News

Gonzales chases mountain points.

Riders climb the Alps during the 162km 14th stage

Pack of riders climbing in the Alps

Pack of riders climbing in the Alps

Saeco rider and current leader Gilberto Simoni

Vini Caldirola rider Stefano Garzelli (L) and Lituanian Lampre rider Raimondas Rumsas

Saeco rider and current leader Gilberto Simoni is cheered on as he climbs

Saeco rider and pink jersey holder Gilberto Simoni pushes to the finish line

Simoni still gets the bottle every day.

Jayson Blair joins the VeloNews.com staff.

One more hint that this is not your average bike race.

Will we see rainbows in July, too?

“Good evening, sports fans, Biff Barf here in the Biff Barf Sportlight Spotlight, biffin’ ’em up and barfin’ ’em right back atcha! I call ’em the way I see ’em - and if I don’t see ’em, I make ’em up!” – George Carlin as sportscaster Biff Barf in “The 11 O’Clock News” from “FM & AM” After Jayson Blair got popped for writing fiction in the news columns of The New York Times, America’s legendary paper of record, you’re probably wondering whether anything you read these days can be trusted. Well, rest assured, we here at VeloNews go the extra kilometer to make certain that your cycling news is

Number Four

Garzelli attacks on the final hill.

Rosina hill

Petacchi gets No. 4

Petacchi celebrates

Simoni celebrates.

The former site of the Iraq National Olympic Headquarters, complete with its recognizable five rings on the wall outside and a toppled statue of Saddam Hussein inside the walls, stands a charred wreck. It sits near the Canal Expressway in Western Baghdad, filled with a few poor Baghdad residents sifting through the wreckage for something useful to loot. Already, the head of the statue of Saddam that once stood outside had been sawed off and taken away. According to the New York Times, a metal framework used for administering electric shocks to athletes who didn’t perform, was taken to a

... and leaves Casagrande to ride his own race

Glory days in San Francisco.

Simoni shines

Voight

Simoni makes his move...

Neben on the attack

Belli

T-Mobile in control

Marzio Bruseghin

Neben wins

The day's first escape

The climb all have been dreading

Pantani says he's back; Thursday showed he might be right

Thursday was tough... even on the 'easy' parts.

Pantani showed some of his old form

I didn’t have a lot to say about anything this week, so I decided to run with the short-attention-span special. No Snowmass to replace TellurideRegarding the fate of the cancelled Telluride World Cup, all the talk at Big Bear was that a Colorado-based promoter was in talks with the UCI and that there was a good chance the event would end up at Snowmass, a ski area near Aspen. Well, we got a call Wednesday morning from the promoter, CycleCyndicate’s Eric Jean, and he said that it just wasn’t going to work out. “We couldn’t make it happen financially,” Jean told me. “We needed about $225,000,

Garzelli minimized the damage.

Editor:Last year I went to France to follow the Tour. I was well aware of the history of Mario Cipollini in the Tour, good and bad - but my feeling was that the Tour de France went beyond what was reasonable and into the realm of personal vendetta when spots for additional teams opened up after the 2002 Giro and Cipollini's team was not selected. I enjoyed my trip to the Tour immensely, but in every sprint, I knew that the best was not there, though Cipollini had done what the Tour had demanded, reinventing himself with breakaway wins, courageously traversing mountains, a grand-tour finish

Simoni established his supremacy in the mountains.

“Life is what happens when you’re making other plans,” John Lennon once said. Words of wisdom, Lennon’s fortune-cookie philosophy, and lately it seems I’ve been experiencing plenty of life - which, I suppose, beats the alternative. Maybe I should stop making other plans. For starters, with mortgage rates dipping to a 40-year low last week, I’ve been actively looking into buying my first place, which means applying for my first home loan - a procedure that has thus far involved countless conversations with various real-estate agents, lenders, sellers, and my mother - who, in my case,

Simoni managed to make even the steep parts look easy.

Dear Bob;Do you have any information regarding the procedures and method inwhich athletes are selected by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency drug testing?What is their authority to test? Is the testing method fair and legal asimplemented? What are the ramifications for an athlete who fails to showup for testing?TJColorado Dear TJ;You raise two separate legal questions:1) What are the limits of the authority of the USADA to requiretesting; and2) What are the limits on the USADA or the National GoverningBody (NGB) for enforcing non-compliance, either after a positive test ora failure to comply with

Simoni wins.

Australian Lotto domo rider Robbie Mc Ewen raises his arms after crossing the finish line

Australian Lotto domo rider Robbie Mc Ewen raises his arms after crossing the finish line

Mario Cipollini arrives at the finish line after he crashed on the last corner

The men from Tenax

The day started nice

Simoni avoided the carnage, but was angry.

Pettyjohn concedes defeat

Baldwin surprised the Saturn boys

Bruckner

Long

The course profile alone was enough to strike fear in the hearts of many a rider … or at least enough to make you think the promoter was nuts. Either way, the 140-mile climbers’ fest between Boulder and Breckenridge, Colorado, became a favorite in its three-year history. Unfortunately, race promoter Len Pettyjohn said Wednesday, he has been unable to secure a replacement for title sponsor Saturn after the auto manufacturer pulled out in March, forcing him to cancel the race for 2003. “We had a number of companies interested in replacing Saturn as the titlesponsor, but current economic

Super Big Bear

Super Big Bear

Preview: The challenge of Monte Zoncolan

Cipollini got up and finished the final 160 meters

The pack of riders cycle along the Comacchio valley

The Giro d'Italia pack rides under heavy rain clouds

First, the champagne ...

... then the kiss.

Garzelli in pursuit

A dangerous move

Norways' road champion takes the stage

Will these guys aim for 43 tomorrow?

Where's Mario? Let's just say this was not the Lion King's type of course

The final cut

Technical Q&A with Lennard Zinn

Last week, we left the comfort of the gutter in Belgium to tackle the hills of Luxembourg in the 54th running of the Fleche du Sud. There were some great moments this weekend, topped off with Mark Fitzgerald winning the second stage and taking the GC on the same day and Mariano Friedrick placing 8th in the first two stages. I don't really have a whole lot to say about the race. Yep, it was hard, scary at times (descending mountains in the rain at 50 mph), and yep, I am definitely not a climber right now. What I can say is this: Mark rode in a break for 50 kilometers and then attacked the

Mark on the top step.

The move.

It was a hilly stage on Tuesday