way on the final lap. Heading into the final turn, Carney dove to the inside, touching off
Trixi Worrack of the German national team sprinted out of an elite group of leaders Monday to take the seventh stage of the 2001 HP Women’s Challenge as it finished atop a long climb up to southern Idaho’s Pomerelle ski area. The 19-year-old’s win did little to alter the overall standings of this race, with Saturn’s Lyne Bessette now leading by more than three minutes. But included in the group of top finishers was Worrack’s teammate Judith Arndt who has moved past Acca Due O’s Rasa Polikeviciute to take over second place. Worrack and Arndt were among a group of five, including Bessette,
Bessette, Worrack and Longo
Editor's note: Jen Dial, riding as a teammate of Jeannie Longo on Office Depot at the HP Women's Challenge, is providing an inside-the-race look at the biggest women's stage race in America. The latest from her diary: Why is it that every time I climb to the top of the 8,700 ft peak at Galena I end up with a needle in my arm? It probably has to do with the fact that I live as close to sea level as a person can get without being in the water. Still, after the climb up and the race down the other side I'm in much better shape than I was in my first HP Women's Challenge in
Round two of the Tissot-UCI World Cup dual series in Vars, France, was cancelled Saturday due to inclement weather and a rider protest of conditions. Severe thunderstorms and hail forced officials to cancel the event, making it the first time in the World Cup’s 11-year history that a finals event was cancelled. The weather wasn’t expected to affect Sunday’s downhill race.
The Classique du Quebec is a one-day road race that was held Saturday as a lead-up event to the Grand Prix de Beauce, which begins Monday. The UCI ranked race was held around the island of Orleans, just outside the city of Quebec. Riders headed out from Quebec to complete two loops around the island before heading back to the city, for a total of 165 kilometers. On the second loop of the island a lead group of 14 formed, including Canadians Gord Fraser (Mercury), Dominique Perras (Team G.S. Ficonseils), Eric Wohlberg (Saturn), Czeslaw Lukaszewicz (Team Canada) and Mark Walters (Navigators),
Frenchman Christophe Moreau won the Dauphine Libere stage race, which finished in Chambery, France, on Sunday. The Frenchman took the win by a slim one-second margin over Mercury-Viatel’s Pavel Tonkov following the seventh and final stage. German Jens Voigt of the Credit Agricole team won the 125km stage between Vizille and Chambery. Voigt’s teammate, American Bobby Julich, finished third on the day, at 1:12. Moreau, fourth in last year's Tour de France, came out on top of tough seven-day race that saw five leaders. Moreau took the overall leader's blue-and-yellow jersey on Friday from
Australian Cadel Evans might have a future on the road. Volvo-Cannondale’s star of the World Cup mountain-bike circuit completed a surprising win at the Tour of Austria stage race Sunday. The 24-year-old Evans, riding for Saeco, took the lead in the fourth stage, which finished atop the Kitzbuhl Horn. The lanky Aussie made a solo attack to win that 154km stage by 25 seconds. Mapei rider Daniele Nardello won Sunday’s seventh and final stage, but Evans maintained his overall lead to take the win with a 47-second margin over Austrian Hans Peter Obwaller. Another mountain-bike racer, Italian
GT’s Steve Peat and Volvo-Cannondale’s Anne-Caroline Chausson repeated their round one World Cup downhill victories with wins at Vars, France, Sunday. After Saturday’s dual round was cancelled due to weather, conditions were still challenging for round two of the eight-race downhill series on Sunday. Temperatures were near freezing, with occasional rain and even snow falling on the muddy course. Peat’s win, which came on his birthday, gives the British rider the upper hand on defending World Cup champion Nicolas Vouilloz of France. Vouilloz crashed near the end of his run and ended up
He did once say that "it ain't over till it's over," but the Saturn team is putting that old Yogi-ism to the test at the HP Women's Challenge. Until today, the 12-day Idaho stage race had been a two-woman contest between Saturn's Lyne Bessette and the venerable French champion Jeannie Longo, competing with a composite team, sponsored by Office Depot. But by the end of today's flat and wind-blown 80-mile stage – won by Saturn’s Petra Rossner – Longo was knocked back to tenth place overall, more than 11 minutes back and Bessette now enjoys a lead of more than two minutes over second-place Rasa
Peat chose the right tires for the conditions and extended his overall World Cup lead.
Moreau protected the yellow-and-blue leader's jersey on the final day.
She may be riding shotgun in the team car, but Bessette is in the driver's seat at HP
Spaniard Iban Mayo of Euskaltel-Euskadi won the sixth stage of the Dauphiné Libéré on Saturday. The 23-year-old, who scored his first major win in May at the Midi Libre, finished the 193km stage between Pontcharra and Briancon ahead of Mercruy-Viatel’s Pavel Tonkov and race leader Christophe Moureau of Festina. Moureau retains the leader’s jersey, one second ahead of Tonkov. American Jonathan Vaughters of the Credit Agricole team, winner of the stage 4 time trial, abandoned the race. Also abandoning was Scotsman David Millar of the Cofidis team. Millar had worn the leader’s jersey earlier
Luxembourg native Kim Kirchen of the Fassa Bortolo team scored a home stage win at the Tour of Luxembourg Saturday. American Fred Rodriguez of Domo-Farm Frites lost the overall lead to Dane Jorgen Bo Petersen of Team Fakta. Petersen finished the 102km stage fourth, 10 seconds behind Kirchen’s winning time of 2:11:49. Rodriguez will go into Sunday’s final stage second overall, 14 seconds behind Petersen.
Saturn's Lyne Bessette moved into the overall lead of the HP Women's Challenge as she beat race leader Jeannie Longo (Office Depot) in a short head-to-head time trial near the edge of the Sun Valley resort area Saturday morning. This style of stage is unique to the HP and a favorite of race director Jim Rabdau, pitting closely matched GC riders against one another in a side-by-side, no drafting time trial. Riders earn a five-second time bonus for beating her opponent and additional bonuses for catching riders who started 30 seconds ahead. Beginning with last place GC rider (who rode with a
There was yet another repeat winner at the USCF elite national track championships on Saturday morning. Jame Carney won his second straight national crown in the men’s points race at the National Sports Center Velodrome in Blaine, Minnesota. Carney has now won the title five times (1991, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2001). Saturday’s race came down to a battle between Carney, Prime Alliance teammate Colby Pearce, and NetZero’s Mike Tillman. The trio was part of a four-rider break that got away from the field in the early going and quickly put a lap on the field. The break’s other member was Tim
The Dutch National Team’s Chantal Beltman sprinted out of a lead group of three to take a stage win at the HP Women’s Challenge Elkhorn Circuit Race Saturday. However, the big news of this fifth stage is that overall race leader Lyne Bessette (Saturn) was among that group of three that finished 1:20 ahead of the field and second-placed Jeannie Longo (Office Depot). Bessette had just moved into the leader’s jersey Saturday morning in a head-to-head time trial against Longo. As the 18-lap, 28.8-mile stage began on Saturday evening, Bessette enjoyed just a small 12-second advantage over the
News flash: Marty Nothstein actually lost a race at the USCF elite track national championships. But before that happened the Olympic gold medalist added to his unprecedented cache of stars-and-strips jerseys by taking the top spot in the Keirin. That win gave Nothstein his 30th national title, one for every year of his life. In the Keirin final Nothstein was content to sit back during the moto-paced lead-out laps. But when the small motorcycle dropped off the track it was on, and as usual so was Nothstein. The 30-year-old seems to possess a gear not in his foe’s repertoires and he showed it
Saturn's Frank McCormack was the winner of the Nature Valley Grand Prix Road Race on Saturday in Plainview, Minnesota. McCormack beat out two Navigators riders, Kirk O’Bee and Glen Mitchel, who took second and third respectively. The 102-mile NRC race was held on a 34-mile circuit one-and-a-half hours south of Minneapolis. The toughest part of the race was a pair of 1-mile climbs up a river bluff. Riders will be back in action on Sunday at the Nature Valley Grand Prix Criterium, which takes place on the grounds of the Minnesota state capitol in St. Paul.
Moreau kept the leader's jersey and Tonkov kept his eye on it.
Tillman (center) was boxed in all day by the Prime Alliance riders.
Nothstein lurked near the back, then struck on the last lap.
Pearce took home another Madison title.
Reinhart and Kyle moved themselves into second place.
Think it's tough to finish a Tour stage? How about having to sit down and write down a recap of the day's action? We've got three Americans -- Tyler Hamilton, Fred Rodriguez and Kevin Livingston -- lined up to dish out daily snapshots of what it's like to ride the Tour. Our trio of riders will rotate through as they deliver same-day reports while the day's details are still fresh in their minds. And with the time change from Europe to North America, you could be reading reports before dinner, just as these guys are headed to bed. Dear Diary...indeed.
Britain's David Millar became the fourth race leader to lose the coveted yellow-and-blue jersey of the Dauphiné Libéré stage race in France on Friday. Frenchman Christophe Moreau, riding for Festina, did the honors of stealing the jersey after the 151km fifth stage between Romans and Grenoble. Moreau finished sixth on the day, 33 seconds behind stage winner Andrei Kivilev. The Cofidis rider from Kazakhstan won a sprint finish to grab his first professional stage win. Moreau’s overall lead is tenuous, as Mercury-Viatel’s Pavel Tonkov sits just one second behind Moreau. Millar has made
Volvo-Cannondale mountain-bike racer Cadel Evans impressed the road racing world with a win at the fourth stage of the Tour of Austria Thursday. Riding for Saeco-Cannondale, the 24-year-old showed good climbing form on the 154km stage that started in Bad Gasteinz and finished with a climb up to the Kitzbuhl Horn. Evans escaped with 3km to go and soloed in for the lead. He holds a 47 second lead over Austrian Peter Obwaller. In fifth overall is another mountain-bike pro, Dario Cioni of Italy.
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.
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