Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Cervélo) won Sunday’s Trofeo Palma, the first round in the five-day 2011 Mallorca Challenge, but it appears that the UCI may refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the event after riders refused to compete without radio earpieces as per the governing body’s edict.
On a day when seemingly everyone hit the deck once — and some more than once — the Landbouwkrediet rider kept the rubber side down, riding as though he were on rails.
Riders delayed the start of the Mallorca Challenge on Sunday in a protest over the UCI’s ban on ear-pieces this season.
Boom tells VeloNews that the Qatar peloton will follow the lead of riders at the Mallorca Challenge and demand the use of race radios before starting stage 1 on Monday.
Lars Boom (Rabobank) claims victory in the prologue of the Tour of Qatar.
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2011 Tour of Qatar starting roster
The tenth edition of the Tour of Qatar was set to get under way Sunday afternoon with a 2.5km prologue at Doha's Cultural Village, a new civic area. The technical course features some (relatively smooth) cobbles and about a dozen turns.
Wil Matthews captures the action at the 2011 Garmin-Cervélo camp.
h2> GP Costa degli Etruschi
Italian Elia Viviani (Liquigas-Cannondale) kicks to victory in Saturday’s GP Costa degli Etruschi.
Speed wobble, shoe covers and single-ringing it
Anthony Ravard (Ag2r-La Mondiale) retakes the lead in the l'Etoile de Bessèges as
Kevin Pauwels (Telenet-Fidea) won a thrilling photo-finish sprint with teammate and world champion Zdenek Stybar to take the GVA Trofee stop at Lille.
Quick Step's Tom Boonen and HTC-HighRoad's Mark Cavendish head the field at the 10th Tour of Qatar, which begins in Doha on Sunday and promises some lively duels between the sport's top sprinters.
Ellen Van Dijk won the Ladies Tour of Qatar on Friday as HTC-Highroad put four riders into the top 10 overall, two of them on the podium.
Andrew Talansky talks about landing a ride with Garmin-Cervélo, a step forward that he calls "exciting and one I'm ready for."
Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis) sprinted to victory in Friday’s third stage at the Étoile de Bessèges in southern France.
Controversial Italian Danilo Di Luca returns to competition this weekend at the Mallorca Challenge in Spain with his new Katusha team.
Boogerd blisters Landis; Dowsett eager for Qatar; Peraud eyes Olympics, Tour
Alberto Contador has reiterated his intention to take his fight to the courts and rejected arguments that he should accept the shortened, one-year ban offered by the Spanish cycling federation.
Italian cyclist Davide Rebellin continues to insist that he didn’t dope at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, where he won a silver medal.
Spanish sprinter Fran Ventoso, the first rider to win a race on the new Campagnolo electronic shifters, calls them "a marvel."
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Ellen Van Dijk takes the sprint from a small breakaway group and moves into the overall lead in Qatar.
Stage:
French rider Lloyd Mondory delivered the first win of the season for Ag2r-La Mondiale after taking the flowers in Thursday’s second stage at the Étoile de Bessèges in southern France.
The full punch of the Ardennes Mountains will be felt during Liège-Bastogne-Liège April 24 when the Côte de la Haute-Levée returns to the sport’s oldest monument.
The Xar worked when it was needed most as Zach White found out the hard way
Omega Pharma-Lotto enters the 2011 season with high expectations.
Perhaps it’s hard to believe for an Italian rider, but former world champion Alessandro Ballan has never raced the Giro d’Italia.
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Obree comes to terms with homosexuality, Boardman hails Bobridge, and more
Tour of California organizers on Wednesday said Lance Armstrong is not a confirmed starter for this year's race.
Cycling Australia says Matt White can remain the men's road coordinator for the country's national team.
A look at the Selle Italia SLR Monolink saddle. Smart design, at a price
Readers and industry types offer some follow-up tips regarding recent columns.
The five-day “star” of Bessèges dates back to the early 1970s and has since grown into France’s first stage race of the year.
Yauheni Hutarovich (FDJ) won the opening stage of the five-day Étoile de Bessèges in Tuesday’s 150km run from Beaucaire to Bellegarde in southern France.
Organizers of the Tour of California said Wednesday that athletes in this year's race will be subject to a rigorous anti-doping program that it says goes far beyond the programs at other races.
Fans hoping to see the professional debut of Taylor Phinney (BMC Racing) will have to wait a little while longer. Phinney, the U.S. national time trial champion, announced on his blog Wednesday that he will miss his planned start at the Tour of Qatar due to a knee injury.
VeloNews' European correspondent Andrew Hood has had a chance to touch base with some of the top U.S. road pros in recent weeks, and he's gathered up highlights from their 2010 campaign and what they expect for the coming season.
MADRID (VN) — Movistar’s entry into the choppy waters of Spanish cycling made headlines south of the Pyrénées simply due to the size and symbolic significance of what the telecommunications giant brings to the table.
SYDNEY (AFP) — Up and coming Australian cyclist Jack Bobridge claimed one of track cycling's biggest prizes Wednesday when he beat Chris Boardman's 15-year-old world record for the 4km pursuit.
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David Etxebarria — the former Spanish classics specialist who was marginalized during the Operación Puerto doping investigation of 2006 — criticized Alberto Contador in a series of searing Twitter postings.
Don Catlin, former director of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Lab and, briefly, the overseer of Lance Armstrong's anti-doping program during his 2009 comeback, says a recent Sports Illustrated article on Armstrong contains innuendo and mischaracterizes elements of the story about him.
The Univest grand Prix organizer weighs in on the dispute between the Tour of the Battenkill and USA Cycling.
Mike Anderson, who worked as a mechanic and handyman for Lance Armstrong during the Texan’s years of Tour de France domination, has told VeloNews that he stands by accusations he has made that Armstrong possessed performance-enhancing drugs, and said he is “ashamed” of his former association with the star cyclist.
Former USA Cycling president Jim Ochowicz has downplayed allegations from Floyd Landis that he has been involved in political maneuvering between U.S. riders and the UCI.
Stage:
Nick Legan puts a pair of Mercury carbon clinchers to the test.
Three-time U.S. national road champion “Fast” Freddie Rodriguez will join Team Specialized Racing in 2011 as a board member, mentor and rider.
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Details of the 2011 Amgen Tour of California stage routes and participating teams are beginning to take shape. Most notably, VeloNews has learned, the race will feature two summit finishes, including one atop San José’s steep Sierra Road climb on stage 4.
After six days of trying, the breakaway specialists in Le Tour de Langkawi finally had their say Monday, going clear during a shortened stage to Nilai and fighting it out for the win.
Stage:
The USA CRITS Championship Series is on the rise in 2011. The series will roll out in Athens, Georgia, in April and will include ten men’s and eight women’s events, up from eight and five a year ago, respectively. Isaac Howe (Mountain Khakis-Jittery Joe’s) and Erica Allar (Vera Bradley Foundation) won the series overall titles in 2010.
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Team Movistar’s official presentation is Tuesday in Madrid, but Franco Pellizotti won’t be signing a late-hour contract with the Spanish team because his ongoing doping case remains unresolved.
Cuesta, who will turn 42 in June, landed a deal over the weekend with the Spanish pro continental team Caja Rural that will keep him the peloton through the 2011 season.
Building on the magazine’s award-winning aero wheel test, VeloNews creates a new, intensive method of bicycle evaluation
Daniele Pietropolli (Lampre-ISD) wins the Giro della Provincia di Reggio Calabria as Manuel Belletti (Colnago-CSF Inox) takes the finale.
Jéremy Roy (FDJ) rode away with the GP La Marseillaise on Sunday in France to win the first one-day race of the 2011 European racing calendar.
Steve Thomas chats with Libardo Nino, the 42-year-old Colombian climbing who is just two seconds out of the lead at the Tour de Langkawi.
After taking a frustrated second on Saturday's stage to Tampin, UnitedHealthcare's Robert Forster went one better to blaze home first into Jasin on the eighth leg of the Tour de Langkawi.
Stage 8:
Zdenek Stybar overcomes a battalion of Belgians to defend his world cyclocross crown.
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