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The former champ' meets with reporters

Museeuw reads from a prepared statement with his lawyer at his side.

Facing trial on doping charges, former world champion Johan Museeuw on Tuesday admitted to taking drugs in the final months of his career. "In my last year of racing, I made an error, I didn't race faithfully," Museeuw said in a press conference, the first time the 1996 world road race champion has admitted taking drugs. "I wanted to finish my career in style, which pushed me to not play the game honestly." Museeuw’s remarks come after hearing last week that he and others cyclists implicated in a doping scandal will face trial in Kortrijk, Belgium. The Belgian star stands accused of

Two race promoters are planning separate events in Las Vegas as part of the late-September Interbike trade show. Denver-Boulder Couriers promoter Chris Grealish is planning a September 26 UCI cyclo-cross race called Cross Vegas, while USA Crits series promoter Gene Dixon hopes to host the series finale, titled the World Criterium Championships, the following evening. Neither twilight event is directly affiliated with the Interbike trade show, but both hope to draw the thousands of industry folk that flock to Vegas every year. Racing categories will be open to elite men and women. Grealish,

Simoni, at this year's Saunier Duval training camp, may look for off-road gold in Beijing.

Ray Browning, emcee and organizer.

Jeff Broker

Max Testa: Power is the key

Katrina Vogel: Focusing on the interface.

Wellens says his season has already been a success

The stick-thin Belgian suffered at Hoogerheide

Meet the new boss, not the same as the old boss.

The Team

After a bit of a tumble, Millar is back on the road.

Harmony With Nature

The best of '06: Bixby Bridge - Tour of California (BIG FILE)

VeloNews Photo Contest: A new winner, a new gallery and the best of '06

Our latest reader-submitted PhotoGallery has been posted, along with a special year-endgallery, featuring contest winners from throughout 2006. Of course,a new gallery also means the naming of the winner of ourmostrecent contest. Take the time to wander through that gallery and seeif you agree or disagree with our choice of winners this week. This timearound, we found that Carl Viars’ “Harmony With Nature,” served as a beautiful reminder that, aside from walking, bikes are the most elegant, efficient and environmentally friendly form of transportation on the planet. This is not a scene

The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you havea comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen incycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write toWebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name andhome town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writersare encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month.The letters published here contain the opinions of the submittingauthors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, policies or positionsof VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company, InsideCommunications,

The UCI heavily criticized the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) on Monday for alleging that runner-up Oscar Pereiro failed anti-doping controls en route to finishing second overall in the 2006 Tour de France. The French authorities are in an uproar after Pereiro showed traces of salbutamol on two occasions in the 2006 Tour and insinuated that the Spanish rider wasn’t in compliance with anti-doping rules. On Friday, Pereiro produced the required documentation to demonstrate he’s had UCI-sanctioned approval since 2005 to use an asthma medicine that contains traces of the banned substance. In

A team with big men's and women's programs riding under the same banner.

Ukraine comes from behind to take the men's team pursuit

Saluting the home crowd

The aggressive Meyer was scoring his first points as a senior

Reed en route to bronze in the keirin

Bauge and Chiappa dueling in the sprint

The Brits took the team sprint

Nys starts slowly, but finishes first

British beef: from left, Hoy, Staff and Crampton

Kupfernagel shows solid form going into the world's

Huff and Creed in the madison prelims

Sarah Hammer visualizes the win . . .

Creed grits his teeth and digs in

. . . and then goes out and gets it

Morkov and Rassmussen, Madison winners

Scot Chris Hoy turns in the fastest 200m time

Hammer leads the entire field on the last laps

Gideon Massie in the 200

Francois Pervis of France in the team-sprint reride after his crash

Robbie the Rocket wins ahead of an angry Renshaw.

Americans Liz Carlson and Jennie Reed in the women's team sprint final

The US team sprint led by Gideon Massie

Elmiger celebrates a solidly tactical victory.

Mike Creed shows off the new Slipstream kit as he chases in the points race

Quinn, Hammer, and Visser on the podium after the scratch race

Elmiger stayed close...

Roberto Chiappa and Hoy in the prelims of the sprint

Bobby Lea chases down the break

and overcame some serious opposition to win the sprint, locking up the overall title in the process.

Chiappa's legs show the veins of multiple sprints

Menzies' teammates fought to control the pace as they day's first bonus sprint approached.

The Danes started strong in the team pursuit . . .

Elmiger gets a boost going into the European road season.

. . . only to fall apart

Hammer likes racing before a hometown crowd

Hammer hits the line first with Quinn second

Hampton in the scratch race . . .

. . . and on the podium

Hoy in the keirin

Australian cyclist Mark French has been sent home after breaching the national team's code of conduct on Wednesday during a Qantas flight to Los Angeles, where he was to have raced in this weekend's round of the UCI track World Cup series. French, who would not say what happened on the flight, is trying to resurrect his track-racing career, stalled for 18 months following drug allegations that led to a two-year ban in 2004. The Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned the ban on July 2005. While he successfully fought to prove his innocence then, the former world junior champion is

Another view

Hammer nails the points race

Meares in the sprint

Ghyllebert grabs a win, but third-placed Elmiger was a big winner, too.

Meares

Elmiger moves into the lead, but it's still close.

Quinn in the points race

The weather is still rougher than usual this year.

Hammer en route to cracking her own U.S. pursuit record

Brouchard was in the hunt for sprint points

It's Hammer time again

The escapees stayed out for most of the day...

... until the chase began in earnest.

The Nav's lend a hand

Elmiger had hoped to gain time on the climb.

Menzies was not happy with the outcome

Hammer cranking it up

How'd I do, coach?

The pace started out high as escapees tried to sort out a potentially successful combination.