News

This ain't training camp in Phoenix

Freire in leader's jersey celebrates No. 2

The Ruta del Sol lives up to its name.

Van Goolen almost made it.

Juan Fernandez, the sport director of Team Coast, is optimistic that Jan Ullrich will be able to come back to challenge Lance Armstrong in the 2003 Tour de France. Speaking to journalists during the Ruta del Sol, Fernandez says Ullrich is eyeing to come back to competition in late March, when his current suspension is set to expire. "I believe that he will comeback to be one of the strongest in the peloton," Fernandez said. "He's overcome his problems from last year and he has the motivation to be back on top." Fernandez, of course, is putting the best face forward for the team's

With team photos out of the way, and after quite a few long days on the bike, the guys got up this morning to put in another day at the office. "I think it's going to be a hard ride today," Ed Beamon tells me over breakfast. "Cool," I reply. "I was thinking of sitting this one out anyway." Yesterday I had trouble sitting on the back even while they were going intentionally slow to allow the photographer to take action shots from the follow car. So instead I stopped by the room of Glen Mitchell, Burke Swindlehurst, and Mark Walters, all returning team members from last year, to talk about

Ullrich and his Coast teammates training in Spain last month

Fassa Bortolo powered the stage-win in the team time trial Sunday in the finalstage of the 30th Tour Mediterranean while Italian Paolo Bettini gave the new Quick Step super-team its first stage-race win of the season with the overall victory. French rider Laurent Brochard (AG2R) had narrowed Bettini's hold on the race lead in Saturday's stage, but Quick Step-Davimaton kept things under control Sunday, finishing third behind winner Fassa Bortolo and a strong ride by second-place Rabobank. The win is the first of the season for the 2002 overall World Cup champion after finishing seven

Bettini

The fast Fassas

Giro d’Italia winner Paolo Savoldelli (Telekom) is recovering in hospital after being knocked over by a motorcycle during a pre-season training ride in Tenerife, Spain, Saturday. The Italian, one of the new stars recruited by the German Telekom squad, was admitted to a local hospital with fractures to his nose and mouth. He was due to be transferred to the university clinic at Fribourg-en-Brisgau in Germany to undergo surgery. Savoldelli had been expected to line up in the Telekom jersey for the first time in the Tour of Valencia in Spain on February 25. Another new face in his German

Savoldelli (with teammates Erik Zabel and Santiago Botero)

Notes from the road: I've got a purple ticket

Ready to roll

The Navigators in Tuscany - Part II

Friday’s foaming rant: Riding with Lance

Riding the 'Net: Top riders' Web sites

Riding the 'Net: Top riders' Web sites

Marco Pantani is reportedly interested in signing another troubled star, Spanish climber Jose Maria Jimenez. The pair met while training in the Canary Islands and now Pantani wants Jimenez to join him at Mercatone Uno-Scanavino, according to a report in the Spanish sports daily AS. Pantani met Jimenez, nicknamed “El Chava,” in the same hotel in Maspalomas on Gran Canaria while training with teammates Daniel Clavero, Fabiano Fontanelli and Roberto Conti last week. According to AS, the team’s agents are interested in signing Jimenez, who missed most of last season suffering from depression. He

“In about 30 seconds, I’m gonna walk out of here and you’re allgonna be out of my life. And when the race is done, I’m going to go hometo my family, and then you’ll really be out of my life.”— Lance Armstrong, to the collected press at the conclusion of a Tourde France press conference in 2001. Yep, I’m still here, and I think I’ve already passed the over/underon how long this column would stick. I have to admit, though, that fora split second this week, I thought I was outta here, that I was goingto pull a Lance and be sitting on a beach somewhere, and that you wouldnever hear from me again

After two days of moderately difficult rides, the Navigators decided to head out for what was deemed an "easy" day in the saddle, though it hardly turned out that way. From the sound of things, the pace was easy for the 10km to Bolgheri, and then someone went to the front and turned on the gas. Henk Vogels wasn’t to blame this time - I saw him and Ryan Guay leaving quietly on their own, about 15 minutes after the rest, for a truly easy, flat 50km. Given my present level of fitness (or more accurately, the lack thereof), I skipped the ride entirely and caught up with the mechanics to discuss

"I love to, fundamentally, just ride the bike.”– Lance Armstrong in an interview with the Colorado Springs Gazette Lance Armstrong and I went for a ride in Colorado Springs the otherday. Not together, of course. Get real. He’s known to be going for a fifthconsecutive Tour, whereas I’ve been known to go for a fifth consecutiveGuinness. The day SuperTex thinks it’s smart to log a handful of qualitymiles with a wobbly 48-year-old tosspot is the day he’s decided to chopthe sleeves off an old maillot jaune and spend his daylight hourstowing the kiddies around the Redneck Riviera in a Burley

Over the past few years, rider Web sites have become common, featuringeverything from photos and results to forums and personal Web diaries.For some riders, such as world champion Mario Cippolini, the opportunityto personalize a site with design and flair is simply irresistible, whileother rider Web sites are simply the product of dedicated fans.To better prepare for the 2003 international race season, we offer aquick look at the Web sites of the UCI’s top-ranked riders.1. Erik Zabelhttp://come.to/erik-zabel2002 UCI points: 22692002 Team: Telekom2003 Team: TelekomWeb site language:

DeGroot still in yellow

El Chava

Notes from the road: I've got a purple ticket

Training camp in Tuscany… there are worse fates. Members of the Navigators team trickled in from airports all over northern Italy last week. They found their way over golden hillsides, through vineyards and olive trees, to a tiny town called Castagneto Carducci, which – depending on what map you use – may or may not exist. They’re packed into the only hotel in a five-kilometer radius, six-foot-long bodies draped over micro-thin “twin” beds. Hotel Zi’Martino houses a multitude of professional and amateur European cycling teams for winter and early spring training camps. In fact, the

Just my luck. Take off on a road-race assignment halfway around the world just when half the pro mountain bike teams on the planet decide they’ve gotten their stuff together and are ready to announce their plans for 2003. So if you’ve really been paying attention you probably know a lot of this already; if not here goes. KONAFabien Barel didn’t do himself any favors when he missed his start time at last year’s world championships and was DQ’d from the downhill. But fortunately for the Frenchman, Kona has seen fit to take a chance on him. Barel’s joined by Kona holdovers Geoff Kabush, Peter

Beloki wants to change this year's Tour podium

Navigators in Tuscany

Wedge: A grip on reality

Barel: New contract. New watch?

Leuchs: Maxxis gets a cross-country headliner

Spanish rider Joseba Beloki is one of those types of riders who never turns down a request for an autograph and always has a smile on his face. Despite three consecutive Tour de France podiums, however, he’s not regarded as a feared rider. With the absence of Jan Ullrich last year, Beloki bounced to second on the Tour podium. Still, it’s one very far step to knock off defending champion Lance Armstrong. In an interview with MARCA, a Spanish sports daily, Beloki admits he has to ride more aggressively if he hopes to seriously challenge Armstrong. “I think I need to change my attitude about

Can a local, small town, restrict bicycle use and mandate that bikes notuse a public road? A sidewalk is available. This is in a suburb of Houston, Texas.Thank for your time.DaveDear Dave;You raise one of the most frequently asked questions in cycling. Unfortunately, the answer varies widely from state to state, and many of the foundation cases in this subject are over a century old! Let's start with the general law that applies to your query and work our way to your specific situation. While the courts have long recognized a Constitutional right to travel, they have not recognized a

Endurance athletes who regularly take vitamin and mineral supplements are likely familiar with the United States Pharmacopeia and have seen their "USP" mark on the label of purchased products. This not-for-profit, non-government organization has established state-of-the art standards to ensure quality products. In 2000, USP created the Dietary Supplement Verification Program (DSVP) to ensure that supplement contains the declared ingredients in the declared quantities. Manufacturers who participate in this program agree to a number of guidelines including random off-the-shelf testing of

Marco Pantani admits his best days could be behind him, in an interview in the French sports daily L’Equipe published Tuesday. Pantani, who won both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France in 1998, said he’s hoping for a solid, but not spectacular 2003 season. “I will probably never be the great Pantani again,” the 33-year-old Italian said. “But it’s irrelevant now. I’m looking to establish a new relationship with my job, to find new serenity.” Pantani was on top of the cycling world when he was kicked out of the 1999 Giro while leading the race when tests revealed a high hematocrit level.

Pantani: setting modest goals for '03

Degroot

Bettini

The escapees

Manitou's new technology must be ridden hard to be fully appreciated

Lennard gets dwarfed by Coach Cartwright

Mario Cipollini said he wasn't ready to race for the upcoming Tour deMediterranean (see preview below), so that was enough for the organizers to kick his Domina Vacanze team out of the race. Cipollini said during a press conference Saturday at the team presentation in Egypt he simply wasn't in form to commit to a stage-race so early in the season. Instead, the world champion will make his season debut at Luis Puig (Feb. 23 in Spain). When race organizers heard the word, they decided not to allow his Italian team to the start line. "Cipollini waited at the last minute to tell me

Technical Q&A with Lennard Zinn

Technical Q&A with Lennard Zinn

Technical Q&A with Lennard Zinn

Things got a little crazy at the end of a wild weekend in Egypt with Super Mario

Cipo getting down during the team presentation in Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt

SHARM EL SHEIHK, Egypt -- Mario Cipollini never does anything half-bore. So it was no surprise when his new team - Domina Vacanze - decided to unveil its new sponsorship deal with the world champion, it would be done with typical Italian style and flash. Cipollini and the boys enjoyed a weekend in the warm Egyptian sun, pressing the flesh so to speak with the locals and sponsors and going on two light training rides in the Sinai Peninsula. VeloNews' European correspondent Andrew Hood sat down with a handful of other English-speaking journalists for an audience with the Lion King on

Euro (Egypt) file - Cipollini never does anything half-bore

A view for a (Lion) King on Egypt's Red Sea.

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt - What do you get when you combine sun, sand and sea with a strong dose of Mario Cipollini? One bizarre and very Italian -- with a faux Arab touch - team presentation. Domina Vacanze - an Italian time-share and resort company -- is the new title sponsor for Cipollini's team. This weekend, company president Ernesto Preatoni filled a Boeing 737 with the world champion, seven other teammates, about 40 journalists and a gaggle of VIPs, hanger's-on and friends and flew them down to the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula to formally introduce the team's one-year

The final podium.

Brown and Bongiorno battle in the sprint...

...before having a few words afterwords.

Danielson was quick to credit the work of his teammates.

Saturn started at the front, but didn't have to stay there long.

Cipollini looking like a rock star

Mario Scirea, left, Giovanni Lombardi, center, and Cipollini, meet the locals

One of the girls 'Dances like an Egyptian'

Horner was on bottle duty all day.

Saturday's podium.

Stage 10 route

Stage 10 profile

Danielson and Munoz battled all the way to the finish.

Danileson shows the strain of the day.

Green (left) lost touch with less than 3km to go.

I’m stoked.After a weekend of watching the Winter X Games, I’m stoked to learn that, "Dude, great run. Are you stoked?" is apparently a journalistically acceptable interview question. All I can say is, "I’m stoked."I’m just glad the X Games weren’t around when we were kids. Who among us would have survived a childhood of trying to copy those moves? I don’t know how the kids do it. It was bad enough trying to ride no-hands and running into the trunk of a parked car. How can you not watch the Winter X Games, though? Fourteen-year-old kids hucking themselves through the air, all the while

International cycling chief Hein Verbruggen has branded the world sports drug agency as "incredibly weak" and accused it of discrimination in its fight against doping in North America. In a confidential letter addressed to World Anti-Doping Agency president Dick Pound and obtained by The Australian, Verbruggen calls on WADA to lobby the U.S. government and demand it make all of its professional sports fall in line with WADA's doping laws. Verbruggen believes WADA is being soft on pushing the US government to bring its professional ice hockey, tennis and basketball players into line with

"I firmly believe that cyclo-cross is a sport that has a hard core of fans in eight Western European countries. But therefore we must not want to make it a worldwide spectacle." – Hein Verbruggen, the UCI’s Luddite-in-chief, quoted on www.cyclingnews.com I couldn’t agree more. We should leave the worldwide-spectacle thing to Hein, who has been making one of himself for years, with his perverse longing for scratchy wool garments, five-speed friction shifting and shiny steel rims, and keep cyclo-cross where it belongs - in the hands of the deluded little people with their yellow slickers,

Fukushima (center bottom) heads up the day's last climb.

O'Grady got his second TdL win.

Fukushima's face tells the story.

Danielson with team manager Andrzej Bek.

The Telekom Malaysia building.