Atypical cyclocross weather once again was around for the Chicago Cyclocross Cup #3 that had enthusiasts travel to Hawthorn Woods, a Chicago suburb. Sun and temperatures in the high 70s greeted the racers in this installment.
Second place overall at the 2008 Tour de France with Cadel Evans was good enough for Silence-Lotto brass, who still believe their Aussie pupil has the goods to win cycling’s biggest race. Evans was the pre-race favorite, but his hopes were upended when he crashed in the Pyrénées and then undone by Carlos Sastre’s attack on Alpe d’Huez in the final week. Silence-Lotto sport director Hendrick Redant said the Belgian team was content with Evans’ second Tour podium and believe a reloaded Silence-Lotto team will bode good things for 2009.
Belgian one-day specialist Philippe Gilbert handed his Francaise des Jeux team the ideal farewell gift by winning the Paris-Tours one-day classic on Sunday. Gilbert's first victory in the 102nd edition of the race, held over 252km, comes only weeks before he ends his five-year stay with the French outfit by moving to Silence-Lotto. The Belgian had been among a four-strong group of frontrunners that was being hunted down by the peloton inside the closing kilometer. However the four worked together to keep the pack at bay.
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It shook out a bit differently, but the second day of the Erdinger Gran Prix of Gloucester ended up with the same men and women atop the podium: Kona's Ryan Trebon and Velo Bella-Kona's Amy Dombroski. Trebon and national champ Tim Johnson (Cyclocrossworld.com-Cannondale) separated themselves from the field on the first lap and dueled for most of the one hour race on another Indian Summer day on the Massachusetts coast. Just like Saturday, however, Trebon ramped up the pace in the last two laps and Johnson was simply unable to keep up.
In the country’s only three-day weekend of UCI cyclocross, Katie Compton (Spike Professional/Primus Mootry) and Jeremy Powers (Cyclocrossworld.com) completed their respective hat-tricks in the Cincinnati International Cyclocross Festival, winning the BioWheels/United Dairy Farmers Harbin Park International on Sunday.
With his LPR Brakes team barred from racing at Paris-Tours, Alessandro Petacchi couldn’t defend his title from last year’s “sprinter’s classic.” Petacchi won on Sunday anyway, sprinting to victory in the 12th GP Beghelli in Italy ahead of Mihail Khalilov (Flaminia), with Giuseppe Palumbo (Acqua e Sapone) coming across third. LPR Brakes was excluded from Paris-Tours because the team didn’t meet requirements for the UCI’s biological passport program, meaning Petacchi – who won the French classic last year with Milram – wouldn’t be able to defend his title.
The final moments of the 2008 Vuelta Chihuahua were a virtual to-do list for Spaniard Javier Benitez. Fix collar: check. Straighten jersey: done. Blow kisses to crowd: got it. Toss arms in the air and win stage: mission accomplished for the third time in seven days.
The sixth stage of the Vuelta Chihuahua delivered a fitting winner, as the third-year race returned to the state capitol following a five-day clockwise journey around the largest of Mexico’s 31 states. Following a long eight-rider breakaway that survived to the finish, reigning Mexican national road champion Luis Macias (Tecos-Trek) out-kicked Italian Diego Noscotti (NGC Medical), grabbing a razor thin triumph at the end of the 126.3km ride from Cuauhtémoc to Chihuahua. Mexican Marco Rios (Orven) was third on a day that lasted 2:34:23 for the front group.
Kona powerhouse Ryan Trebon withstood attacks from a trio of New England homeboys — and overcame a case of bad legs blamed on jet lag — on Saturday to win his fifth cyclocross race in Gloucester, Massachusetts. In the elite women's race of the 2008 Erdinger Gran Prix of Gloucester, Velo Bella-Kona's Amy Dombroski prevailed to win her first race in Gloucester, after a tough battle that saw five or six women in contention until the end. [nid:84187]
Crédit Agricole team manager Roger Legeay has played down the negative effect of cycling's numerous doping scandals as he prepares his riders for their last race as a team. At Paris-Tours this Sunday, the penultimate one-day classic of the season, Legeay will wave goodbye to more than 20 years of cycling history while lamenting his failure to attract a replacement sponsor.
The course at England-Idlewild park rattled bones and tuned wheels to tacos at the Darkhorse Cyclo-Stampede UCI C-2 in Burlington, Kentucky on Friday, October 12th. The Cincinnati area hasn’t seen a soaking in weeks and the victims of the pounding course lined up for post-race massages at the Wellington Orthopedic tent throughout the day. The 80 degree heat compounded the hurt. In the Men’s race, after a lap-3 bike change which sent Barry Wicks (Kona) on the defensive, Jeremy Powers (Cyclocrossworld.com) took advantage for the win.
Javier Benitez is certainly not lacking for confidence. For the second time in five days at Mexico’s Vuelta Chihuahua, the Spaniard started his victory celebration long before crossing the finish line. But just like the end of stage 1 on Monday, the Benfica rider was fastest finisher at the close of stage 5’s 152.8km ride from Creel to Cuauhtémoc. Benitez stopped the clock in 3:36:52, with German Steffen Radochla (Elk Haus-Simplon) and Mexico’s Juan Magallanes (Tecos-Trek) completing the podium. The top 3 was identical to stage 1’s podium.
It might be called the “sprinters' classics,” but Paris-Tours is a race where opportunists can have their way. The French fall classic has often tipped in favor of attackers who’ve foiled the best-laid plans of the sprinters, with such riders as Frédéric Guesdon (2006) and Erik Dekker (2004) winning thanks to strong late-race tactics.
Lance Armstrong never raced the Giro d’Italia during his seven-year Tour de France reign, but now it’s looking likely that he might be part of the corsa rosa during the race’s centenary. Giro d’Italia director Angelo Zomegnan officially invited Armstrong to the 2009 edition of the three-week national tour of Italy, according to La Gazzetta dello Sport. Armstrong has already hinted he’d like to race in the Giro. Speaking to reporters earlier this month, the Texan said skipping the Giro was one of his few regrets during his racing career.
Giro d'Italia chief Angelo Zomegnan said he will not retroactively test samples from the 2008 race in a bid to weed out possible users of CERA, the latest generation of the banned blood booster EPO (erythropoietin). According to Gazzetta dello Sport on Friday, Zomegnan believes none of the riders on the race - won by Spaniard Alberto Contador - used the drug. "The Giro has already made the necessary checks and the laboratories, as well as the UCI, have affirmed there is nothing to suspect," said Zomegnan. "It would be useless to ask for new tests."
Credit Agricole rider Dmitriy Fofonov has been handed a three-month ban after testing positive for a banned stimulant at the Tour de France. Traces of heptaminol - which is found in products aimed at improving blood circulation - were found in a sample provided by the 31-year-old Kazakh. He was informed of the positive test at the end of the race's 21st and final stage to the Champs Elysees, where he finished 19th overall.
Francisco Mancebo is the new overall leader of the Vuelta Chihuahua, and if things work out the way the Spaniard hopes, the soon-to-be newest member of Rock Racing. On Thursday, Mancebo (Fercase-Rota dos Moveis) took a big step toward defending his 2007 title in this UCI 2.2 America Tour race, finishing third in the rolling 18.9km time trial from Pitoreal to Divisadero, and jumping from second to first in the overall standings.
Bernhard Eisel (Columbia) played off the interests of the French teams Thursday to sneak away with Paris-Bourges, the final round of the season-long French Cup series. Eisel followed Cédric Pineau (Ag2r-La Mondiale) into the day’s main breakaway just 18km into the 194km race and then nipped him in a photo finish. “It was a very fast start (48kph in first hour). I didn’t think it was going to be enough, but 13 minutes was good,” Eisel said.
Erik Zabel will ride into retirement in Sunday’s 102nd edition of Paris-Tours in what will be the German’s last race as a professional. Zabel, 38, announced his retirement ahead of the Varese world championships, where he crossed the line arm-in-arm with Paolo Bettini, another riding retiring at the end of the 2008 season. Zabel is a three-time winner of what’s considered the sprinter’s classic, first taking the flowers in 1994 in what was his first major victory.
Garmin-Chipotle has signed on to be part of the UCI ProTour series, the UCI reported Thursday. The American team was awarded a four-year license to join the beleaguered, season-long series managed by the UCI. Under a “cease-fire” accord reached with organizers of the three grand tours, a restructured ProTour calendar will be part of a world calendar that marks the return of major races to the UCI fold for 2009.
Mexico’s ongoing — and frequently tragic — drug war literally took center stage at the Vuelta Chihuahua on Wednesday. Following stage 3’s 155.9km grind from Guachochi to Creel that included seven rated climbs but had only limited impact on the overall standings, a group of peaceful protesters unfurled several banners proclaiming their frustration with the lack of police action since the August 16 killings of 13 residents in this small tourist town that’s a gateway to stunning Copper Canyon.
Just after his dramatic win at the U.S. professional road championships, Tyler Hamilton sat down with VeloNews managing editor Neal Rogers to talk about the win, his return from a two-year doping suspension and his personal life, including his pending divorce and his realization of the difference between acquaintances and real friends. The complete interview is in the latest issue of VeloNews, but here are a few highlights: Hamilton on his big win in Greenville:
The domestic road team known this year as Team Inferno is relaunching in 2009 as a UCI Continental Pro Team to be titled "Kenda Pro Cycling presented by Spinergy." The team's backers say it will have the distinction of being supported entirely by bicycle industry sponsors and will include an all-American staff and roster.
Welcome to my new diary on VeloNews.com, a diary that will offer an exciting, behind-the scenes look into my cycling ventures as I tour around the United States and Europe racing cyclo-cross this fall and winter. I’m certain there will be great moments inevitably accompanied by some less exciting ones: Crashes, gossip, name-dropping, interviews; lousy drivers, flight attendants and race promoters. Just make sure you read every other Wednesday during this 'cross season, and I’ll do my part to keep it exciting.
Web site: www.elite-it.com or www.realaxiom.com Retail Price: 1,550 Euros (about $2100); Internet racing software is 99 Euros (about $135) The Elite Realpower CT is an indoor trainer that the company claims can accurately simulate up to 20 percent grades and now features Internet racing capabilities.
Suggested Retail Price:: $24.99 Web page: www.thewarmfront.com Material: Malden Mills fleece with water repellent finish. Sizes: Men's and Women's. The Warmfront is a backless fleece vest that can be worn next to the skin or over a jacket or jersey. It can easily be removed with one hand while riding, without removing other layers or a hydration pack. It compacts to fit in a jersey pocket.
Retail Price: $39.95 Web site: www.velogear.com Campagnolo: 75 Years of Cycling Passion is a new book from VeloPress that tells the story of the legendary component supplier from its humble beginning to its new 11-speed Super Record group. The 160-page hardcover "coffee-table" book includes deeply researched history (much of it from the company's private archives), spectacular color photography, rich text, and lavish presentation. It was written by Paolo Facchinetti and Guido Rubino.
French national anti-doping agency (AFLD) chief Pierre Bordry on Wednesday said there was "considerable evidence" of doping irregularities from blood transfusions taken at this year's Tour de France. "We possess considerable evidence from blood transfusions. We will only say later who it is," Bordry told German TV station ZDF. Bodry added that anti-doping officials were concentrating on looking for traces of banned blood booster EPO, "but we will soon be able to test the transfusions thanks to a new procedure, and we are going to do these tests.
Blood samples taken at the Beijing Olympics are to be reanalyzed for a new variant of the banned blood booster EPO using a new detection system developed for the Tour de France, the IOC announced Wednesday. The retroactive controls are designed to seek out the presence of the new generation of EPO known as CERA (Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator).
Luxembourg’s anti-doping officials have expanded their inquiry into Frank Schleck, who admitted last week he transferred nearly 7000 euros in March 2006 into an account belonging to Eufemiano Fuentes, the alleged ringleader of the Operación Puerto doping ring. Schleck, who was provisionally suspended by his Team CSC-Saxo Bank team, met with Luxembourg officials last week, but his explanations weren’t enough to end the matter there.
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The pressure of five rated climbs — and one harrowing descent — made for a decisive stage 2 at Mexico’s Vuelta Chihuahua on Tuesday.
Finishing on top at the conclusion of the 188.7km mostly uphill grind from Parral to Guachochi was Colombian Gregario Ladino (Tecos-Trek), who late in the race soloed away from breakaway companion — and defending Chihuahua champion — Francisco Mancebo (Fercase-Rota dos Moveis). Ladino crossed the line in 4:59:27, with Mancebo trailing in eight seconds later and Tecos-Trek’ Juan Magallanes completing the podium, at 0:22.
Double Tour de France stage winner Stefan Schumacher is facing a two-year ban and a fine after confirmation of a positive test for EPO (erythrpoietin), the German cycling federation (BDR) said Tuesday. Schumacher was the second rider on Monday to have been exposed as a drugs cheat, following the news that Italian Leonardo Piepoli, who won the race's 10th stage in the Pyrenees, also tested positive for the banned blood booster. The BDR said they would be looking to ban Schumacher, the winner of the Tour's two time trials, for two years.
Despite not winning a race in 2008, French veteran Christophe Moreau will retire with Agritubel at the end of the 2009 season. The French team announced on its web page that the 37-year-old will conclude his 14-year cycling career with the team next year. Moreau is the last active rider of the infamous Festina team that was kicked out of the 1998 Tour de France after evidence of widespread doping was revealed within the squad. Moreau served a six-month racing ban and resumed competition in 1999.
It looks like 2009 will be the season of the comeback, and at least in Italy there won’t be a return to competition more watched than that of Ivan Basso. After months of avoiding the spotlight, Basso is taking his first tentative steps toward his full re-entry into the cycling world with a press conference next week in Italy ahead of the Giro di Lombardia. Basso won’t be racing in Europe’s last major race of the season, but it will be a chance for his new Liquigas team to break the ice with the media on Oct. 17.
After a heavy late-season schedule that included the Olympic Games, the Vuelta a España and the world time trial championship, Astana’s Levi Leipheimer is finally back in the U.S., enjoying his off-season at the Santa Rosa, California, home he shares with his wife, former pro racer Odessa Gunn. When VeloNews reached him on October 1, Leipheimer was just back from a mountain bike ride through Santa Rosa’s Annadel Park, the largest State Park located within a city limit in California.
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Spaniard Javier Benitez burst from the bunch in the final 100 meters to take the stage 1 sprint at the Vuelta Chihuahua on Monday. The Benfica rider stopped the clock in 3:19:30, with Steffen Radochla (Elk Haus-Simplon) and Juan Magallanes (Tecos-Trek) completing the podium at the end of the 147.8km ride from Chihuahua to Camargo. Benitez won by more than a bike length.
Spaniard Javier Benitez burst from the bunch in the final 100 meters to take the stage 1 sprint at the Vuelta Chihuahua on Monday. The Benfica rider stopped the clock in 3:19:30, with Steffen Radochla (Elk Haus-Simplon) and Juan Magallanes (Tecos-Trek) completing the podium at the end of the 147.8km ride from Chihuahua to Camargo. Benitez won by more than a bike length.
USA Cycling awarded the final ten stars and stripes jerseys over the weekend as the 2008 USA Cycling Elite Track National Championships concluded at the ADT Event Center velodrome at the Home Depot Center on Sunday.
Jason Sager (SagerSports.com) edged Erik Tonkin (Team S&M) for the victory in Sunday's Cross Crusade race in Portland, Oregon. Ryan Trebon (Kona) lined up on a single speed, taking an early lead, but eventually faded to fifth place. The race attracted 1,267 registrants and was held on a rain-slick course at Alpenrose Dairy. The former USGP venue featured mud, grass, pavement, off-camber turns, gravel, stairs and even a lap in a velodrome. In the women's A race, Sue Butler (Monavie Cannondale) and Wendy Williams controlled the race and went 1-2.
Colombian Leonardo Paez and Swiss Petra Henzi won the second and final round of the UCI Marathon Mountain bike World Cup, held in Ornans, France on October 5. Paez (Gewiss-Bianchi), took a two-minute victory ahead of Swiss rider Lukas Buchli, with newly crowned German marathon champ Karl Platt (Bulls) in third.
With his win, Paez took the World Cup overall, beating defending champ Thomas Dietsch (Gewiss-Bianchi), 390 points to 370. Austrian Alban Lakata (Dolphin-Trek) finished third.
German cyclist Stefan Schumacher, a double stage winner at this year's Tour de France, has tested positive for the banned blood booster EPO (erythropoietin), according to L'Equipe website on Monday. Gerolsteiner rider Schumacher is the second rider named Monday to be caught using a new generation of EPO called CERA (Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator) at this year's race.
Former Saunier Duval climber Leonardo Piepoli is facing a ban from the sport after the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) announced Monday he had tested positive for banned substances twice at this year's Tour de France. Piepoli, who won a stage and helped former Saunier Duval teammate Riccardo Ricco win two stages at the race, will now come before a CONI commission on Friday in connection with the failed tests on July 4 and 15.
It’s official; “comeback” is the word of the year in professional cycling. Following in the wake of Mario Cipollini (un-retired and then retired again), Lance Armstrong (un-retired and already making waves) and Alexander Vinokourov (trying to beat a doping rap and un-retire), Mexican great Raúl Alcalá is now getting back in the game.
Alexander Vinokourov, banned for a year after doping at the 2007 Tour de France, confirmed on Sunday that he wants to return to the sport. The 35-year-old told Belgian TV station Sporza that he wants to race again in 2009. "I love cycling. I want to come back because I didn't want to end my career in this way. I feel as if I can win once again the big races."
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Spaniard Juan-Antonio Flecha claimed his first notable victory this season when he won the Circuit Franco-Belge Sunday after a final stage won by Belgian Sebastien Rosseler of Quick Step. Rosseler's victory on the fourth and final stage put smiles back on the worried faces of Quick Step after their leader, former world champion Tom Boonen, crashed 75km into the ride. Boonen got back up slowly and feeling the pain, but was apparently uninjured and looks likely to bounce back for a victory bid at the Paris-Tours classic next week.
Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong hit back Saturday at insinuations that he sullied cycling's premier event, saying he reigned over the race when the sport's popularity was at a peak. "The last time I checked, I won the Tour seven straight years and was never once found to be guilty of doping despite seven years of intense scrutiny," Armstrong said in a statement.
Italian sprinter Alessandro Petacchi and his LPR team have been forced off next weekend's Paris-Tours race for failing to agree to the UCI's new blood passport program. Organizers of the French one-day classic, ASO (Amaury Sport Organisation), said Saturday that two other teams, Mitsubishi and Collstrop, will also be denied a start for the same reason.
Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Chipotle) lost control of the leader’s jersey at the Circuit Franco-Belge in Saturday’s third stage when a late breakaway stayed clear of the pack. Ten riders pulled clear in the closing kilometers and Farrar, despite a strong effort to close down the gap, finished in the main pack in 12th at 18 seconds back. Farrar, who overtook the lead in Friday’s second stage, tumbled from first to 11th at 23 seconds back with one stage left to go. Belgian national champion Jurgen Roelandts (Silence-Lotto) pulled the double to win the stage and overtake the lead.
It’s the doping scandal that will never end. Just days after a Spanish judge tried to close the legal proceedings for a second time on Operación Puerto, an appeal has been filed to keep the case open yet again. Ruling judge Antonio Serrano signed off on the long-running scandal Sept. 26 when he ruled that no laws had been broken in the alleged blood doping ring under existing Spanish law at the time of the May, 2006 raids. Despite the latest ruling, lawyers asked Spain’s attorney general to reconsider the case and move forward with possible prosecutions.
Disgraced Tour de France star Alexander Vinokourov has announced plans to return to professional cycling, with the Astana team of Lance Armstrong, according to reports in Belgium on Saturday. The 35-year-old Russian from Kazakhstan was handed a one-year ban after testing positive for homologous blood doping at the 2007 Tour de France, from which his former team Astana, then under different management, was thrown out.
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Taylor Phinney (Garmin-Chipotle) set a new track record in the men’s 4000-meter individual pursuit and won his third national title of the week on Friday at the 2008 U.S. elite track national championships at the ADT Event Center velorome in Carson City, California, on Friday.
A New York race promoter is planning a six-day UCI cat. 2.2 professional stage race across upstate New York, to be held August 8-13, 2009.
Greetings from seat 15B of Continental flight 34, Denver to Houston. It’s leg No. 1 of a two-flight journey that will deposit me in Chihuahua, Mexico, a few days ahead of next week’s seven-stage Vuelta a Chihuahua. I can’t tell you a whole lot about the race at this point, except that it has a lot of climbing (the north-central Mexican state of Chihuahua is roughly along the same latitude line as Colorado and the Rocky Mountains), Garmin-Chipotle is sending a team, and I think I’ll get to see Copper Canyon, a gap in the earth so grand it apparently dwarfs Arizona’s Grand Canyon.
Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Chipotle) is putting his strong end-of-season form to good use at this week’s Circuit Franco-Belge. After finishing second to Tom Boonen (Quick Step) in Thursday’s opener, Farrar slipped into the race leader’s jersey in Friday’s 184km stage from Bray Dunes to Poperinge in west Belgium. Mark Renshaw (Credit Agricole) won the sprint with Farrar clawing his way to his second-straight second place, good enough to put him into the lead by two seconds ahead of Boonen.
USA Cycling and American Levi Leipheimer have clarified the events surrounding the Astana rider’s non-participation in the world road championship race held Sunday in Varese, Italy. Contradicting earlier reports, the national federation acknowledged Friday that Leipheimer had never intended to compete in the road race. “Instead, [Leipheimer’s] focus was solely on the time trial earlier in the week, an event in which he won an Olympic bronze medal in Beijing this summer, as well as both individual time trial stages at the Vuelta a España last month,” USA Cycling stated.
During last week’s press conference at Interbike in Las Vegas, in revealing details of his comeback to racing, Lance Armstrong blurted out that he was “looking forward to the Mont Ventoux” stage in the 2009 Tour de France.
Team CSC-Saxo Bank star Fränk Schleck has admitted he paid nearly 7000 euros to alleged blood-doping guru Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes in 2006, but denied he doped or ever met Fuentes. CSC-Saxo Bank boss Bjarne Riis suspended Schleck from racing Friday until Luxembourg authorities decide whether or not to move ahead with a disciplinary hearing that could result in a possible two-year racing ban.
Jan Ullrich says he believes Lance Armstrong can win another Tour de France, but it won’t be against him. The 34-year-old German, who three times finished second to Armstrong, says the Texan is capable of scoring an eighth Tour title, but shot down rumors that he might be mounting his own comeback. “I think he could win the Tour again. He has a great life and great women, but that is not his calling. He has that in his sport,” Ullrich told the German news service DPA. “If he manages the challenge mentally, his body will also be up to it.”
Garmin-Chipotle and Metro VW Cycling earned national titles in the team pursuit, as at the U.S. elite track national championships at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California, Thursday. Meanwhile Proman’s Cari Higgins narrowly edged Liz Reap-Carlson to take the national jersey in the women’s 500-meter time trial.
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Patrice Clerc is no longer director of Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), the company that owns and operates the Tour de France and several other major cycling events. Clerc's position has been taken over by Jean-Etienne Amaury, whose mother Marie-Odile, is the president of the Amaury publishing group — which owns ASO. The position change was announced Wednesday. ASO's director general, Gilbert Ysern, also is leaving, and will be replaced by Yann Le Moennier, who had been the marketing director. Christian Prudhomme, the Tour de France director, remains in his job.
Taylor Phinney opened the 2008 USA Cycling Elite Track National Championships in Carson, California, with a gold medal in the men's 1 kilometer time trial.
Italian cyclist Riccardo Riccò was on Thursday banned for two years by the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) after he tested positive for EPO during the Tour de France. Riccò, 24, was suspended from riding by CONI in July after admitting to using the banned blood-booster. He was kicked off the Tour de France and sacked by his Saunier-Duval team after testing positive following the fourth stage time trial.
Team CSC-Saxo Bank rider Frank Schleck was questioned by authorities from the Luxembourg anti-doping agency (ALAD) Wednesday evening over alleged links to Operación Puerto ring-leader Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes. The center of the inquiry was an alleged 6,991.91 euro bank transfer from Schleck into Fuentes’ Swiss account in March 2006 that was discovered by prosecutors investigating the case in Bonn, Germany.
Lance Armstrong has rejected an offer from France’s anti-doping agency to retest urine samples from the 1999 Tour de France.
The arrival of Lance Armstrong shouldn’t force the departure of Alberto Contador, at least that’s what Astana team manager Johan Bruyneel says. Despite media reports to the contrary, Bruyneel insists there’s plenty of room for both stars on the team and Armstrong’s much-anticipated return to competition.
It’s case closed without charges for Spain’s infamous Operación Puerto doping scandal. Antonio Serrano — the Spanish judge in charge of the lengthy and controversial investigation into the alleged blood doping ring — officially ended legal action on the case this week, several Spanish media reported Wednesday. Serrano ruled that under existing Spanish law at the time of the police raids no laws were broken and signed off on papers to close the case without filing charges.
Italy's Alessandro Petacchi (LPR) is to defend his Paris-Tours title on October 12. The 102nd edition of the Pro Tour Paris-Tours classic will be held over 252km and feature 25 teams. The 34-year-old Petacchi, a sprinter who has won many stages in the Tour de France, tested positive in last year's Tour of Italy and his German team Milram later axed him. After serving a five-month ban, Petacchi won three stages of September's Tour of Britain with his new team. Teams for Paris-Tours: Germany: Gerolsteiner, Milram;
Editor's Note: This is the first of a regular column on VeloNews.com written by Team Kona professional cyclocross racer Barry Wicks. Transitioning from my mountain bike to my cyclocross bike in the fall is an adventure in rehearsed humility. I know that buried deep within my delirious, travel-addled head sits the unique skill set required to pilot my cyclocross bike around a muddy race course at speed. Tracking down and filtering that memory is a process that can usually be sorted out during the first ’cross race of the year.
The crowd roared as we, the handful of riders that was once over 200 riders large rode slowly around the course on the final lap of the six and a half hour race. Paolo Bettini sat on the front of the 30 man group, blowing kisses to the tifosi as they chanted his name, blew airhorns, rang bells and draped flags over the course. When it was known his teammate had won the title the noise from the Italian crowd intensified. At that moment we could no longer talk in the group, or hear anything coming over our radios, which had the volume cranked to the maximum.
France's national anti-doping agency (AFLD) has offered to test allegedly suspect samples taken from Lance Armstrong during the 1999 Tour de France.
Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France winner, announced last month that he intends to return to the sport following a three-year absence from the peloton.
He’s been a fixture in the pro peloton for 15 years, having won six Tour de France points jerseys, three at the Vuelta and four editions of Milan-San Remo, but Erik Zabel is now ready to hang up his cleats. Zabel is winding down his career and will ride in hs final German event when he rides this Friday’s Sparkassen Münsterland Giro in Münster.
Former Tour de France director Jean-Marie Leblanc has questioned Lance Armstrong's motives for returning to race riding next year. Leblanc, Tour director for all of Armstrong's seven titles, says in the editorial in the Velo Star review that the Texan took everyone by surprise by announcing his intention to bid for an eighth Tour de France in 2009.