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The Porch of the Caryatids.

The Temple of Olympian Zeus.

Looking back to the Acropolis.

The U.S. team addresses the media.

Team Norway fighting traffic.

Guys like this are all over the city.

A shadowy side street.

The backside of the road race course.

Nazon

Farrar en route to a national title

Spent a good chunk of Wednesday at the Olympic Village, the main housing location for all the athletes here in Athens. Reporter types like myself are only allowed in the International Zone, but you can still get a pretty good idea of what it’s all about. Besides providing sleeping quarters for most of the athletes, there’s a huge dinning hall, rec room, post office, Internet café, photo shop, flower shop and a big outdoor sound stage. Throughout the day groups of well dressed dignitaries file up onto the stage for pomp-and-circumstance presentations. This forced an NBC TV crew that was there

Voeckler will be on the team in '05

Hamilton does an interview near the Olympic Village sound stage.

Info at the fingertips

Path of least resistance.

The torch makes its rounds.

A third of the Greek population calls Athens home.

Four Spanish team riders get in some training near the base of the Acropolis.

The cobbled section of the road course.

The commuter train.

U.S. softball starlet Jennie Finch.

The media compound is well fortified.

The torch is passed.

The new digs.

Striking a pose.

The starship v-drome.

The U.S. men get ready to reconnoiter

Office space.

Levi Leipheimer and Tyler Hamilton lead the way

The U.S. women's road team.

VeloNews diarist Dede Demet Barry joins the Dutch women for a spin

Hamilton's back bears the scars of the Tour.

Bobby Julich and Michael Rasmussen get in a few miles

Julich meets the press.

Teammates in '05?

Hamilton sporting Tugboat's tag.

Hincapie doing a phoner interview.

Yasas (or yasu if we know each other) from Athens. It’s Wednesday afternoon local time — nine hours ahead of the East Coast back in the States — and your intrepid reporter has found his way to the Olympic Village for a 1:30 appointment with Tyler Hamilton. The Phonak pro is out on a training ride at the moment, but assuming he shows up afterward we’re going to snap a photo of him in U.S. team kit for his column in VeloNews. In the meantime here’s a little rundown on my first days in Greece. The whole adventure (I’m calling it that because this is my first go round with the world’s biggest

The Olympic mascot thingy.

The International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) is looking for its next executive director. The Boulder-based non-profit organization has retained the search firm T. Malouf & Company, Inc., to find a replacement for outgoing executive director Tim Blumenthal, who will become executive director of Bikes Belong in September. With 32,000 members, 500 affiliated clubs and hundreds of corporate and retail members, IMBA is the world’s largest mountain-biking organization, dedicated to creating, preserving and enhancing trail opportunities for mountain bikers worldwide. Blumenthal’s

One of the country's leading exports.

Photographer Casey Gibson is in Athens for the 2004 Summer Games and sent us these glimpses of the U.S. team as they practice for the weekend's road races.

Sunset from the burbs of Athens.

Doping is cheating, periodEditor:I've been reading the exchanges on doping in your mailbags. Some interesting points are being raised on both sides, but it seems to me we're making this issue more complicated than is necessary. Doping is cheating, period. There are plenty of good reasons for a person to cheat on final exams (better grades), aptitude tests (better college), performance reports (bigger profits), the Friday poker game (bigger winnings), or the weekend bike race (better results). But the plain truth is, it's still cheating. Period. One who cheats to get something does not

The king of the pin collectors.

Not a bad spot.

Don't bring the Amex here.

Master cycling technician, Lennard Zinn, will make a special presentation at the REI Oakbrook Terrace at 7 p.m. on Friday, August 20th. Visit the REI Oakbrook Terrace to get the inside scoop on your bike fit, physical conditioning and have Lennard sign your copy of Zinn’s Cycling Primer. Admission is FREE. Seating is limited. REI Oakbrook Terrace17W160 22nd St.Oakbrook Terrace, IL 60181Phone: 630.574.77007:00 PM About the book:Lennard Zinn does it again, taking you through the basics and particulars of bicycle maintenance and skill building to refine your bike and body. Zinn evaluates

The Mail Bag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.Link racers’ pay to drug-free performanceEditor:It seems as though every single cyclist who has been caught doping or trafficking has recited the same excuse: "I had to succeed because my livelihood depended on it.” And it's hard to argue against their course of action. Mr. Millar

here is a new poll:

Camenzind has been dropped from the Swiss Olympic team and sacked by Phonak

Kaboom: Kabush rode away with another short-track win.

One time: Craig finished third on a single-speed

14 and counting: Dunlap chalked up another short-track win.

The other blue train: Luna was unstoppable.

Close call: Rennie won by a whisker.

Leading lady: Pruitt leads the DH series with one to go.

Out of the shadows: Rockwell made a surprise showing.

CSC had a good Tour of Denmark, claiming the top two spots on the podium

Mario de Clercq gives it a go

But it wasn't a day at the beach, even if it was hot enough for swimming

Sven Nijs had a better time of it

But then again, winning is always nice

George Hincapie will ride for the next three seasons with Discovery Channel after penning a contract extension to stay with the American team during the recent Tour de France. Hincapie has raced in the U.S. Postal Service colors since 1997 and decided it was best to continue with the team as cable giant Discovery Channel is set to take over the sponsorship for the 2005 season. “I’ve signed for three more years. I’m staying,” Hincapie told VeloNews after finishing 56th at 5:24 back in Saturday’s Clasica San Sebastián. “I had some offers and we didn’t know if the team was going to continue,

Perdiguero claims his first World Cup win

Leipheimer had a go after shelling an early break

Rebellin crossed third to hold onto the World Cup lead

Totschnig tows the break

Ullrich chased until sidelined by a mechanical

Garate

The top three

Long time coming: Wells finally won his first NORBA cross-country

On target: Florit said she's ready for Athens

After six months of chasing UCI points, a weeklong delay in the initial announcement, an arbitration hearing and an appeal of that decision, the battle for the lone women’s start spot on the U.S. Olympic cross-country team is finally over. On Friday afternoon in a federal courthouse in downtown Denver, Judge Phillip Figa denied a motion filed by Sue Haywood’s attorney asking the court to vacate the original arbitration decision that awarded that lone start spot to Mary McConneloug, and allow for another arbitration hearing. Haywood (Trek-Volkswagen), who was at the courthouse in Denver,

BERKELEY, Calif., August 5, 2004 - Clif Bar Inc. announced today that George Hincapie has won fan balloting for the third annual Beyond The Podium Award, earning a $10,000 first prize from the company. Riding in his 10th career Tour de France, Hincapie came through with his most impressive effort to date, finishing 33rd overall, but more importantly playing a key domestique role in helping his U.S. Postal Service Pro Cycling Team leader win an unprecedented sixth straight yellow jersey at this year’s Tour de France. The Clif Bar Inc. award honors domestiques - the unsung heroes of cycling -

The Mail Bag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.Stop paying attention to all this crapEditor:If you pay attention to the ratio of articles posted on your site (which has always been my favorite, by the way, and I go to it several times a day), about half of them are about drugs. Everyone keeps saying, “Show something else other than

Dear Bob,Here in Massachusetts, we have several off-road trails that cross roadways in mid-block using crosswalks. The trail has a regular stop sign facing the path, only smaller, and the crosswalk has the usual street markings. The roadway doesn't have a stop or yield sign, but it does have a yellow warning sign. Some cars stop, some don't. Who really has the right-of-way, a cyclist or a motorist? Is the stop sign legitimate, or just advisory?E & C Dear E & C,This is a good question, and it's becoming a hot topic among off-road trail planners. Many motorists think that they only have an

Lelli has been charged wiith drug trafficking

Dave Fuentes tested positive for oxymetholone metabolites at the Redlands Classic on March 25, the U.S. Olympic Committee has announced. The 31-year-old from Berkeley, California, who had 12 wins in 2003, disputes the test results. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) is investigating. "If a sanction is imposed, USADA will make the announcement at a later date," the USOC said in a statement. Long-term, high-dose use of oxymetholone, an anabolic steroid used to treat certain types of anemia, has been linked to tumors of the liver, liver cancer and peliosis hepatis.

The Mail Bag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.Sign petition asking OLN to air VueltaEditor:Please add to your mail that there is hope for the Vuelta a España on OLN. There’s an online petition asking OLN to reconsider its decision to air only a one-hour highlight show. It’s at http://www.petitiononline.com/vuelta3/. The more who