News

Aime - Cluses

Soissons - Rouen

Lanester - Lorient (TT)

Aime - Cluses

Forges-les-Eaux - Alençon

Bazas - Pau

Cluses - Bourg-en-Bresse

Forges-les-Eaux - Alençon

Bazas - Pau

Cluses - Bourg-en-Bresse

Pau - La Mongie

Régnié-Durette - Mâcon (TT)

Pau - La Mongie

Régnié-Durette - Mâcon (TT)

He’s stronger, smarter, leaner and more confident than at any pointin his career. Now in his fourth season of full-time European racing, FredRodriguez, 28, knows what it takes to win a stage at the Tour de France.His Domo-Farm Frites squad is expecting its best Tour results from GC ridersRichard Virenque and Axel Merckx. But given the right breaks, the two-timeU.S. pro champion also has a great chance of success — particularly sincehis second-place finishes this spring at Milan-San Remo and Ghent-Wevelgem. "I think the team will now have more confidence that I’m capable, ifI get a good

Lannemezan - Plateau de Beille

Melun - Paris Champs-Elysées

Where does it come from, this legendary fear of Mont Ventoux? It’s a mountainthat has been climbed only 12 times in the Tour — two time trials, fourfinishes at the summit and six times mid-stage — yet it is more dreadedthan, say, the Tourmalet, which has featured in the Tour 67 times.While L’Alpe d’Huez, a cycling crucible, provides a spectacle, the Ventouxdelivers tragedy. It brought the great Eddy Merckx to his knees for thefirst time in his exceptional career in 1970 when he was forced to takeoxygen after winning a stage at the summit. In 1955, it forced Rick VanGenechten and others to

Lannemezan - Plateau de Beille

Melun - Paris Champs-Elysées

When you watch him slicing his way through the field on another solo attackto a mountaintop finish, it’s easy to forget that there’s much more toLance Armstrong’s stunning Tour victories than a lone rider battling arugged climb. Granted, if he didn’t have his genes or genius, he wouldn’thave the potential to pull off those remarkable feats. But behind the manis a whole team of consultants, colleagues and friends who help Armstrongexcel in every sphere of matters Tour de France. In some ways, he has put together a high-profile company that has asingle mission: to win the Tour de France. That

Weisel (left) is an old friend and supporter.

Lodève - Mont Ventoux

Chausson

The blueprint of Lance Armstrong’s preparation for the Tour de France hasn’tchanged much for the last four years. The day-to-day training scheduleand the racing calendar get slightly modified to accommodate course changesand the demands on Lance’s time. But for the last three years, his preparatorywork has been on-target and Lance has arrived at the Tour in peak condition.All indications are that his preparation work will again deliver him tothe 2002 prologue on top form. The absence of Jan Ullrich caused a bit of shift in the way we are thinkingabout the Tour this year. Ullrich is an

There are a lot of folks involved in getting Armstrong set up right on this bike.

Lodève - Mont Ventoux

Peat

Luxembourg - Luxembourg

Bagnoles-de-l'Orne - Avranches

Lavelanet - Béziers

Kovarik

Luxembourg - Luxembourg

Bagnoles-de-l'Orne - Avranches

Lavelanet - Béziers

Aiming for another yellow jersey in Paris.

Luxembourg - Saarbrücken

St. Martin-de-Landelles - Plouay

Vaison-la-Romaine - Les Deux-Alpes

Horner

Luxembourg - Saarbrücken

St. Martin-de-Landelles - Plouay

Vaison-la-Romaine - Les Deux-Alpes

Navigators patrolled most of the race

Metz - Reims

St. Martin-de-Landelles - Plouay

Les Deux-Alpes - La Plagne

Épernay - Château-Thierry (TTT)

Metz - Reims

St. Martin-de-Landelles - Plouay

Les Deux-Alpes - La Plagne

Épernay - Château-Thierry (TTT)

“How about something positive to say — about anything? You wear me down.” — a critical e-mail from VeloNews.com reader Cary Smith I love a good, long road ride, especially one of those midweek flights of fancy that gobbles up the better part of a perfectly good workday while the proletariat slouches in its cubicles, staring forlornly into space, like trailer-park mutts on short chains. When I lived in Colorado Springs, and had teammates who were either entrepreneurs or slackers and thus could set their own schedules, I could count on two or three of these rides a week, generally on

'Mr. Baughman, execute The Marksheffel Plan.'

Baldwin

Bessette got the better of Bruckner (r)

Baldwin follows Lieswyn in the break

Horner takes the win

Chris Carmichael has been synonymous with Lance Armstrong’s success at the Tour de France. Carmichael’s been Armstrong’s trainer and coach since the early 1990s, helping guide him to three consecutive Tour de France victories. A former 7-Eleven pro and U.S. national cycling team head coach, Carmichael works closely with Armstrong and another dozen or so top athletes in cycling, triathlon, athletics and more recently in such mainstream sports such as NHL hockey. VeloNews’s Andrew Hood caught up with Carmichael for an interview a week before the start of the 2002 Tour de France. Here are

Reigning world downhill champion Nicolas Vouilloz will be forced to skip the upcoming World Cup events in Mont Ste Anne, Quebec, and Telluride, Colorado after undergoing surgery for hand injuries sustained earlier this month. Vouilloz injured himself during a practice run in Maribor, Slovenia, during the World Cup event in that former Yugoslav republic on the weekend of June 8. Vouilloz Racing team manager Stéphane Gerard confirmed that the 26-year-old French downhiller had undergone surgery for torn ligaments and tendons on the small finger on his hand last week. “This happened during a

A Lithuanian appeals court on Thursday released Latvian Olympic cyclist Juris Silovson on bail pending further hearings into charges that he tried to smuggle nearly 80,000 undeclared Euros across the border. Silovs had been sentenced to five-and-a-half years in jail for failing to declare cash he carried across the border. "You have to be there. You have to see the food there. Pigs get better feed," Silovs was quoted as saying by the Baltic News Service of the maximum-security prison where he was held. Silovs had been found guilty for failing to declare 76,750 euros (75,660 dollars) hidden

The French retail chain BigMat became the second high profile sponsor to turn its back on cycling this week, the decision taken at a shareholders meeting in Paris on Thursday. The news is a blow to the sport, coming as it does 24 hours after Italian firm Mapei announced the end of its near-decade involvement in cycling. BigMat partly blamed the pull-out on the decision by the Tour de France organisers not to grant them an invitation for next month's race. "It's the second time that we haven't taken part in the Tour," BigMat's director general Jean-Luc Leroy told

Belgium cyclist Frank Vandenbroucke appeared before a disciplinary commission in Brussels on Thursday as part of his campaign to return to the saddle after an appeals court overturned his recent ban for possession of doping products. Vandenbroucke was suspended for six months by the Belgium cycling federation after prohibited substances were found at his home at the start of the season. The ban was overturned on a legal technicality by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Tuesday, but it is the Belgium authorities who have the final say on whether to accept

Zülle wraps up Swiss Tour; Julich second in TT

The Italian building materials company Mapei has announced plans to end its sponsorship of cycling at the end of the current season, bringing to a close nearly a decade of successful involvement with the professional peloton. "The Mapei group have decided to end their sponsorship of (the) sports team at the end of the current season," a statement released from the team said Wednesday three weeks after the drug-tainted Giro d'Italia. Mapei chief Girogio Squinzi said the sport was finally beginning to get its house in order but not enough was being done to convince him that Mapei's

Zabel beatsTeutenburg and Hauptman to take his second stage win.

The on-again-off-again career of Belgian Frank Vandenbroucke may be on again after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) annulled a six-month ban from the sport for doping offences. Vandenbroucke had been suspended by the Belgian cycling federation following the discovery of a cache of drugs at his home at the start of the season. The panel, to whom Vandenbroucke had appealed, annulled the ban because of a legal technicality. "... CAS came to the conclusion that the body who banned the rider in the first place did not have the legal status to do so," CAS said in a statement.

Bortolami (center) thought he had won, but the jury ruled for Garate (left).

Turns out all is not lost for the gravity racers that had planned on attending the downhill events at the Grouse Mountain World Cup in British Columbia. Following some last minute scrambling, Whistler-Blackcomb Resort has announced that it will be hosting two days of pro racing during the week leading up to the Grouse Mountain event, effectively replacing the World Cup downhill events that were cancelled because of too much snow. Grouse will still be hosting junior and elite cross-country races. Racing in Whistler will start Wednesday, July 3, with the Joyride Biker X, a four-rider gated

A day after the 2002 HP Women’s Challenge wrapped-up in Boise, Idaho, on Sunday, the promoters of the race announced that they are seeking a new title sponsor after Hewlett-Packard ended a six-year run as the event’s largest financial supporter. “We found out just before the beginning of this year’s race,” Women’s Challenge director operations Robyn Browne told VeloNews. “We just were not going to make the announcement until it was over and detract from this year’s mood.” Browne attributed the HP pullout to the company’s recent merger with Compaq, which “has put the entire company’s sports

The U.S. Postal team released its roster for the Tour de France on Monday, naming a mix of veterans and newcomers to defend the Tour championship of three-time winner Lance Armstrong. Joining Armstrong at the start line of the Tour de France in Luxembourg on July 6 will be Americans George Hincapie and Floyd Landis, Spain's Roberto Heras and Jose Luis Rubiera, Colombia's Victor Hugo Pena, Russian Viatcheslav Ekimov, Czech Pavel Padrnos and Luxembourger Benoit Joachim. "It was a tough decision to select the nine riders because we have 12 riders that are ready to ride the Tour,"

This time it's Moos

Today's podium

Casagrande takes it in the sprint