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Australia’s Sports Anti-Doping Authority Monday announced anti-doping initiatives to be used at this month's Tour Down Under. The new rigorous program is being implemented in partnership with the UCI and Events South Australia, where the tour will be held, ASADA said in a statement. The 2008 Tour Down Under, from January 22-27, is the first stop on the UCI-sanctioned world professional cycling calendar and the first time that a UCI-sanctioned ProTour event has been held in Australia.

José Rujano, the diminutive Venezuelan climbing sensation who almost rode away with the 2005 Giro d’Italia, hopes he can return to form in 2008 following two second-rate campaigns when he failed to live up to expectations. Caisse d’Epargne is the latest European team to give Rujano a chance following below-par runs at QuickStep-Innergetic in 2006 and Unibet.com last year. Rujano didn’t finish either the Giro or the Tour de France in 2006 and didn’t race a grand tour last year as his Unibet team was excluded from all ProTour events.

Our latest reader-submitted Photo Gallery is now ready for your viewing pleasure. Of course, a new gallery also means the naming of the winner of our most recent contest. Larry Rosa managed to capture a terrific moment of cyclocross in “Mayhem,” reminding how much we love the discipline… perhaps as a spectator in instances like this, though. Thank you, Larry. Terrific work!

Johan Bruyneel, the eight-time Tour de France winning directeur sportif, will be in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the end of the month with two of his new projects: Astana and the Johan Bruyneel Cycling Academy.

A spot of window shopping in Lucca, Tuscany

Mello Velo in Provece

Wedding Limo

T'was a great summer - Jasper 2007

Enjoying CX at SA, Texas Cup Finals

A Very Well Marked Course Through the Woods

Greenbriar River Rail-Trail Tunnel

NC winter cup cyclocross pro/1/2/3 race

Floyd Landis's appeal of the doping ban that cost him the 2006 Tour de France title is scheduled to be heard by a Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) panel in New York on March 19. "We are really looking forward to appealing the (U.S.) decision and optimistic the CAS panel will view favorably for Floyd," Landis attorney Maurice Suh told Reuters. The hearing represents Landis’s final opportunity to overturn a two-year doping ban. Last year, a U.S. arbitration panel upheld findings by a French laboratory that Landis had used synthetic testosterone in winning the 2006 Tour.

Dutchman Lars Boom (Rabobank) won the seventh and penultimate round of the UCI World Cup of cyclocross on Sunday, scoring his second win of this year’s series in a race in Léivin, France. Last year’s winner of the world under-23 cyclo-cross and road championships has enjoyed a solid year in his first year in the elite ranks, winning a World Cup round in Pijnacker, in the Netherlands, in November. Boom said the win puts him in solid position for a podium spot at the world’s in Treviso, Italy, later in the month.

Just when you thought it was safe to start clearing your mind of tubulars, tire pressure, mud, sand, dismounts, remounts, clipping in, clipping out and all things ‘cross, I’m back. That’s right, now you can waste more time at work while reading Chocolate, Waffles and ‘Cross in the next few days coming straight at you from the motherland of cyclocross. I’m back in Belgium to get my butt kicked again. I can feel the pain – and taste the beer – already. [nid:71232]For the past year, Greg Keller, a buddy of mine and the brain child of

Former world champion Mario Cipollini has been ordered to pay 1.1 million euros in back taxes for the years 1998 and 1999, the Italian news agency Ansa reported on Sunday. An Italian tax court found that Cipollini owed taxes despite claims that he was a resident of Monaco for the years in question. Cipollini, whose 42 stage wins at the Giro d’Italia appears to be an almost unassailable record, won the world championship in 2002 and retired in 2005.

Former Astana rider Matthias Kessler has been handed a two-year ban after testing positive for testosterone, the Swiss Olympic authorities said Friday. The 28-year-old German will be suspended until July 26, 2009 following the positive test for the banned male sex hormone during a random doping control in April 2007. The day after the test Kessler finished fourth in the Belgian one-day classic Fleche Wallonne. In 2006 Kessler won a stage on the Tour de France while racing for T-Mobile, which has since pulled out of sponsoring cycling due to a series of doping cases.

Marc Gullickson has been named program manager for USA Cycling’s mountain bike and cyclocross programs effective January 14, the national governing body announced Saturday. Gullickson replaces Matt Cramer, who left USA Cycling late last year. Before his retirement in 2002, Gullickson raced for 13 seasons on the domestic and international mountain-bike and cyclocross circuits. He represented the United States at 10 world championships during his racing career — five times as a mountain biker and five as a cyclocrosser.

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