Road

This time the sprinters got it right. A day after Philippe Gilbert (Francaise des Jeux) upset the peloton’s fastest men with a late-stage attack, the sprinters got it back on track Monday in the second stage at the Mallorca Challenge in Spain’s Balearic islands. A heavily bearded Graeme Brown (Rabobank) won easily ahead of Denis Flahaut (Saunier Duval) and Gert Steegmans (QuickStep) in an eight-up sprint that saw the bunch splinter in the late going in the 162.7km rolling stage across eastern Mallorca from Cala Millor to Son Servera.

The North American Handmade Bicycle Show was quite a draw this year for boutique frame builders and their fans — including Lance Armstrong, Brian Lopes and Robin Williams.

From now on, February 11, 2008, will be known as a significant milestone in the globalization of cycling. It saw an successful all-Asian breakaway that lasted some 150km, and the first Korean winner in the Tour de Langkawi. Cycling is no longer a sport that excites only those in Europe, or attracts fans interested only in European racing. One of a quintet of riders who escaped on the longest leg of the race, Won Jae Lee (Seoul Cycling) wasn't the favorite - that was Meitan Hompo's Koji Fukushima, who initiated the move on his own after 60km before being caught 20km down the road.

Yury Trofimov (Bouygues Telecom) sewed up overall victory in the 38th Etoile de Bessèges on Sunday. The Russian won the five-day French race after finishing safely in the bunch behind Borut Bozic (Cycle Collstrop) in Sunday’s 145km finale into Bessè. The 24-year-old Trofimov took the jersey in the third stage and then followed the sprinters into his biggest win of his career. Mike Friedman fought into the day’s main breakaway for Slipstream-Chipotle and was only reeled in with less than 5km to go to set up the mass gallop.

Philippe Gilbert (Française des Jeux) uncorked a late-race solo attack and surprised the sprinters to win Sunday's opening of the five-day Mallorca Challenge. Sprinters typically hold court in the 100km circuit race, run on a flat, out-and-back circuit along Palma’s stunning seaside promenade anchored by the towering Gothic cathedral. But Gilbert had something else in mind.

Alberto Contador never dreamed he would win the Tour de France last year. But he did, thanks in part to Michael Rasmussen’s tangle of lies, and now the Spanish climber is intent on proving to the world that he’s a worthy champion. But there are dark clouds on the horizon in Contador’s otherwise-sunny post-Tour world — the possibility that Tour organizers might follow the lead taken by the Giro d’Italia and leave Astana sitting on the sidelines. Contador, 25, simply says that he cannot imagine being left out of the Tour.

A half hour before the doors opened for day two of the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Portland, the crowds piled into the Oregon Convention Center’s lobby to wait. Each had paid $18 for a day’s worth of access to more than 150 of North America’s finest small- and medium-sized frame builders, as well as a few big-time component manufacturers.

After the dramatic events of Saturday, the sprinters' teams decided there would be none of the same Sunday in Sitiawan. However, a disorganized chase in the final kilometers led to chaos — but thriving in chaos was Jeremy Hunt, who showed that at age 33, he's still got the legs to beat the best. Without a lead-out train in sight and sensing a lack of unity, the veteran Briton, who switched teams this year to Crédit Agricole, found himself in a 10-man move that skipped clear of the peloton 5km from the finish.

After just one day in the saddle, the Tour de Langkawi finds itself in an intriguing position. On a stifling Saturday afternoon in the mainland's far north, a select breakaway group charged to the finish in Kepala Batas way ahead of schedule and more than 20 minutes clear of the rest of the field. And in one fell swoop, it's likely to have changed the race for overall honors into a 19 horse race.

The 2008 North American Handmade Bike Show kicked off Friday in Portland, Oregon, with more than 152 exhibitors ranging from solitary tradesmen to the giants of the industry.

Beleaguered climbing specialist Michael Rasmussen could be slapped with a two-year ban if the UCI has its way. Cycling’s governing body announced Friday it is asking Monaco’s cycling federation to open disciplinary proceedings against the Danish rider, who holds his racing license in the principality. Rasmussen, 33, has been the center of a media firestorm since last year’s Tour de France when it was revealed that he missed out-of-competition tests in a lead-up to the 2007 edition.

Organizers of the world's biggest bike race, the Tour de France, are poised to take over the three-week Vuelta a España, according to Spanish press reports on Friday. “Rumors of an agreement between ASO (Amaury Sports Organisation) and Unipublic have been circling for about a year," the Spanish sports daily Marca reported Friday. The paper said that talks between ASO, the Tour's parent company, which also own a host of other major sporting events, and UniPublic, which runs the Vuelta, "have been ongoing for several weeks."

Corruption, scandal, missing prize money, beauty, bravery, tragedy and of course, triumph have all been elements of past Tours de Langkawi, still one of the biggest races outside Europe. Though without doubt, “survival” has been a constant theme in each of those 12 editions, and survival is what brings us to Lucky #13 in the Chinese Year of the Rat.

A Spanish appeals court is set to consider the fate of the Operación Puerto doping scandal Friday in a decision that will have major implications for cycling’s fight to clean up the sport. Three judges in Madrid’s Audiencia Province are expected to consider whether to reopen the investigation or take no action and leave the case permanently closed. With the slow hands of Spanish justice, it’s unclear how soon a decision will be released.

Slipstream-Chipotle’s Magnus Bäckstedt has gotten back on his indoor trainer after suffering a broken collarbone at the Tour of Qatar. Meanwhile, BMC rider Steve Bovay had surgery Wednesday to repair damage from the same injury at the same race. Bäckstedt crashed on stage 5 of the Tour of Qatar, and flew home to the United Kingdom for surgery immediately thereafter. After having his collarbone bolted back together, Bäckstedt got back on the trainer Monday.

Italian sprinter Alessandro Petacchi (Milram) makes his season debut this weekend at the 13th GP Costa degli Etruschi as he faces an appeal in the Court of Arbitration for Sport next month over elevated levels of Salbutamol dating back to last year’s Giro d’Italia.

Nine ProTour teams have demanded immediate talks with the organizers of cycling's three grand tours after the Giro d’Italia denied entry to four of their number. Though the 18 ProTour teams are supposed to be included in the season's major races, Astana, Team High Road, Bouygues Telecom and Crédit Agricole all were denied invitations to the Giro in the wake of a dispute between major race organizers and the UCI.

Budding Belgian classics star Nick Nuyens says he’ll miss the steady presence of American Tyler Farrar as he enters the 2008 season. Farrar was one of Nuyens’ right-hand men at Cofidis last year as the Belgian moved into the role as team captain for the French team’s classics push. With Farrar donning argyle this season at Slipstream-Chipotle, Nuyens said the team will notice his absence.

When you’re on top, there’s only one thing to do — do your best to stay there. It’s something the riders and staff of Health Net-Maxxis, the number one team in USA Cycling’s National Calendar Rankings for four years running, know all too well. Entering the 2008 season with a scaled-down roster means the team will be facing its biggest challenge yet as it tries to maintain a hold on that No. 1 position.

The injury report keeps growing for Slipstream-Chipotle early in the 2008 season. First it was Magnus Backstedt cracking his right clavicle in the Tour of Qatar last week. On Wednesday, Blake Caldwell went down in a crash in the opening stage of the Étoile de Bessèges in France to fracture his hip. The team is reporting he should be sidelined for about three weeks. Despite Caldwell’s bad luck, Slipstream-Chipotle snuck two riders into the top 10, with Mike Friedman taking ninth and Jason Donald slotting in for 10th.

Santa Barbara, California’s Adam Duvendeck turned heads with his eighth-place finish in the men’s sprint at the Los Angeles round of the World Cup, held January 17-20 in Carson City, California. The result stood as the top finish by an American male sprinter throughout the entire meet, and set the 26-year-old Duvendeck up as a strong candidate to represent the United States at the Beijing Games.

With speculation running high that the Tour de France will follow the lead taken by the Giro d’Italia and leave Astana sidelined for the 2008 edition, defending Tour champ Alberto Contador says he’s already making alternative plans. Contador, set to make his season debut Sunday at the Mallorca Challenge in Spain, said he would look toward other goals if Tour organizers overlook Astana when it issues invitations in the coming weeks.

The European stage-race calendar kicks off this week with the Étoile de Bessèges in France on Wednesday and the Mallorca Challenge in Spain on Sunday. Both races are attracting top fields as cycling rolls into a new season keen to push the doping scandals and controversies that have plagued the sport the past two years into the rear-view mirror. Scores of top French riders headline Besseges, which starts Wednedsay with a 154km circuit course in Le Grau-du-Roi, just east of Montpellier.

The UCI has approved Team High Road's request to change its country of registration from Germany to the U.S. "The team is now registered as a U.S. team," team spokeswoman Kristy Scrymgeor told VeloNews. "So in effect, it is currently the only U.S. ProTour team." The team has officially moved its headquarters to San Luis Obispo, California, after Tuesday's UCI approval of a request by team director and owner Bob Stapleton.

After sweeping through the Tour of Qatar, “Tornado” Tom Boonen is setting his sights on the Tour of California. The 27-year-old said he’d be happy with a stage victory or two in his California adventure, because from here to April, it’s all about the spring classics.

Not surprisingly, Astana team brass have reacted with disappointment after being left out of 2008 Giro d’Italia. Astana was among four ProTour squads not issued invitations last week by Giro organizer RCS in a controversial decision that continues to ripple through the peloton. In a team communiqué, Astana general manager Johan Bruyneel said the team will not make a formal complaint over the snub.

Before moving on to less important matters, I’d like to acknowledge the passing on Monday of Sheldon Brown, one of the giants of bicycle maintenance, technology and general bicycle mechanical understanding. He will be sorely missed, particularly for those seeking simple, straightforward answers to a vast array of bicycle-related questions. His white bearded visage with eagle-adorned helmet has long been the online face of Harris Cyclery in West Newton, Massachusetts.

If you look closely at the disc wheels on Astana’s time trial bikes, you may notice striations running from the hub to rim; much like those on a Lightweight Disc wheel. Well, there’s a reason for that. Despite the Bontrager branding, Astana is riding on Lightweight Disc wheels. Even though the wheel sports a large Bontrager logo, the wheel is actually the 850-gram DT Swiss equipped disc is made by Carbon Sports who sells the wheels under the name Lightweight.

Heath Blackgrove (Toyota-United) and Janel Holcomb (Webcor Builders) won Saturday’s Boulevard Road Race in Crestwood, California. The eighth annual race was run by the University of California San Diego cycling team. The 90-mile men’s race was a sweep for the Toyota-United squad, which put Blackgrove on the top step of the podium followed by teammates Ben Day second and Jonnie Clarke third. Holcomb took the 67-mile women’s race ahead of Leah Guloien (CA Pools Racing) and Cara Gillis (Team Vegan).

The “argyle gang” erased any doubt over the weekend that the new-look Slipstream-Chipotle was going to be competitive on the international stage with a strong start to the 2008 season. Racing on three fronts, the team scored a spot on the podium in Sunday’s GP La Marseillaise to open the European calendar with Ryder Hesjedal in third. Chris Sutton, meanwhile, took fourth overall in the Tour of Qatar and others on the squad dominated at the Tour of the Bahamas with victories in all three stages.

Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme says it’s too early to talk about which teams will be in the 2008 Tour. There’s no guarantee that Tour champ Alberto Contador will be back to defend his title. VeloNews sat down with Prudhomme last week during a break at the Tour of Qatar to discuss Astana, Slipstream-Chipotle and how the Tour is seriously considering a grand depart in Qatar. Here are excerpts from the interview: VeloNews: What is the status of selection teams for the 2008 Tour?

Managers of the four ProTour teams excluded from the Giro d’Italia are still in disbelief. Citing a selection process based on “ethics and quality,” Giro organizer RCS told Astana, Bouygues Telecom, Crédit Agricole and High Road they were not invited to the May 10 – June 1 event. While decision seems partly based on doping controversy from the 2007 season — Astana and High Road (formerly T-Mobile) certainly experienced their share — the motivation to shut out Bouygues Telecom and Crédit Agricole is less clear.

After going down on stage 5 of the Tour of Qatar, Slipstream-Chipotle’s Magnus Bäckstedt took an overnight flight to the United Kingdom for a rush surgery on his broken right clavicle. The surgeon put a permanent plate inside his shoulder to fix the clean break. After an overnight stay in hospital, Bäckstedt hopes to be riding a trainer within a week and back out on his bike soon thereafter.

In a bold move, Kelly Benefits-Medifast team director Jonas Carney guaranteed Friday that his second-year team would place a rider on the podium at every stage of February’s Amgen Tour of California. Okay, not really.

Reigning Tour de France champion Alberto Contador, who has signed for the once-disgraced Astana team, will not be a guaranteed a starting place in the 2008 race, race organizers said on Friday. Patrice Clerc, the president of Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) which oversees the epic competition, said that selection for the Tour de France was based on teams rather than an individual pedigree. "When we make our selection, we don't pick individual riders but rather the teams," said Clerc. "Let us have the time to calmly make our decision."

Tom Boonen might be known as Mr. Classics, but the road to glory in April goes through the wind-blasted deserts of Qatar. Ever since trekking to this Arabic nation overflowing with petro-dollars for the first time in 2004, Boonen has used the weeklong sprint-fest as a trampoline for spring-classic success. “The last few years we’ve been good here, so it’s become somewhat of a habit,” said Boonen, who relegated Alberto Loddo (Tinkoff) to second with Luciano Pagliarini (Sauner Duval-Scott) third in Friday’s finale. “If we weren’t going good, then I’d be worried.”

Training in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his Astana teammates, Levi Leipheimer is looking forward to another season as America’s best active stage racer. Albuquerque police have been giving Astana rolling enclosures during training rides. When the team comes to stop signs or red lights, it doesn’t stop. At 34, Leipheimer doesn’t intend to stop, either.

Danilo Napolitano (Lampre) received a nice birthday present Thursday as he steered clear of a nasty crash that KO’d classics candidate Magnus Backstedt (Slipstream-Chipotle) and won stage 5 of the Tour of Qatar ahead of race leader Tom Boonen (Quick Step). While Backstedt wound up with a broken right clavicle, barrel-chested Napolitano bolted ahead of Boonen’s derailed train to snag his first win over Boonen, who retained the overall lead over teammate Steven De Jongh with just one day to go.

The Astana team is in Albuquerque for camp. Photographer Casey Gibson is, too.

Magnus Bäckstedt (Slipstream-Chipotle) promises he will be racing the northern classics despite snapping his right collarbone in a high-speed crash late in Thursday’s fifth stage at the 7th Tour of Qatar. Bäckstedt , who celebrated his 33rd birthday on Wednesday, hit the deck hard after a QuickStep rider swept into his front wheel with 500m to go. Despite the setback, Bäckstedt vows to lead the Slipstream-Chipotle team into Paris-Roubaix and other spring classics.

The Astana team camp isn’t Johan Bruyneel’s only project going on this week in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The recently retitled Johan Bruyneel Cycling Academy is also hosting 16 young riders in the same hotel as the ProTour squad. Bernard Moerman has run the operation for years under the banner of the Cycling Center with headquarters in his home of Oostkamp, Belgium, and more recently with the Albuquerque satellite program.

When Amgen Tour of California organizer AEG announced a series of strict anti-doping measures for the 2008 event last week, the initiative was hailed as a collaborative effort of riders, teams, sponsors, drug-testing agencies and national and international governing bodies. The move came after a tough year for cycling and the revelation that controls at the 2007 edition of the race had been relatively narrow, not even involving tests for EPO. Organizers insisted 2008 would be different.

Before your thoughts turn to experimentation with new sports nutrition products and carbo-loading strategies that support your training and racing efforts, let’s take a look at some predicted food and nutrition trends for 2008. In the coming months you can expect to see in a somewhat contradictory fashion both the promotion of simple unprocessed whole foods and nutrient touting functional foods, both valued for their roles in maintaining good health, as well as a few other nutrition twists. Earth friendly and ethical eating

Maybe Tom Boonen is mortal after all. After winning the opening two stages of the 7th edition of the Tour of Qatar (three if you count Sunday’s opening’s time trial), Boonen was relegated to second in Wednesday’s 131.5km fourth stage when a brisk wind and a surprisingly strong Alberto Loddo (Tinkoff) took him down a notch.

Astana for 2008 is a stage racing squad. The team’s three headlining riders who have finished on the Tour podium — each of whom are confident they can win in Paris in 2008 — met to ride together in Astana colors for the first time this week at training camp in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The three men of course are Spain’s 2007 Tour champion Alberto Contador, the United States’ Levi Leipheimer (3rd in 2007) and Germany’s Andreas Klöden (2nd in 2006 after Landis’ exclusion, 2nd overall in 2004). Although orchestrated by eight-time Tour de France winning directeur sportif

Rock Racing team owner Michael Ball named the upstart squad’s long team for the Amgen Tour of California and listed Kayle Leogrande, the rider said to be suing the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, VeloNews learned Monday.

Eddy Merckx is a living legend, but don’t ask many Qataris to point him out in a crowd. The 62-year-old Belgian can’t walk unnoticed down any street in Europe, but put the Cannibal in front of a crowd during the Tour of Qatar, and most locals couldn’t tell you who won the most men’s races in cycling’s history. Merckx is in Qatar this week acting as a consultant and advisor for the seventh edition of a race that he was instrumental in creating.

Despite spills and splits in the bunch, Tom Boonen (QuickStep) just keeps stacking up victories at the Tour of Qatar. The Belgian bomber won for the second day in a row despite getting caught up behind a late-stage crash that pushed the race leader into a second group with about 40km to go in Wednesday’s jittery 147.5 third stage. When the group came back together, QuickStep drove it home to deliver Boonen to the line in winning fashion in what’s his 13th career Tour of Qatar stage win

The first day of the second annual Serotta Science of Cycling Symposium offered participants some welcome opportunities to take on a few sacred cows of the sport.

Having a group to head out with each morning at our team training camp in Mallorca last week was a change after having spent six winter weeks either riding alone or with just one other rider.

A storm blew across the Qatari desert Monday, but it wasn’t one of the sirocco winds that can scour this flat desert wasteland. Instead, it came in the form of a super-motivated Quick Step team that left the Tour of Qatar peloton flayed like a lonely flag tattered in the wind. Coming a day after its team time trial victory, QuickStep didn’t miss a step and hammered through stiff crosswinds in Monday’s 137.5km second stage from Al Zubarah to the Doha Golf Club to shatter the race into pieces.

Doping scandals aside, the Tour de France is doing very well, merci beaucoup. Earlier this month, the French stage race signed a contract extension through 2013 with French public television worth a reported 23 million euros per year (about $34 million). Despite back-to-back editions wracked by doping scandals, Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme told VeloNews would-be host cities are clamoring to be a part of cycling’s marquee race.

Slipstream-Chipotle came within two seconds of a Hollywood ending in Sunday’s opening team time trial at the seventh Tour of Qatar in the first race of what will be an ambitious 2008 campaign. Anchored by big engines Magnus Backstedt and David Millar, Australia’s Chris Sutton crossed the line first for the argyle gang in 6 minutes, 37 seconds, and looked to have the win in the bag with only defending champion Quick Step still on the short but fast 6km out-and-back course along Doha’s palm-lined corniche.

The likelihood of a Tour de France bid for Slipstream-Chipotle was already looking good before Sunday’s impressive second-place showing in the opening team time trial at the Tour of Qatar. With Tour de France boss Christian Prudhomme quietly looking on, the team missed victory by just two seconds to powerhouse Quick Step to show Tour brass and everyone else that the team has the on-bike brawn to back up its mantra of clean racing.

Never did the man who came to the 2008 Tour Down Under with aspirations of winning a sprint or two believe it was possible to win the race overall. But on a picture-perfect Sunday in Adelaide, that's exactly what happened to Andre Greipel.

It was a hat trick, but not quite the hat trick some might have predicted at the beginning of the year. Dutchman Lars Boom scored his third world cyclocross title Sunday, adding an elite gold medal to the junior title he earned in 2003 and the U23 rainbow jersey he scored at last year’s world’s in Belgium. His Rabobank teammate, Sven Nys, however, had to settle for third, missing out on an impressive triple of his own — a world title to add to his World Cup crown and the Belgian national championship — losing a sprint for second to Czech rider Zdenek Stybar.

If women’s cyclocross racing has just one rule, it has to be “never, never, never count out Hanka.” Germany’s Hanka Kupfernagel racked up an impressive win at the world cyclocross championships on Sunday after a season of insisting that her training was focused entirely on qualifying for the road and time-trial events at this summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing.

Lycra and burkhas are the unlikely companions this week as the seventh Tour of Qatar cranks up Sunday in this oil-rich state protruding into the Persian Gulf like a thumb. There’s nary a mountain, but plenty of sand and wind in what’s become a popular season-starter for riders — 130 of them this year, representing 24 nations on 17 teams from the United States, Europe and Asia.

Rock Racing rider Kayle Leogrande is the anonymous rider filing a lawsuit against the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, charging that it planned to test his B urine sample after his A sample tested negative for performance-enhancing drugs, several sources told VeloNews Friday. Sources with intimate knowledge of the case confirmed that Leogrande is the unnamed cyclist suing USADA, and verified that sworn affidavits have been filed with the agency as it tries to build a case against the 30-year-old rider.

Niels Albert had just one question heading into the world cyclocross championships in Treviso, Italy, this year: Whether to jump into the elite category or ride his final year as an under-23. He now says he made the right choice. “I’m glad I did what I did,” said the 21-year-old Belgian. “I had considered making the jump, but now I can add this to the junior title (he won in 2004) and set my eyes on getting the third one.”

It appears Andre Greipel is a man who can do no wrong. Before this week, the palmarès of the 25-year-old from Rostock amounted to five wins in much smaller stage races. But all of a sudden, he's stepped up to the ProTour level in a very, very big way. And after a third stage victory Saturday in Willunga, he finds himself the likely champion of the 2008 Tour Down Under with just one stage remaining.

Arnaud Jouffroy lined up as the odds-on favorite on Saturday at the world junior cyclocross championship in Treviso, Italy. He didn’t disappoint, but he had to fight to live up to expectations. Based largely on the strength of his sixth-place finish at world’s last year, the fact that the five men who finished ahead of him had graduated to the U23 category, and his stellar results all season, the 17-year-old Frenchman was the pick of many in a sport often dominated by Belgians.

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency faces a lawsuit claiming that it overstepped its own rules by intending to test a cyclist’s B urine sample after the A-sample test came back negative. Associated Press sportswriter Eddie Pells reported Thursday that an anonymous professional cyclist has filed a lawsuit against USADA on behalf of “John Doe,” seeking an injunction to prevent the anti-doping agency from ever testing the B sample.

Belgian police this week questioned former world cycling champion Tom Boonen and searched his parents' home as part of a drugs investigation involving another cyclist. The Tour de France green jersey winner's name came up during a police inquiry into Belgian cyclocross rider Tom Vanoppen. On Wednesday, Belgian police carried out a search of Boonen's parents' home in the northern town of Retie, a move described by prosecutor Marc Rubens on Friday as routine.

The stage has been set for a showdown of epic proportions. In searing heat, a highly animated fourth stage of the Tour Down Under had the potential to impose time gaps, but the finale in Strathalbyn saw the fourth bunch gallop in as many days. High Road's Andre Greipel took a convincing win over race leader Mark Renshaw, who kept his ochre jersey, thus leaving the door to overall honors wide open for Saturday's stage in Willunga.

It’s rather comical how meticulously I pack my bikes and gear for a big race trip, such as this recent adventure to Belgium. Everything is cleaned, wrapped, folded, and hermetically sealed, then put in its perfect place. However, on the return leg of trips such as this one, it’s a different story.

Could Levi Leipheimer and defending champion Alberto Contador be left out of the 2008 Tour de France because of the bad-news legacy of the Astana team? That’s what French and Spanish media reports are suggesting as the Tour de France organization mulls its invitations for the upcoming edition. Sources say lingering questions over whether Contador is linked to the Operación Puerto investigation and Astana’s scandalous legacy from 2007 might prompt Tour organizers to leave the team out of the season’s most important race when invitations are announced in the coming weeks.

The finish may still be three days away, but there's every possibility the 10th edition of the Tour Down Under will come down to the wire. And get this: The winner may well be the sprinter who can climb best.

AT&T Inc. has signed on as the presenting sponsor for the 2008 Tour de Georgia, race organizers announced Wednesday. As presenting sponsor, AT&T will own exclusive rights for communications services during the race, scheduled April 21-27. Last year, AT&T was one of the race’s “founding partner” sponsors. Its support included naming rights to the overall leader’s jersey awarded after each stage. That will continue in 2008. “AT&T is pleased to continue its involvement with the Tour de Georgia this year,” said Sylvia E. Anderson, president of AT&T Georgia.

So far, it's a Tour Down Under like we've never seen before. In years past, after two stages there's been only a handful of riders left in contention. But this year is clearly different: After Andre Greipel's scintillating stage victory in Hahndorf, three riders have the same time overall - all of them sprinters.

Four-time former Belgian champion Tom Steels begins what will be his last season before retiring at the end of this year with Landbouwkrediet. A winner of nine stages at the Tour de France, the 36-year-old Steels was the top draw in the team’s official presentation Tuesday in Brussels. The Belgian continental team is hoping Steels can go out on a winning note and will include a heavy spring schedule for Steels, once one of the most fearsome sprinters in the bunch.

Italian racer Eddy Mazzoleni could be slapped with a two-year racing ban for his role in the “Oil for Drugs” doping investigation if Italian authorities have their way. Prosecutors from the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) also recommended a life ban for journeyman rider Domenico Quagliariello in what are the toughest disciplinary rulings to come down surrounding the doping probe that dates back to 2004. The 34-year-old Mazzoleni -- third overall in the 2007 Giro d’Italia -- was dropped by the Astana team last summer after links to the ongoing investigation were revealed.

It seems Frank Vandenbroucke has more cycling lives than a cat. The oft-injured, often scandalized “enfant terrible” of cycling is making yet another comeback, this time with the small Mitsubishi team that was born out of the former Jartazi squad. Now 33, the once-mighty Belgian is determined to keep racing even if the small team is a far cry from Europe’s most important teams he once ruled with victories in the 1998 Paris-Nice and the 1999 Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

Dear Lennard,
I'm interested in buying the Deda Zero 100 stem you recently reviewed. However I noticed that the clamp size is listed as 31.7mm. The bar I wanted to use is the FSA K-Wing Carbon which has a clamp size listed as 31.8mm. Will the 0.1mm difference in size make this combination incompatible?
Steve Dear Steve,

It's been four years coming, but on a baking hot Tuesday in Angaston, Mark Renshaw finally delivered on what he'd long set out to do. Maybe it was the hours spent behind a motorbike over the Australian summer, paced by his father over the dead roads of Bathurst in country New South Wales. Maybe it was the added strength that comes with three full seasons as a professional, under the wise-old wings of team manager Roger Legeay.

Sprinter ace Robbie McEwen says he won’t be jealous come July about Cadel Evans’ rising prominence on Silence-Lotto for the 2008 season. With Evans bucking for the Tour de France overall, McEwen will take a back seat on the Belgian team where he’s enjoyed marquee status for the past decade en route to winning three green points jerseys.