Road

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.

Editor's Note: Will Frischkorn is a professional rider on the Garmin-Chipotle team who occasionally shares his journals with VeloNews.com readers.

Belgian rider Maxime Monfort announced Monday that he will quit French team Cofidis at the end of this season to race for Columbia over the next two years. The 25-year-old was still under contract with Cofidis, and Columbia would have had to pay an indemnity to release him. Monfort becomes the fifth Belgian to have decided to leave Cofidis at season's end. Nick Nuyens is joining Rabobank, Staf Scheirlinckx the Silence team, and Kevin De Weert has signed for Quick Step. Rik Verbrugghe will retire as a rider and become sporting director at Quick Step in 2009.

Lance Armstrong is hoping that a difference of 10 days to comply with UCI rules doesn’t derail his planned comeback at the Tour Down Under in Australia, January 20-25.

The seven-time Tour de France winner expressed optimism Monday that cycling’s governing body would apply common sense when interpreting rules that require a retired rider to register in the UCI’s anti-doping program six months before returning to competition.

Armstrong, 37, confirmed that he officially enrolled with the U.S.

Olympic individual pursuit silver medalist Hayden Roulston of New Zealand capped his stunning return to top-class cycling from a heart condition by signing with the Canadian team Cervelo on Monday. Roulston, 27, who also won a bronze medal in Beijing as a member of the New Zealand pursuit team, rode with Cofidis (2003/04) and with Discovery (2005) until the heart condition known as arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia sidelined him in 2006. It left him short of breath, pushed his heart rate to dangerous levels, and put him at risk of dying every time he got on his bike.

Handing his coveted world title to countryman Alessandro Ballan was the second-best send-off Italian great Paolo Bettini could have wished for, he admitted here Sunday. The only thing better would have been to keeping the rainbow jersey he won in 2006 and 2007, thus becoming only the fifth rider in history to win the world title three times. Ballan, a tall and lanky 28-year-old who won last year's Tour of Flanders, succeeded the diminutive Bettini as the new world champion after a thrilling 260.2km race which proved to be the 34-year-old Bettini's swansong.

Prosecutors at the anti-doping tribunal of the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) have asked that rider Riccardo Ricco be handed a 20-month ban after he tested positive for a new variant of EPO during the Tour de France. Ricco, 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-Scott team after testing positive following the fourth stage time-trial. The team itself subsequently lost both of its title sponsors.

Saturday and Sunday's Jonathan Page Planet Bike Cup elite men's race had a stacked field with Jonathan Page (Planet Bike), Todd Wells (GT), Bjorn Selander (Ridley), Troy Wells (Clif Bar) and on Sunday Tim Johnson (Cyclocrossworld.com-Cannondale) in Wisconsin for the race. Add to this three Swiss riders, a Canadian and riders from throughout the US and the racing action was relentless on both days.

The Wolf River Rendezvous, 11th race in the 2008 Wisconsin Off Road Series, was the stage for two prodigious victories this Sunday as Cole House and Holly Liske took top honors. Before joining the U23 Development Team, House was a regular WORS series racer (2002 - 2005). Though he was closely followed throughout the five-lap race by teammates Chris Peariso (Adventure 212; 1:34:11) and Thomas Bender (Adventure 212 / Specialized; 1:34:17), House (1:34:10) maintained his lead for the top spot on the podium, which he last occupied in 2004, at the age of 16. [nid:83848]

Brad McGee, will retire from racing at the end of this season for a new career as a team director with the CSC-Blaxo Bank team, according to a press release from the Australian cycling federation. "A quick look back now on my cycling career and it is nothing but smiles, even the tough bits," said McGee who started racing a bike when he was ten years old. "You just grow with it and I'm sure it will give me the strength to get through this next chapter of my life."

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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.