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Editor's Note: Rock Racing pro Freddie Rodriguez, a three-time USPRO champion, has submitted the following letter to VeloNews.com urging his fellow pros to vote in the upcoming USPRO board elections, and to vote for Rock Racing team owner Michael Ball. Rodriguez's letter is reproduced in its entirety below. Writers who support other board candidates are welcome to submit letters in their support.

Italian cyclist Emanuele Sella has admitted taking the banned blood booster EPO. After a hearing before the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) on Friday in Rome, in which he and compatriot Marta Bastianelli were banned from all competitions, Sella issued a statement in which he admitted having had access “to an unauthorized drug” and “clarified the context” in which he had received it. "I have got a weight off my shoulders. I'm conscious of what I did and as a result I decided to cooperate," Sella told Gazzetta dello Sport after the hearing.

France's Jeannie Longo will write another considerable chapter in cycling's history books this Sunday when she becomes only the third woman to compete in seven Olympic Games. Longo, the 1996 Olympic champion, who has 13 world titles, is set to follow in the footsteps of Jamaican track star Merlene Ottey and Swedish fencer Kerstin Palm. Come the 126.4km women's road race on Sunday, the wily Longo will want to be treated as just another rider with hopes of stepping on to the Olympic podium.

Bob,
It is difficult to express my outrage after verifying the facts of the Autumn Growhowski story (See “When justice fails”). I find the collision (it should never be called an "accident") terrifying, and the resulting lack of justice simply unacceptable. How can the lawyers in this case sleep at night? In six months, a killer will be free to drive, drink and perhaps kill again...and this is justice? How could any so-called civilized society act in this manner?
M. M.

Things will be very different for Jason McCartney as he lines up Saturday in what will be his second crack at an Olympic medal. Four years ago, after winning the qualifying race to make the U.S. Olympic team for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, the Iowan was in sweltering Athens as a wide-eyed domestic pro lining up against the likes of Paolo Bettini. Flash forward four years and McCartney, now 34, will be breaking a sweat again in the heat, humidity and smog of Beijing. The thrill of being at the Olympics is still there, but long gone is the sense that he doesn’t belong.

Price: $39.95 Available from: www.richardsachs.com/dvd.html "Imperfection is Perfection" is a movie about Connecticut frame builder Richard Sachs and his bicycles, filmed by Des Horsfield. Horsfield's film takes an intimate look into the life and mind of the bicycle frame builder as Sachs talks about why he does what he does. A trailer can be viewed at Des Horsfield Productions.

Bicycle Pedals Recalled by Look Cycle; Pedals Can Break Causing Cyclists to Fall WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed. Name of Product: KéO Bicycle Pedals Units: About 80,000 (40,000 pairs) Distributor: Look Cycle USA, of San Jose, Calif. Hazard: The steel axle inside the pedal can break, posing a fall hazard to cyclists.

ALGERIA (1)
? Hichem Chabane (Konica Minolta / Bizhub)

ARGENTINA (3)
? Alejandro Alberto Borrajo (Colavita / Sutter Home)
? Juan José Haedo (CSC Saxo Bank)
? Matias Medici (Scott-Marcondes Cesar-Sao Jose dos Campos)

AUSTRALIA (5)
? Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto)
? Simon Gerrans (Crédit Agricole)
? Matthew Lloyd (Silence-Lotto)
? Stuart O'Grady (CSC-Saxo Bank)
? Michael Rogers (Columbia)

AUSTRIA (2)
? Christian Pfannber

From selling bikes to helping design the Olympic road course, Todd McKean is China’s main man when it comes to cycling. In Part 1 of our interview, McKean discussed the upcoming Olympic Games. In this segment he talks grassroots cycling, riding in Beijing and Cycling’s future in China.

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The racing hasn’t yet begun at the Laoshan Velodrome, site of the Beijing Olympics’ track events, but the USA track team has already been jumped. No, it wasn’t a team of big-legged brawny sprinters that pounced on Team America’s trackies, or a gang of cup-toting drug sniffs. It wasn’t the Germans, Russians or Dutch. It was a horde of camera toting news-hungry media men, eager for a story — any story. And on a slow news day, word travels fast.

Alison Powers (Colavita-Sutter Home) and Jonathan Chodroff (CRCA-Empire Cycling Team) won the national elite time trial championships in Irvine, California, on Wednesday. Elite Women Powers said she fulfilled a goal she set seven months ago by besting second-place finisher Mara Abbott (Team Columbia) by 1 minute, 39 seconds. Chrissy Ruiter (ValueAct Capital) came in third at 51:05.50.

Age: 25 (Watson Lake, Yukon)

EVENTS

Madison, Points Race

PRIOR OLYMPICS

None Bell and weight lifter Jeanne Lessen are the first Yukon residents to make the summer Olympic team. Bell was ranked 10th in the world by UCI in the scratch race and 11th in points race at the end of 2007-08 season. The eight-time nationals track champion also is one of Canada's top road racers.

Age: 20 (Surrey, B.C.)

EVENTS

BMX

PRIOR OLYMPICS

None Erwood qualified for the Olympic team with his win at a head-to-head race off against jim Brown in July. He was the gold medalist at eh Canadian championships in 2007 and has competed in five world championships. He races for the Crupi trade team.

Component giant SRAM has a new minority owner: Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking. The fund manager is making an undisclosed investment in SRAM, which will retain its senior management, the company announced Thursday. SRAM, which markets products under the SRAM, RockShox, Avid, Truvativ, and Zipp brand names, expects 2008 revenues to approach $500 million. “We have now achieved scale where we believe it is prudent to add an experienced institutional investor to our shareholder base," Stan Day, SRAM's chief executive.

Riders have been checking out the course for the 2008 Olympic road race in Beijing. Photographer Casey Gibson has been, too.

Team Columbia is sending 18 riders from twelve different nations to the Olympic games. While the riders will wear uniforms representing their home nation, it's still a remarkable turnout for the U.S.-based team. “To have so many riders representing their countries at the Olympics, a showcase event, is truly exceptional for Team Columbia. It’s actually made it a little tricky finding riders for all the usual competitions,” team owner Bob Stapleton said. The teams riders will race in the mens and womens road races and on the track.

The stage profile for the 245.4km Great Wall Olympic road course — which the elite men face on Saturday — looks like a comb placed on its end with seven sharp teeth pointing straight up. The section of the comb’s handle represents the flat 78.8 km tour of Beijing’s landmarks, including the Temple of Heaven, the Great Hall of the People, Tiananmen Square and the National Stadium.

Four American cyclists who wore filter masks because of pollution concerns when arriving in Beijing apologized Wednesday to Olympic organizers, U.S. Olympic Committee chief executive Jim Scherr said. Mike Friedman, Bobby Lea, Sarah Hammer and Jennie Reed were among about 200 athletes from an American delegation of 596 who were issued masks by their national governing bodies to combat pollution in Beijing. "They've now seen how their actions have been perceived," Scherr said. "They were very eager to take the right action, which was to apologize to their hosts."

Lance Armstrong on Wednesday downplayed his chances of winning the Leadville 100 mountain bike race this weekend, saying a top-five or "on a good day, top-three" finish is more likely. "I'm not in it to win it, as they say," Armstrong told reporters in a conference call from Aspen, Colorado, where he has been vacationing and training for the 100-mile race, which starts in the considerably-less-posh nearby community of Leadville.

Age: 22 (Airdrie, Alta)

EVENTS

BMX

PRIOR OLYMPICS

None Cools has been training in Switzerland since November, at a sports center with an exact replica of the Beijing BMX track. She is ranked fourth in the world in BMX, she is a five-time world junior champion and 13-time Canadian champion. Cools won her first BMX race at age three on bike built by her father.

Age: 28 (Conroe, Texas)

EVENTS

BMX

PRIOR OLYMPICS

None Bennett won the World BMX Championship in 2002, 2003 and 2007. His stepfather is John Purse, a well-known BMX racer from the 1990s. Bennett earned anautomatic spot on the Olympic team by making the finals of the UCI World Cup in Copenhagen, Denmark, this spring.

Anti-doping tests used at the Olympics and other major sporting events are too often based on faulty science and statistical methods that can yield erroneous results, a researcher charged Wednesday in a leading scientific journal. Donald Berry, an expert in biostatistics at the University of Texas, used the case of American cyclist Floyd Landis to point up flaws in anti-doping procedures, but cautioned that the problems he uncovered apply across the board to lab tests designed to ferret out athletes who cheat by using performance enhancing substances.

Age: 31 (Langley, B.C.)

EVENTS

Road race and time trial

PRIOR OLYMPICS

None Tuft, 31, is best known to U.S. cycling fans for his win at the snowy 2007 U.S. Open in Virginia and the Redlands prologue that year. The Langley, British Columbia resident began bike racing in 1999 and had stints on the Broadmark Capital, Mercury and Prime Alliance teams before joining the Symmetrics team, which also is home to Zach Bell, who is racing on the track in Beijing. Tuft, the four-time Canadian time trial champ, is hoping to bring the country its first Olympic road cycling medal since Steve Bauer’s silver in 1984.

Age: 26 (Zionhill, Pennsylvania)

EVENTS

Team Sprint

PRIOR OLYMPICS

2004 An established track talent, Massie has earned the gold medal in the keirin at the 2003 Pan American Games, an event at which he also earned a silver in the sprint competition. Massie also acts as a spokesman for the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency in its “My Health. My Sport. My Victory. I Compete Clean” campaign.

Age: 31 (Victoria, B.C.)

EVENTS

Mountain bike cross-country

PRIOR OLYMPICS

2000 (9th) Kabush has Olympic experience is has been consistently one of the top North American cross-country riders on the international scene, with a silver and bronze at World Cup events and a 9th place at the 2000 Olympics. The 31-year-old Team Maxxis rider is having a great season this year, defending his Canadian cross-country title and taking second place at the Mont Ste. Anne World Cup.

Age: 38 (Burnaby, B.C.)

EVENTS

Points Race

PRIOR OLYMPICS

None Grain, like fellow Olympians Alex Wrubleski and Erinne Willock, is a member of the the Webcor Builders trade team. In 2006 she was ranked number one in the world in the scratch race.

Age: 26 (Santa Barbara, California)

EVENTS

Team Sprint

PRIOR OLYMPICS

2004 A former kilometer racer, Duvendeck has made the transition to team sprint. A one-time student of 1984 Olympian Rory O'Reilly, Duvendeck has earned elite national titles in the keirin, team sprint, kilometer and matched sprint. He will team up with Giddeon Massie and Michael Blatchford in the team sprint, an event in which they hold the U.S. record.

Age: 26 (Seattle, Washington)

EVENTS

BMX

PRIOR OLYMPICS

None Kinter, considered one of the best gold medal prospects on the U.S. Olympic cycling team, is also a top mountain biker. She is a former junior world champion in BMX and is ranked #1 by USA Cycling in the BMX category for 2008 and earned an automatic spot on the team.

Age:27 (Victoria, B.C.)

EVENTS

Road race and time trial

PRIOR OLYMPICS

2004 (Mountain bike cross-country) Hesjedal, who just completed his first Tour de France with the Garmin-Chipotle team last month, is one of the most successful converts from top-level mountain bike to the road. Hesjedal, 28, was second at the 2003 world cross-country mountain bike championships and on the road has won a Canadian time trial championship and the mountain competition at the 2007 Tour de Georgia.

Age: 34 (Irvine, California)

EVENTS

Road Race

PRIOR OLYMPICS

None Over the years, Neeben has distinguished herself as one of the world’s best road racers, twice winning France’s Tour de l’Aude. A former collegiate mountain bike racer, Neben made her road debut at the 1998 Hewlett Packard Women’s Challenge and earned a spot on the U.S. team for the world road championships that year.

Age: 25 (Napa, Calif.)

EVENTS

BMX

PRIOR OLYMPICS

None One of the top-ranked riders in the world, Robinson won the 2008 Elite Men Supercross World Cup Champion and finished first at the Olympic qualifier event in June. He has been racing since he was five and is no won the Hyper Bicycles trade team.

Age: 32 (Durango, Colorado)

EVENTS

Cross-country

PRIOR OLYMPICS

2004 Wells has been racing mountain bikes since 1996 and is a two-time national cyclocross champion, a background that may suit him well on the Beijing cross-country course. He has been a U.S. national cross-country champion in 2001 and 2005. He competed in the Athens Games in 2004, turning in the top American finish in the cross-country race.

Age: 37 (Cambridge, Ontario)

EVENTS

Road race

PRIOR OLYMPICS

None Hobson is having one of best years ever on the bike, winning a stage at the Tour of the Gila and landing atop the NRC rankings for a time. She also was third at the Montreal World Cup. Hobson, a member of the Cheerwine team, plans to retire from racing at the end of this season and return to full-time teaching. But the Olympic road race, which is on her 38th birthday, could be one of her final chances for glory.

Age: 24 (Regina, Saskatchewan)

EVENTS

Road race

PRIOR OLYMPICS

None Wrubleski is a former speed skater and triathlete who has been bike racing for just three years. She won the national time trial and road championships in 2006 and took the road title again this year. The Webcor Builders team member, 24, also won the Redlands Bicycle Classic overall title this year.

Age: 32 (Millgrove, Ontario)

EVENTS

Mountain bike cross-country

PRIOR OLYMPICS

2004 (9th) McGrath, 32, competed in Athens in 2004, placing ninth. He also won silver in the 2002 Commonwealth Games. McGrath started biking when he was 14 years old. This year he’s been Mr. Consistency on the World Cup circuit, with a 9th place finish at the Offenburg, Germany, race and 8th at the Mont Ste. Anne World Cup.

Age: 38 (Sunnyvale, California)

EVENTS

Road Race, Time Trial

PRIOR OLYMPICS

2004 Thorburn is a medical doctor who took up cycling at Stanford Medical School. She returns for her second Olympics, competing in both the road race and time trial. Thorburn is one of the country’s strongest time trialists, competing and training while still maintaining a full-time work schedule as a rheumatologist in Palo Alto, California.

Age: 23 (Santa Clarita, California)

EVENTS

BMX

PRIOR OLYMPICS

None Mike Day turned pro at age 17 and has racked up many prestigious wins, including a first place in the AA Pro category at the ABA World Championship in 2005. He also was the 2007 Elite Men Supercross World Cup Champion. Day races for GT Bicycles/Redbull

Age: 29 (Salt Lake City, Utah)

EVENTS

Road race and time trial

PRIOR OLYMPICS

None Zabriskie is a solid road racer and one of the world’s best time trialists. He holds the distinction as the only American to have won stages in each of the world’s grand tours, starting with his from-the-gun solo attack in the 2004 Vuelta and followed by time trial victories in the 2005 Giro d’Italia and Tour de France. With the record for riding the fastest individual time trial in Tour de France history, covering a 19km route at a speed of 54.66kph, Zabriskie has to be considered one of the favorites for a medal in the race against the clock. A teammate of Vande Velde’s on Garmin-Chipotle, Zabriskie returns to racing after a serious accident in this year’s Giro d’Italia.

Age: 28 (Kamloops, B.C.)

EVENTS

Mountain bike cross-country

PRIOR OLYMPICS

None Pendrel, 28, who races for the Luna trade team, is in top form for the Olympics after scoring her first World Cup victory, at Bromont, Quebec, in July. Pendrel’s previous top placings include a sixth place at the 2007 world championships, a gold medal at Pan American Games that year and a second-place at the Canadian cross-country championships.

Age: 24 (Mertztown, Pennsylvania)

EVENTS

Points Race, Madison

PRIOR OLYMPICS

None Raised in a family of bike racers, Lea entered his first competitive cycling event when he was just four years old. He is a full-time road pro with the U.S.-based Rite Aid team, but has managed to collect eight U.S. titles on the track as well. He earned a silver medal in the 2008 world Madison championships, riding with Colby Pearce in Copenhagen last February. Lea will team up with Michael Friedman in the Madison in Beijing this month.

Age: 35 (Greenville, South Carolina)

EVENTS

Road race

PRIOR OLYMPICS

1992, 1996, 2000, 2004 The U.S.’s top classics rider, Hincapie has to be considered a factor in any single-day event. The Team Columbia rider will be one of the experienced pros lining up in Beijing, competing in the Olympics since 1992 and riding in every Tour de France since 1996.