Road

Italy will be the toast of Europe tomorrow, but back in Spain, the national team is going to get roasted. Spain was favored to win gold Sunday and complete the season sweep that’s included victories in all three grand tours and the Olympic Games, but anger and frustration poured out of Spanish riders at the end of Sunday’s race that will forever be remembered as a lost opportunity. “We really blew it today,” said Spanish national coach Paco Antequera. “We should have had one of our big riders in that group. We let the world title slip away.”

Steven Cozza had never raced anything longer than 230km and he had never raced against the big boys in a world championships. Now the 23-year-old can tick both of those off his list. Cozza led the five-man U.S. worlds squad with a very solid 23rd at 1:40 back of winner Alessandro Ballan as part of the first chase group in a very successful men’s elite world’s debut.

Alessandro Ballan started Sunday’s men’s elite road race as a helper for the team’s biggest stars but ended the day world champion. Ballan attacked in each of the last three laps, but it was his move with about three kilometers to go to drop a leading group of about a dozen riders that included two Italian teammates that sealed Italy’s third straight rainbow jersey. It was a drag race to the finish, but the 2007 Tour of Flanders champion held on to win the world title on home roads.

CSC team manager Bjarne Riis has spoken out against recent doping suspicions over one of his top riders, Luxembourger Frank Schleck, calling for the case to be judged on "the facts.” The Dane, who confessed last year to using banned blood booster EPO (erythropoietin) during his career, also refuted rumors that he, too, is linked to the Opera?ion Puerto affair. Schleck wore the Tour de France yellow jersey for two days in July but has become the latest big name cyclist to be linked to the Puerto affair which erupted in Spain in May 2006.

The UCI has raised doubts over whether Lance Armstrong will be allowed to compete at January's Tour Down Under in Australia. Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France winner, has targeted the first ProTour race of the season as his comeback race after a three-year absence from the professional peloton. However the international ruling body, said Armstrong would have to show that he has complied UCI's “biological passport” rule demanding that athletes must be registered with an anti-doping program for at least six months six months prior to competing.

Two of Australia's champion cyclists Oenone Wood and Natalie Bates raced their final event today at the World Championships in Italy bringing to an end careers both can be proud of. "I feel pretty good actually," said Wood after stepping off the bike after today's elite women's road race in Varese. "It was probably hard to make the decision initially but I think it's the right decision to make."

Two-time defending world champion Paolo Bettini of Italy confirmed on Saturday he will retire after the final race of the world road race championships. The 34-year-old Italian, a favorite to win gold in the men's road race here on Sunday, was emotional as he said the men's road race on Sunday would be the last race of his career. "I've had a lot to reflect about the past few months and the idea has just grown in my head," said Bettini. "I've decided, in all serenity, to end my career."

If cycling team coaches were like their brethren in American football they would be studying tapes of all the races that have been held on the 17.35km Varese road race circuit this year. What they would find is a pattern that has flowed through the world under-23 men’s and elite women’s championships the past two days, along with last month’s Three Varesine Valleys race and the finale of stage 18 of this year’ s Giro d’Italia.

Nicole Cooke’s perfect season just got better. Just six weeks after winning the Olympic gold medal in Beijing, the 24-year-old Welshwoman executed seamless tactics Saturday in a thrilling final lap to win her first world title. Cooke followed her instinct to make a final-stage attack by arch-rival Marianne Vos and then pipped her at the line to relegate the Dutch rider to silver with Judith Arndt collected her second bronze medal in the Varese world championships.

The much-maligned ProTour series will continue despite a peace treaty hammered out this week between the UCI and the grand tour race organizers. UCI president Pat McQuaid said a reduced ProTour series will exist alongside Europe’s biggest races as part of a new world calendar that will mark a cease-fire between cycling warring parties.

UCI president Pat McQuaid says cycling’s governing body is powerless to stop Frank Schleck from starting Sunday’s elite men’s road race. The Luxembourg rider, who wore the yellow jersey in this year’s Tour de France, has been linked to the Operación Puerto blood doping ring via supposed bank documents that reveal he paid nearly 7,000 euros in the spring of 2006 to the ring-leader Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes. “At this moment in time, he’ll race,” McQuaid told journalists on Saturday. “We have no evidence to stop him.”

Luxembourg's plans for success in the men's road race at the world championships have been hampered by a police raid on the team’s hotel, and a damning newspaper report on one of the country's top riders. According to journalists staying with the team at the same hotel police carried out a raid late on Friday evening. Around 15 of Italy's NAS (anti-doping) brigade searched bedrooms occupied by the Luxembourg team, taking particular interest in a hypobaric chamber which is designed to artificially simulate conditions at altitude.

After writing two columns about Lance Armstrong’s decision to return to elite-level racing — first looking at questions about his age and long lay-off, and last week examining his possible schedule to find top shape by next July’s Tour de France — I’ll devote this “Inside Cycling” column to the reactions his audacious plan has generated both within and outside the cycling community.

With three Italians in the eight-up sprint at the end of Friday’s heated 173km Under-23 world championship race, odds were stacked against Fabio Duarte. So the pint-sized Colombian uncorked a daring attack with 400m to go to leave the remnants of the winning breakaway choking on his fumes and deliver a huge upset against the heavily favored Italians racing on home roads.

Levi Leipheimer has pulled out of the world championship road race in Italy, it was announced Friday. Leipheimer, who last week finished runner-up at the Vuelta a España behind Astana teammate Alberto Contador, failed to claim a medal in his main event of the time trial here on Thursday. Andy Lee, USA Cycling spokesman, said Leipheimer, who also competed in the Olympics where he took time trial bronze, "didn't feel up for the leadership of our relatively young team at the road race.”

Tour de France chief Christian Prudhomme has welcomed an end to a four-year long conflict with cycling's world ruling body the UCI. The Frenchman, however, said Friday the world's biggest race would reserve the right to enforce strict anti-doping rules. "This agreement allows us to look forward to working together in a positive fashion in the future, but there is still a lot of work to do," Prudhomme told AFP Friday. "For the Tour, there's no question of letting our guard down."

German sprint great Erik Zabel, a six-time winner of the Tour de France green jersey, will retire in early October, his professional road team Milram announced on Friday. "I've had a lot of fun this season and managed to keep my main rivals on their toes. But I don't know if I can do it for another season, so I think it's the right time to stop," Zabel was quoted as saying in the team statement. Zabel will compete for the last time in Munster, Germany on October 3.

Spain's Alberto Contador says he has been given assurances from Astana that he will remain team leader even if Lance Armstrong rides with the squad. Armstrong, a seven-time Tour de France winner, announced his plans to return to competition earlier this month and the Kazakh team has confirmed that he will join it for several races. Contador, who won the Tour de France in 2007, is the current team leader at Astana and he has given conflicting reactions to Armstrong's decision.

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Las Vegas is a good place to put on a show. Jen McRae and Hilton Clarke — each of whom are looking for new teams next year — produced brilliant late season performances with wins at the USA CRITS Finals, held during the Interbike trade show in Las Vegas Thursday night. Clarke said the win under the lights at the Mandalay Bay Resort on the Vegas Strip will not be the end of his season. His Toyota-United team is expected to fold at the end of this season, or perhaps return with a much more modest program next year.

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When the world road championships last came to Varese, Italy, in 1951, an estimated 1.5 million fans thronged the hilly course north of the city and Swiss rider Ferdi Kubler pulled off a stunning victory. The tifosi came to see their national heroes Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali, but a fever prevented Coppi from starting and Bartali had to play the team game when three of his teammates got into the winning eight-man break.

Lance Armstrong announced at Interbike that he will race the Amgen Tour of California in February with Astana. The news comes on the heels of Wednesday that he was in fact racing with Astana next season. Wednesday night Armstrong raced CrossVegas, where he finished 22nd, right before former teammate Tony Cruz.

A scheduled Lance Armstrong press conference at the Interbike cycling trade show in Las Vegas turned tense Thursday morning when three-time Tour de France champion Greg LeMond questioned his plan to disclose his blood and urine values during Armstrong’s 2009 comeback season. Armstrong announced Wednesday in New York City that he is working closely with Don Catlin, who formerly ran UCLA’s World Anti-Doping Agency accredited laboratory. In an attempt at full transparency, Catlin will post Armstrong’s biomarkers online for the sports community to see.

In front of an enthusiastic crowd of thousands, 2006 U.S. national cyclocross champions Ryan Trebon (Kona) and Katie Compton (Spike) won the CrossVegas UCI cyclocross race Wednesday night, held under lights in conjunction with the Interbike trade show in Las Vegas. After surging ahead of a persistent Tim Johnson (Cannondale-cyclocrossworld.com) with just under two laps remaining, Trebon finished alone in front of a field that included riders such as Jonathan Page (Planet Bike), Florian Vogel and Thomas Frischknect (Swiss Power), and surprise competitor Lance Armstrong (LiveStrong).

New York City's Ken Harris (CRCA / Jonathan Adler Racing) set a new world masters hour record for the age 40-44 group at the Valley Preferred Cycling Center velodrome in Trexlertown, Pennsylvania. On Tuesday evening, Harris added about 400 meters to the old record of 45.189 set by Dr. Neal Stansbury in September 2003 at Manchester, England. The new record is 45.587 kilometers. A UCI official was on site to certify the record. Harris is one of the leaders of a New York-based Adler team, and president of the Century Road Club Association, the largest racing club in the United States.

German workhorse Bert Grabsch won Germany’s first world time-trial title since 2001 on Thursday as Canadian Svein Tuft delivered the surprise ride of the day to claim the silver medal. American David Zabriskie powered to bronze in Varese, Italy, claiming his second world championship time trial medal in three years, while Levi Leipheimer didn’t quite have the day he expected and finished just off the podium in fourth.

Ivan Basso’s racing ban ends on October 24 and he’s not wasting much time getting back in the saddle. Just two days after his ban ends for his admitted role in the Operación Puerto blood doping scandal, Basso is expected to race at the Japan Cup on October 26. His new Liquigas team will likely announce it later this week and schedule a press conference with Basso ahead of the Giro di Lombardia in mid-October.

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After a season of oh-so-close calls, Tyler Farrar finally broke into the winner’s circle Wednesday. The 24-year-old Garmin-Chipotle sprinter blasted his way to his first victory on the 2008 season after a year littered with seconds and thirds, outkicking Anthony Ravard (Ag2r-La Mondiale) in the 166km opening stage from Celles-sur-Belles to Saint-Jean d’Angely of the Tour Poitou-Charentes in France. Farrar also took the leader’s jersey in the five-stage, four-day race.

As the road climbed uphill into the lower Alps the peloton began to shatter. Riders attacked, while others drifted against the flow of the group. Gaps formed in the long line of riders. At the back, groups of dropped riders pooled together while, up front, sensing it was the moment where differences would be made, riders forced the pace, rivals working together to forge gaps. I followed the wheels, jumping from one to the next as riders could no longer hold the speed.

Former world cycling chief Hein Verbruggen has dismissed as "ridiculous" a report suggesting he and Lance Armstrong may join forces and buy the company that owns the Tour de France. Australia's Sydney Morning Herald suggested last week that a link-up between seven-time yellow jersey champion Armstrong and former UCI chief Verbruggen "carried weight". But just as the American cycling icon who recovered from cancer a decade ago was confirming his comeback at a press conference in New York, Verbruggen was dismissing the notion.

The U.S. women’s team struck gold in Wednesday’s time trial at the Varese world championships, but it wasn’t Olympic gold medalist Kristin Armstrong bringing home the rainbow jersey. With pre-race favorite Armstrong slotting into fifth, it was Amben Neben who stormed to victory in the challenging 25.15km course in dramatic fashion to win her first major international time trial race. “I don’t have any words, I’m just so excited, so happy,” Neben said. “I cannot speak right now, I don’t know what to say. It’s a dream come true.”

Luxembourg's Kim Kirchen has pulled out of the world road race championships after citing a lack of form. Kirchen was regarded as a medal contender in the men's road race to be held this Sunday but said he was in no condition to compete. "I don't think I have sufficient form to get a good result, so I prefer not to compete," Kirchen, who wore the yellow jersey at this year's Tour de France, said Tuesday.

Cycling legend Lance Armstrong confirmed Wednesday that he would join Kazakhstan's Astana team for his competitive comeback. "I will race in 2009 with Astana," he told a press conference in New York. Armstrong said he would start with the Tour Down Under in Australia; would also compete in the 2009 Tour de France, which he has won seven times; and was interested in the Giro d'Italia.

Kristin Armstrong is enjoying the success that comes with winning the gold medal at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, but she brings her game face to Varese. Armstrong, 35, will always be remembered for her Olympic gold medal, but her proven consistency in the world championships with three consecutive medals, including the world title in 2006, makes her a five-star favorite for Wednesday’s race. VeloNews European correspondent Andrew Hood joined a reporter from The Associated Press to talk with Armstrong ahead of Wednesday’s time trial. Here are excerpts from the interview:

Host nation Italy started the 2008 world championships in winning fashion on Tuesday as Adriano Malori scored a gold medal for the home team in the under-23 men’s individual time trial. Malori started last but finished first, covering the 33.5km course around Varese in a winning time of 41 minutes, 35.98 seconds (48.389kph). Patrick Gretsch (Germany) stopped the clock in 42:25.65 for silver despite crashing late with Cameron Meyer (Australia) taking bronze in 42:40.34.

Alberto Contador, who won the Vuelta a España on Sunday, hinted he may quit the Astana team if it hires Lance Armstrong, who has announced he is coming out of retirement to seek a record eighth Tour de France title. The Spaniard was asked by the sports newspaper AS how he would feel if the American joins Astana.

With Olympic gold medalist Fabian Cancellara deciding not to defend the world titles he won in Stuttgart and Salzburg, and with the other 2007 TT champs Hanka Kupfernagel and Lars Boom also DNS, this week’s UCI world time trial championships in Varese, Italy, will see the crowning of three new rainbow jerseys.

Bootleg Canyon in Boulder City, Nevada, has, for the past few years, played host to the traditional opening round of the Interbike Bicycle Trade Show in Las Vegas, offering two days of demo riding before the whole thing moves indoors to the vast Sands Convention Center. VeloNews’s Lennard Zinn and Matt Pacocha were there to get a first-hand opportunity to try out an array of new products, including Shimano’s Electric Dura-Ace group.

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Interbike, the largest bicycle trade show in the U.S., opened Monday with the first of two days of outdoor bicycle testing at Bootleg Canyon, a park about a half hour outside Las Vegas, Nevada. After the demos in Boulder City, the show will continue with three indoor days at the Sands Expo & Convention Center in Las Vegas.

Although he could potentially earn his third successive rainbow jersey in the individual time trial, Olympic medalist Fabian Cancellara has announced that he will skip this week's world cycling championships in Varese, Italy. "I lack the force," the 27-year-old time trial king wrote on the Swiss Cycling Federation’s Web site. "You can't win races with passion alone." Cancellara, who has won the past two world time trial titles, was among the favorites to win the race against the 43.7-kilometer race against the clock on Thursday.

The chance of making history by winning a third consecutive road race crown at cycling's world championships this week has been keeping Paolo Bettini dreaming all summer. But at the men's road race on Sunday, September 28, the energetic little rider known as the 'Cricket' will need to outmuscle, and outfox, at least three potential rival teams aiming to bring home the coveted rainbow jersey. And one rider in particular, Tour de France points winner Oscar Freire, who has arguably more reason than the Italian to push his legs that extra mile.

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Tim Johnson and Jeremy Powers of Cannondale-cyclocrossworld.com played the numbers on Kona's Ryan Trebon at Sunday's Rad Racing GP in Tacoma, Washington, with Johnson coming away with the win in a two-up sprint. Wendy Simms (Kona) won the women's race after dropping Sue Butler (Monavie-Cannondale.com) in the final lap. The cyclocross race followed Saturday's nearby Star Crossed event in which Powers was able to get the better of Trebon after the Kona rider crashed in the last lap.

With his third grand tour victory in barely a year, Alberto Contador has quickly grown from cycling’s boy wonder to the peloton’s new alpha male. The 25-year-old Spanish climber lived up to expectations to win the 63rd Vuelta a España to complete cycling’s “triple crown” and becomes just the fifth rider to win all three grand tours.

Vuelta a España director Victor Cordero called the 63rd edition of the Spanish tour the “best in years.” “We are very satisfied to see Contador likely to win and to see the quality of racing during this Vuelta,” Cordero told VeloNews on Saturday evening. “It’s the best Vuelta in years and we hope to build on this momentum in the coming years.”

All the talk about Lance Armstrong’s comeback hasn’t tickled any thoughts of a return by Russian veteran Viatcheslav Ekimov. Now 42, Ekimov is busy enough these days working as a sport director at Astana and as a coach at the Russian national team. “I won’t be coming back,” Ekimov told VeloNews with a laugh. “I already came back once. I am finished with racing. I got it out of my system.”

The domestic cyclocross season began Saturday with a pair of upset wins under lights at the Full Speed Ahead Starcrossed event held at Marymoor Velodrome, in Redmond, Washington, near Seattle. Both the men’s and women’s victories were piloted aboard Cannondales, as Jeremy Powers (Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld.com) and Sue Butler (Monavie-Cannondale) emerged as underdog victors against Kona riders — Powers ahead of perennial domestic top dog Ryan Trebon, and Butler against Canadian national champion Wendy Simms.

Against the impressive backdrop of the Lehigh Valley’s South Mountain, the best of the MAC Cyclocross Series opened their 2008 season with the UCI Nittany Lion Cyclocross at Penn State University’s satellite campus in Fogelsville Pennsylvania on Saturday.

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How close was it between Levi Leipheimer and Alberto Contador in Saturday’s nail-biting 17.1km time trial at the Vuelta a España? Very close. Leipheimer gave his Astana teammate a scare and blasted up the Cat. 1 Puerto de Navacerrada to win his second time trial stage at this year’s Vuelta and chewed considerably into Contador’s 1:17 head start in the Vuelta’s penultimate stage. Leipheimer stopped the clock in 33 minutes, 6 seconds (30.997kph), 31 seconds faster than Contador and Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne) to secure second place overall.

The full start list and departure times for the stage 20 individual time trial at the Vuelta a España, a 17.1-kilometer individual time trial from La Granja de San Ildefonso to the summit of the Category 1 Puerto de Navacerrada. Follow the progress of the Vuelta's top riders with our Live up-to-the-minute coverage.

It was a weekend of great contrast here in the land of the coached. The latest adventure started in Crested Butte last Friday when I got a call from the VeloNews edit desk. Turned out one Lance Armstrong was going to be racing near Aspen the following Sunday, and they wanted to know if I could pop by and grab an interview. The recently un-retired Tour champ would be contesting the 12 Hours of Snowmass cross-country race, and hopefully talking more about why he’s decided to turn in his AARP membership card.

Challenge, the handmade Italian tire manufacturer, has a new tire that’s ready for the coming cyclocross season. The Grifo Fango mud tire rounds out the brand’s line that includes the Grifo XS file tread, which is built for sand and smooth courses and the Grifo, an all-conditions tire that’s over 20 years old, easily recognized by its chevron tread pattern.

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Off-the-cuff comments last weekend by Lance Armstrong that he wants to take his comeback tour worldwide raised hopes in Australia that the seven-time Tour de France champion’s return to racing might start in January’s Tour Down Under. Not so fast, matey. Armstrong, who turned 37 on Thursday, said he hasn’t finalized his comeback plans yet and will make a full disclosure Wednesday in New York while attending the Clinton Global Initiative.

David Arroyo won the second stage in a row for Caisse d’Epargne while Alberto Contador fended off last-gasp attempts to blow apart the race in Friday’s two-climb, 145.5km stage across the rugged sierra north of Madrid to safely retain the overall lead Vuelta a España. Arroyo, 28, is one of the worker bees who occasionally gets to taste the honey themselves. The veteran gregario was fulfilling his obligations to follow the breakaways over two first category climbs to set up team captain Alejandro Valverde when fate turned his way.

Jesse Lalonde (Gary Fisher 29 / BKB / T6) and Holly Liske (Hayes Disc Brakes) won at the Smokin Spoke on Sunday afternoon. The Spoke, the tenth race in the 2008 Subaru-sponsored Wisconsin Off Road Series, was held at Camp Tesomas in Rhinelander, Wisconsin.

Spain is an uproar Thursday night over alleged comments from Tour de France champion Carlos Sastre accusing Team CSC-Saxo Bank manager Bjarne Riis of trying to undermine his efforts to win the Vuelta a España. Sastre — who is leaving Riis’s team to joining the start-up Cervélo team in 2009 — was quoted in a lengthy interview with the Spanish wire service, EFE, suggesting that Riis has divided the team against him during the three-week Vuelta. Sastre later denied making those statements.

Cycling’s biggest players will meet Friday in Madrid to try to heal the division and ill will that have split the sport the past few years. Whether the meeting among members of the UCI, the organizers of the three grand tours and the top professional teams can ease the way for resolution or reopen old wounds remains to be seen.

After numerous doping scandals surrounding the Tour de France in recent years, the German city of Düsseldorf has withdrawn its bid to host the start of the 2010 race, it was announced Thursday. Düsseldorf mayor Dirk Elbers formally withdrew the city’s candidacy after a meeting in the west German city on Wednesday night, saying it would have cost 6 million euros (8.5 million US dollars) to host the start. "We had promised ourselves a raised positive profile all over the world through the Tour's coverage, but that is not assured now," Elbers told German sports agency SID.

Spanish rider Imanol Erviti out-kicked Nicholas Roche from an 18-man breakaway that lit up Thursday’s 18th stage to pump some fresh excitement into the Vuelta a España. With the favorites cooling their jets ahead of this weekend’s final showdown in the mountains north of Madrid, two-time world champion Paolo Bettini (Quick Step) snuck away in the big, dangerous breakaway that the Vuelta was waiting for.

TIME? PRO ?Cycling’s ?Daniel? Ramsey ?took ?the? next-to-last ?leg ?of ?the? 2008? USA?CRITS ?Series ?in? San?Francisco Sunday at ?the ?inaugural? running? of? the ?San ?Francisco? Twilight? Criterium.? Ramsey,? one? of? the ?more ?experienced? members ?of? the? TIME? squad,? was ?the ?beneficiary ?of ?a? mechanical ?that? ?took third ?place ?finisher ?Jorge? Alvarado ?(Kahala/Lagrange) ?out ?of ?the? final? moments? of ?competition.? ?

It might seem odd that the rider who’s finished second in the past two editions of the Tour de France would welcome back the rider who ruled the race with an iron fist for seven years straight. But that’s Cadel Evans for you, perhaps the most polite rider in the peloton. Lance Armstrong’s looming return to elite cycling might have most pros quietly muttering in their muesli, but Evans is openly welcoming back Big Tex.

Chris Carmichael admits he was stunned when Lance Armstrong first started talking about coming out of retirement to make a run at an eighth Tour de France title. But a few months after first hearing the news, America’s best-known cycling coach has embraced the idea of trying to help Armstrong retake the yellow jersey in Paris.

Miguel Indurain doesn’t doubt that Lance Armstrong will be able to return to a high level in his comeback in 2009. But the five-time Tour de France champion wonders if Armstrong will be able to win the Tour again after being away from competition for more than three years. “I’m sure he will be able to return to competition, but to win again is something else,” Indurain said on Spanish television TVE. “It’s a lot of time, but he’s maintained his fitness. Above all, he’s a professional. The question is whether he can return to his same level.”

Tom Boonen and Paolo Bettini have each won two stages in this year’s Vuelta a España and had already planned to pull out after Wednesday’s stage into Valladolid, so the Quick Step superstars decided to sit up in their final sprint and leave it the second-tier sprinters to take a shot. Budding Belgian talent Wouter Weylandt stepped boldly into the void, holding off a wild sprint ahead of Matti Breschel (CSC-Saxo Bank) to win by a half-tire length to give Quick Step victory its fifth win at the Vuelta.