News

British cyclist Chris Hoy broke the high-altitude 500-meter world record at the outdoor velodrome in La Paz, Bolivia, on Sunday. Clocking a time of 24.758sec, Hoy's time knocked a massive 1.092 seconds off the previous record set by Frenchman Arnaud Duble at the same Alto Irpavi velodrome venue in 2001. Hoy had earlier failed for the second day in succession to beat the high altitude one kilometer record set by another Frenchman, Arnaud Tournant, seven years ago. Hoy, the Olympic and world kilometer champion, clocked 0:58.880, missing out on that record by just 0.005 of a second. It

Spectacular scenery

Natalie Klemko of Midwestern State taking a corner...

Mara Abbott, truly the hitman of Whitman.

Early escape, lots of work... and the inevitable catch.

... and winning

Abbott scored her third-straight stars-and-stripes jersey, winning the women's Div. II road race

Popovych is a bit sore, but 'okay,' says Discovery

Jennifer Bodine picks her wheel to ride with one lap to go.

Boyd nails the men's Div. I title...

First, the Villanova Monterleone trimmed the group to three...

Bodine celebrates her win in the D2 crit.

... and Dad's there to share the moment.

... then Brutt tried his luck.

D1 men's omnium winner Mark Hardman of Virginia repeats.

The view from the back of the D1 race

The peloton starts to pick up the pace...

Charles Gallegher of Virginia Tech shows the signs of an earlier dust up.

The dirt road, 1.5 miles of crushed limestone, certainly made it interesting. Over 100 flats, by some counts.

Rebellin, Bettini and Gasparotto.

Phil Mann of CSU

That's got to hurt. The chase group in the D2 men's race piles it up on the gravel.

McEwen tears it up.

D1 Men's winner Phil Mann of CSU.

Larson wins the Division I women's race,

Marzot wins the sprint for D2 Men's Road champ.

The Landis case enters a new phase on Monday

Boyd scores the first win of his career in style.

The stretch of gravel road played a decisive role on Saturday...

... especially here.

Marzot takes the Div. II title

UCI president Pat McQuaid rejected calls that Ivan Basso should be shown clemency or portrayed as a hero for his recent admissions that he was a key figure in the Operación Puerto doping scandal. McQuaid lashed into the disgraced Italian champion despite calls from some within the Italian cycling establishment that Basso should be dealt with a softer hand when it comes dishing out disciplinary bans for his recent confessions that he worked with controversial Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes. “He has admitted his guilt, when he lied to everyone for 10 months,” McQuaid said. “He lied to the

Larson played her cards right.

British cyclist Chris Hoy failed in a high-altitude bid in La Paz, Bolivia, on Saturday to beat Frenchman Arnaud Tournant's seven-year world record for the one kilometer time-trial. Hoy, the Olympic and world kilometre champion, set the sea-level record of 1:00.711 when winning gold in Athens Games in 2004. On Saturday, Hoy timed 0:59.103, 0.228 seconds off Tournant's record, which was also set at the Alto Irpavi velodrome in La Paz, the world's highest track at 3417 meters above sea level. The Briton, who hit speeds of 61 kilometers per hour (37.9mph), will launch another

Enrico Gasparotto gets the first leader's jersey of the Giro.

Hoy came close in La Paz

Liquigas rode an impressive race on a difficult course.

T-Mobile opted for spoked wheels. It may have cost the team.

Astana look poised to win it all... until Liquigas lit it up.

How much time did Disco' lose because of Popo's crash?

An unusual route to the day's start.

After the fall: No worse for wear, Popovych looks ahead for the next three weeks.

Haedo, who has already scored some impressive wins this season, is an unknown quantity at this year's Giro.

Olympic champion Chris Hoy will attempt to set a world record for the kilometer time trial on Saturday at the Alto Irpavo Velodrome in La Paz, Bolivia. The 31-year-old Scot, a multiple world champion over the distance and the world record holder at sea level, is attempting to beat Frenchman Arnaud Tournant's mark of 58.875 seconds, set at the same venue in 2001. The concrete track sits some 3407 meters above sea level. Hoy set the sea-level world record of 1:00.711 in taking the gold medal at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, meaning he will have to ride almost two seconds quicker on

Abbott leads the Whitman women to a D-II victory

Unibet manager Koen Terryn (L) and director Jacques Hanegraaf (R) have spent most of the season plotting legal strategies as opposed to putting a team on the road.

The UC-Santa Barbara mascot, the Gaucho, was out cheering on his team

Jill Kintner

CU rides to the runner-up spot

The varsity boys race

Defending champ UC-Davis rides to fourth place

The Discovery team rides what is proving to be a very unpopular TTT course

Paolo Bettini brings wife and daughter in tow for Friday's opening ceremony. With defending champ Ivan Basso out of the picture, the world champion will start with the No. 1 bib for Saturday's TTT

Giro d'Italia race director Angelo Zomegnan sports a cap from the Garibaldi aircraft carrier's crew

L-B-L champ Danilo Di Luca walks the walk

Riders hitch a ride back on a ferry to get back to hotels to rest up before Giro start

These sailors were happy to see the Giro's podium girls show up

French attacker Thomas Voeckler hopes to win a stage

No one was happy waiting for the ferry ride back from Maddelena Island

Team CSC's Dave Zabriskie carried the team banner on the walk down the launch pad on the Garibaldi

Could Simoni win his final Giro?

"Cycling in the News" is a regular service of VeloNews.com. Readers, reporters and friends are encouraged to send links to current stories about competitive cyclists and cycling that appear in the mainstream media. If you come across a news item that you believe may be of interest to other VeloNews readers, we would be grateful if you choose to send it to rosters@InsideInc.com. After scandal, cycling struggles for sponsorsThe New York TimesWith the Tour de France approaching this summer, the sport of cycling is taking brutal spills in corporate suites, where deals are made to sponsor

Fort Lewis's men took the Division 1 men's time trial

Tour de France champion Floyd Landis, who is fighting to keep his Tour de France title after a positive doping test, charged Thursday that U.S. anti-doping officials offered to go easy on him if he provided evidence incriminating seven-time champ Lance Armstrong. Landis said that Travis Tygart, general counsel for the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, approached his attorney, Howard Jacobs, with a deal shortly after learning of the American's positive doping test during the 2006 Tour. "That took place in the first conversation between USADA and my lawyer," Landis said at a press conference in

And the Fort Lewis women won their event, too

The public prosecutor in the northern Italian town of Busto Arsizio has opened a doping investigation into Italian cycling star Ivan Basso, the ANSA news agency reported on Thursday. And the public prosecutor in the German town of Göttingen wants to hear from Basso regarding an inquiry involving a doctor suspected of supplying drugs to Eufemiano Fuentes, the physician at the center of the Operación Puerto blood-doping scandal that rocked last year’s Tour de France. The new investigations come after Basso admitted on Monday before the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) that he was involved in

The 2007 route

The Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month. The letters published here contain the opinions of the submitting authors and should not be viewed as reflecting the opinions, policies or positions of VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company,

USA Cycling has named Jess Schwartzkopf director of sponsorship and business development. Schwartzkopf comes to USA Cycling from EchoStar Satellite L.L.C., (DISH Network), where he had been marketing manager since April 2004. “The addition of Jess to our staff represents a major step forward in the continuing evolution of USA Cycling and our business development goals,” said Steve Johnson, CEO of USA Cycling. “We are putting a great deal of emphasis on creating partnerships in the cycling industry and providing greater value for our members. Additionally, Jess’s appointment will greatly

Tyler Hamilton and Jörg Jaksche will not race the 2007 Giro d’Italia and have been suspended indefinitely “until the competent authorities ... have finally sorted out all the implication of the riders in Operación Puerto,” their Tinkoff Credit Systems team announced on Wednesday. In a press release, team management said the decision was aimed “at relieving pressure created around the Giro … and on the team itself” after statements made by other squads that decided to deny Giro starts to riders thought to have been implicated in the Spanish blood-doping inquiry. German sprinter Danilo Hondo

Carol Hutton, winner Mara Abbott and Anna Milkowski after last year's women's D-II event

Ft. Lewis drives to a TTT win last year

Hamilton is benched again

Ivan Basso said Tuesday that even though he had planned to blood dope for the 2006 Tour de France, he had actually never taken banned drugs or used blood transfusions. Basso's comments at a press conference follow his admission on Monday to the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) that he was involved in the Operación Puerto blood doping scandal that rocked last year's Tour de France. "I have never taken banned substances and I have never employed blood doping," last year's Giro d’Italia champion told reporters in an emotional statement he read prior to the start of a press

"I experimented with marijuana a time or two. And I didn't like it, and didn't inhale, and never tried it again." — Bill Clinton, The New York Times, March 31, 1992 Anyone expecting great things following Ivan Basso’s solemn confession that he was the “Birillo” named in Operación Puerto should sit down, take a deep breath and a deeper drink, and recall how he or she felt when told that Santa Claus, the Easter bunny and compassionate conservative George W. Bush weren’t for real. This guy won’t even do a proper job of ratting himself out, much less anyone else. "I have never taken

Basso readies to meet the press.

Basso said he is willing to accept the consequences