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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.

Yes we do race bicycles (and trucks) here in the Middle East

What!!? Im trying to concentrate here.

Concentration! Or is it nausea?

André Greipel takes the 2008 Down Under Classic

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.

Jenny Reed attacks with one lap to go

Renshaw nails it at the Tour Down Under opener

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.

The UCI is putting a positive spin on its beleaguered ProTour series as the 2008 racing season starts Tuesday with the six-day Tour Down Under just as some heavy hitters are calling it a “failure.” Now in its fourth year, the ProTour series makes its first foray beyond Europe this week in a move that’s being hailed by UCI leaders as the first of a “gradual globalization” effort that could include major stage races in Russia and China as soon as next year.

BOULDER, Colo., Jan. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Skins(TM), the global leader in the development and manufacture of engineered gradient compression technology, announced today it has been named an Official Supplier to Team Inferno, Team Bissell, Team Flexpoint, Kelly Benefit Strategies/Medifast Pro Cycling and Skins/Summit Six Racing Team. The product will be supplied for use to all team members, and will be worn for enhanced training, faster recovery and travel.

American Jenny Reed owns a trophy case full of World Cup medals — 17 to be exact. But before Sunday night, only one of them was gold. The 29-year-old Reed doubled that Sunday night by winning the keirin, holding off a hard charging Willy Kanis of the Netherlands in the finals. “With the keirin I’ve always had a good level of confidence,” said the Momentum Cycling ace, who took her other World Cup gold in the keirin at the Manchester World Cup in 2004. “But when I know my sprint is going good, that bumps my confidence up even more.”

Pat McDonough has faced his share of ups and downs since taking control of the U.S. track program after the 2004 Olympics in Athens. The lowest of the low came at the 2005 world championship, where the U.S. earned no medals at its home track, the ADT Event’s Center in Los Angeles. That failure was followed by another loss, when Australian coach Gary West — whom McDonough had chosen to rebuild the program — quit after only a few months on the job.

Winter Bike League: Athens' finest!

Take that, podium girl! (or, the mild-mannered Savoldelli shows his dark side)

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Hanka Kupfernagel and Lars Boom (Rabobank) won the mud-splashed eighth round of the UCI cyclocross World Cup on Sunday in Hoogerheide, the Netherlands. Coming just one week before the world championships in Treviso, Italy, the race was an important benchmark for checking who is on form — and two riders definitely not up to snuff were U.S. champions Katie Compton (Spike Shooter) and Tim Johnson (Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld.com). Compton was a non-starter, reportedly suffering from jet lag after returning to Europe. And Johnson was a DNF, thanks to an untimely cold.

Former sprint king Mario Cipollini will indeed race for Michael Ball’s Rock Racing team this season, his lawyer confirmed Sunday. Cipollini spent last week at the U.S. team’s training camp in Malibu, California. But on Thursday, he threw some doubt on whether he would be joining the team. "It's not an easy transition," he said in a telephone chat with Rai television. "We'll see. We're still in talks. But compared to two days ago, things are a bit more difficult. Something has happened."

It was an unpredictable precursor to the Tour Down Under as Germany's André Greipel, a relative unknown to most, upstaged his more fancied local talent to claim first blood among the sprinters in the Down Under Classic. The fourth-year pro, not quite as muscled as his Australian counterparts Robbie McEwen and Mark Renshaw - the two riders he convincingly beat to the line Sunday evening in Glenelg - patiently waited for Graeme Brown's Rabobank train to tire before his High Road crew placed him in the hot seat two-and-a-half laps from home.

American continental professional team Slipstream-Chipotle has received an invitation to compete at this year’s Giro d’Italia, Slipstream team manager Jonathan Vaughters confirmed with VeloNews Saturday. Vaughters got the news last week from RCS director Angelo Zomegnan, who is expected to announce the full list of teams invited to the Giro in coming days. In addition to the May 10-June 10 Giro, Vaughters said Slipstream would compete in other RCS events such as Milan-San Remo, held March 7, and Tirreno-Adriatico, held March 12-18.