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Landis hearing begins Monday

Antonio Gallegos

CSU's Mann adds points to his school's tally

Mara Abbott takes a corner in the D2 crit.

Mara Abbott leads the field through a corner, after being involved in the earlier crash.

Natalie Klemko of Midwestern State taking a corner...

... and winning

Jennifer Bodine picks her wheel to ride with one lap to go.

Bodine celebrates her win in the D2 crit.

D1 men's omnium winner Mark Hardman of Virginia repeats.

Charles Gallegher of Virginia Tech shows the signs of an earlier dust up.

Phil Mann of CSU

D1 Men's winner Phil Mann of CSU.

The Giro d’Italia just wouldn’t be the same without a good dose of polemica, the favored pastime of this passionate nation of 60 million souls, and there was plenty of it in Saturday’s opening stage of the 90th corsa rosa. [nid:38529]UCI president Pat McQuaid got things off to a good start when he showed up an hour before the team time trial between the Caprera and La Maddalena islands to tell Italian journalists there would be no deal-making for scandal-marred Ivan Basso (see "McQuaid:No breaks for Basso").

UCI president Pat McQuaid rejected calls that Ivan Basso should be shown clemency or portrayed as a hero for his recent admissions that he was a key figure in the Operación Puerto doping scandal. McQuaid lashed into the disgraced Italian champion despite calls from some within the Italian cycling establishment that Basso should be dealt with a softer hand when it comes dishing out disciplinary bans for his recent confessions that he worked with controversial Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes. “He has admitted his guilt, when he lied to everyone for 10 months,” McQuaid said. “He lied to the

British cyclist Chris Hoy failed in a high-altitude bid in La Paz, Bolivia, on Saturday to beat Frenchman Arnaud Tournant's seven-year world record for the one kilometer time-trial. Hoy, the Olympic and world kilometre champion, set the sea-level record of 1:00.711 when winning gold in Athens Games in 2004. On Saturday, Hoy timed 0:59.103, 0.228 seconds off Tournant's record, which was also set at the Alto Irpavi velodrome in La Paz, the world's highest track at 3417 meters above sea level. The Briton, who hit speeds of 61 kilometers per hour (37.9mph), will launch another

Now that Saturday’s team time trial has sorted out the field, the peloton in the 2007 Giro d’Italia hits the road with a 205-kilometer stage from Tempio Pausania to Bosa on the island of Sardinia. The stage offers a prime opportunity for renowned sprinters like Alessandro Petacchi, Robbie McEwen and Paolo Bettini, but the outcome is by no means a forgone conclusion. The favorites are joined in the field-sprint stakes by several impressive talents, including Thor Hushovd, Danilo Napolitano and Giro newcomer J.J. Haedo. These and others are likely to be the names we'll see contesting

Managing the heat and an aggressive peloton, Midwestern State University’s Alex Boyd captured the men’s Division I road race national title Saturday in Perry, Kansas. Racing a rolling, 28-mile circuit for three laps (84 miles), Boyd remained dormant through most of the race, the second race of the 2007 USA Cycling Collegiate Road National Championships, which began on Friday and wraps up Sunday. An eager peloton unleashed attack after attack on the country roads of east Kansas, but no riders could open up any significant gaps early on. Under an unforgiving sun, fatigue set in, and the

Enrico Gasparotto gets the first leader's jersey of the Giro.

Hoy came close in La Paz

Liquigas rode an impressive race on a difficult course.

T-Mobile opted for spoked wheels. It may have cost the team.

Astana look poised to win it all... until Liquigas lit it up.

How much time did Disco' lose because of Popo's crash?

An unusual route to the day's start.

After the fall: No worse for wear, Popovych looks ahead for the next three weeks.

Haedo, who has already scored some impressive wins this season, is an unknown quantity at this year's Giro.

Boyd scores the first win of his career in style.

The stretch of gravel road played a decisive role on Saturday...

... especially here.

Marzot takes the Div. II title

Larson played her cards right.

"Cycling in the News" is a regular service of VeloNews.com. Readers, reporters and friends are encouraged to send links to current stories about competitive cyclists and cycling that appear in the mainstream media. If you come across a news item that you believe may be of interest to other VeloNews readers, we would be grateful if you choose to send it to rosters@InsideInc.com. After scandal, cycling struggles for sponsorsThe New York TimesWith the Tour de France approaching this summer, the sport of cycling is taking brutal spills in corporate suites, where deals are made to sponsor

A Milan court announced Friday that it expects to issue a ruling on Unibet's legal challenge of its exclusion from the Giro d'Italia on May 21... nine days after the race starts. The delay effectively ends any hope the team had to contest the Italian national tour, which is slated to begin on Saturday. The Belgian-Swedish team is one of 20 ProTour squads recognized by the UCI, but it has served as focal point of an ongoing dispute between the international governing body and the "big three" race organizers who promote the Giro, the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España.

Tour de France champion Floyd Landis, who is fighting to keep his Tour de France title after a positive doping test, charged Thursday that U.S. anti-doping officials offered to go easy on him if he provided evidence incriminating seven-time champ Lance Armstrong. Landis said that Travis Tygart, general counsel for the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, approached his attorney, Howard Jacobs, with a deal shortly after learning of the American's positive doping test during the 2006 Tour. "That took place in the first conversation between USADA and my lawyer," Landis said at a press conference in

For the two years four-cross racer Jill Kintner has been America’s best hope to bring home a medal from the mountain-bike championships. She has delivered wonderfully, collecting the rainbow stripes in 2005 and 2006. In 2006, her gold at the world’s was America’s only medal in the sport it created back in the late 1970s. Over the last two years, Kintner has seen few women racing four-cross. Some have traded in their mountain bikes for BMX rigs to chase after the 2008 Olympics. Others have been scared away by the World Cup’s monstrous four-cross courses. Kintner, a former world champion BMX

It seems no one was happy 24 hours before the start of the 2007 Giro d’Italia. As if this week's startling admissions by defending champion Ivan Basso weren’t enough to cast a pall over the season’s first grand tour, riders were complaining first about the narrow and dangerous roads for Saturday’s team time trial, and then about being ferried out to an aircraft carrier for an opening ceremony in front of about 200 sailors and VIPs. “I expected more from the Giro d’Italia,” said Argentine sprinter J.J. Haedo, who’s making his grand-tour debut with Team CSC. “We’ve been waiting for hours

Our man Andrew Hood found himself with a little extra time on his hands Friday (okay, a lot of extra time), and so he shot a few snaps of what he called the "unique" opening ceremonies of the 2007 Giro d'Italia, which entailed ferrying the riders, support staff, organizers, officials and press to the deck of Italy's only aircraft carrier — to say nothing of a fair amount of just sitting around, waiting for something to happen. Finally, it did, and Andy sent us the pix to prove it.

The 2007 Giro d’Italia starts Saturday without its defending champion and without any clear candidate to fill the void left by the scandalous fall of Ivan Basso. Riders polled during Friday’s opening ceremony pointed to two-time Giro champion Gilberto Simoni (Saunier Duval-Prodir) as the point man in a peloton reeling from doping scandals and uncertainty ahead of the season’s first grand tour. That seems fine for Simoni, who’s finished no worse than third in seven of the eight preceding Giros and is the best-placed returning rider from last year’s Giro in the 198-rider peloton. “I feel

Olympic champion Chris Hoy will attempt to set a world record for the kilometer time trial on Saturday at the Alto Irpavo Velodrome in La Paz, Bolivia. The 31-year-old Scot, a multiple world champion over the distance and the world record holder at sea level, is attempting to beat Frenchman Arnaud Tournant's mark of 58.875 seconds, set at the same venue in 2001. The concrete track sits some 3407 meters above sea level. Hoy set the sea-level world record of 1:00.711 in taking the gold medal at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, meaning he will have to ride almost two seconds quicker on

The state of Colorado swept the men’s podium and the Mara Abbott-led Whitman women made their first step to an overall repeat on Friday at the 2007 USA Cycling Collegiate Road National Championships. Friday’s race, a team time trial and the first race of the three-day championship, saw teams navigating a banking, gradually sloping, 12-mile stretch on the grassy outskirts of the muggy college town. In the Division I men’s race, the upper-80 temperatures and humid weather seemed to favor the riders from Colorado. Colorado State finished third on the course, which was sandwiched between a

With Operación Puerto eliminating defending champion Ivan Basso and potential contenders Michele Scarponi and Tyler Hamilton, the list of potential winners is much shorter. This will lead to a more uncertain Giro, but the podium is almost sure to be contested by the big four: Cunego, Simoni, Savoldelli and Di Luca. TOP FAVORITES Damiano Cunego (I), Lampre-Fondital Age:25 Giro highlights: Overall winner, four stage wins and 11 days in the maglia rosa in 2004, 4th overall in 2006 (but almost 20 minutes back), 18th in 2005, 34th in 2003. The skinny: After being zapped by mononucleosis in

UCI PROTOUR TEAMSAg2r (F)Race numbers: 51-59GC contender: New team leader Rinaldo Nocentini (I) is most interested in winning a stage.Best sprinter: Alexandre Usov (Blr) had a top-three stage finish in the 2004 Giro. Other rider to watch: Carl Naibo (F), a late replacement, is a useful climber.Giro will be a success if: Nocentini wins a stage.Astana (Swi)Race numbers: 11-19GC contender: Paolo Savoldelli (I) is looking for his third Giro title after contending and then falling sick in 2006Other rider to watch: Eddy Mazzoleni (I) is a strong climber riding support for Savoldelli.Giro will be a

Ivan Dominguez (Toyota-United) and Katherine Carroll (Aaron’s) took their respective openers as the 30th Joe Martin Stage Race kicked off Friday in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The 110-mile pro men’s race started in 80-degree heat and gradually grew hotter, but rains late in the stage dropped the temperature to a more comfortable 70 degrees. Dominguez, who took the sprint finish ahead of teammate Ivan Stevic and Alex Candelario (Jelly Belly), said the rains were a welcome relief. “The beginning was a little bit hot, but it was great when the rains came. It really cooled down,” Dominguez said.

Unibet manager Koen Terryn (L) and director Jacques Hanegraaf (R) have spent most of the season plotting legal strategies as opposed to putting a team on the road.

Jill Kintner

The varsity boys race

The Discovery team rides what is proving to be a very unpopular TTT course

Paolo Bettini brings wife and daughter in tow for Friday's opening ceremony. With defending champ Ivan Basso out of the picture, the world champion will start with the No. 1 bib for Saturday's TTT

Giro d'Italia race director Angelo Zomegnan sports a cap from the Garibaldi aircraft carrier's crew

L-B-L champ Danilo Di Luca walks the walk

Riders hitch a ride back on a ferry to get back to hotels to rest up before Giro start

These sailors were happy to see the Giro's podium girls show up

French attacker Thomas Voeckler hopes to win a stage

No one was happy waiting for the ferry ride back from Maddelena Island

Team CSC's Dave Zabriskie carried the team banner on the walk down the launch pad on the Garibaldi

Could Simoni win his final Giro?

Fort Lewis's men took the Division 1 men's time trial

And the Fort Lewis women won their event, too

Abbott leads the Whitman women to a D-II victory

The UC-Santa Barbara mascot, the Gaucho, was out cheering on his team

CU rides to the runner-up spot

Defending champ UC-Davis rides to fourth place

The public prosecutor in the northern Italian town of Busto Arsizio has opened a doping investigation into Italian cycling star Ivan Basso, the ANSA news agency reported on Thursday. And the public prosecutor in the German town of Göttingen wants to hear from Basso regarding an inquiry involving a doctor suspected of supplying drugs to Eufemiano Fuentes, the physician at the center of the Operación Puerto blood-doping scandal that rocked last year’s Tour de France. The new investigations come after Basso admitted on Monday before the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) that he was involved in

The course for the 90th Giro d’Italia offers something for everyone — but the climbs in the final week should decide the winner. The May 12-June 3 grand tour has eight “flat” stages, five “mixed” stages, five mountain stages (with four summit finishes), two individual races against the clock (one of them a hill climb), and an opening team time trial that could see a bitter battle between the top teams — with CSC, starting with world time trial champion Fabian Cancellara and U.S. TT champ Dave Zabriskie, the favorite. Indeed, the opening stage TTT is a challenging 25.6km long, linking the

American continental road team BMC made history on Thursday when it won the team time trial at the May 9-13 Giro del Friuli Venezia Giulia in Italy. It was a round of firsts for the team — its first European race, its first European win, and, according to team consultant and USA Cycling president Jim Ochowicz, BMC was the first all-American squad to win a team time trial in Europe. The win launched BMC’s Jonathan Garcia to the top of the general classification and landed Scott Nydam in second place overall. Both Garcia and Nydam were members of a 20-man breakaway during stage 1 that

The 2007 route

More than 500 riders will be on the roads of east Kansas this weekend,all vying for the title of “college cycling’s best” at the 2007 USA CyclingCollegiate Road National Championships. For the third straight year, racers will travel to Lawrence, hometo the University of Kansas, for the three-day event, held May 11-13.The University of California-Davis (Division I) and Whitman College(Division II) will look to defend their team titles in the event, whichfeatures a team time trial, road race and criterium. Awards are given tomen and women in the individual events, and teams in the TT and

Dear Monique,I just finished reading large sections of your book, which I find fantasticand will highly recommend to friends. With regards to supplements, onethat I take, but did not see mentioned is conjugated linoleic acid (CLA).Any thoughts on whether this is needed in a reasonably healthy diet? Iam an 80 kg, 46-year-old competitive road racer.Best regards,ChrisHi Chris,At this point there is no reason to add conjugated linoleic acid toa healthy diet or training diet as based on the current research. CLA hasbeen studied fairly extensively, but mostly in animals.  In theseanimal

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USA Cycling has named Jess Schwartzkopf director of sponsorship and business development. Schwartzkopf comes to USA Cycling from EchoStar Satellite L.L.C., (DISH Network), where he had been marketing manager since April 2004. “The addition of Jess to our staff represents a major step forward in the continuing evolution of USA Cycling and our business development goals,” said Steve Johnson, CEO of USA Cycling. “We are putting a great deal of emphasis on creating partnerships in the cycling industry and providing greater value for our members. Additionally, Jess’s appointment will greatly

Tyler Hamilton and Jörg Jaksche will not race the 2007 Giro d’Italia and have been suspended indefinitely “until the competent authorities ... have finally sorted out all the implication of the riders in Operación Puerto,” their Tinkoff Credit Systems team announced on Wednesday. In a press release, team management said the decision was aimed “at relieving pressure created around the Giro … and on the team itself” after statements made by other squads that decided to deny Giro starts to riders thought to have been implicated in the Spanish blood-doping inquiry. German sprinter Danilo Hondo

Carol Hutton, winner Mara Abbott and Anna Milkowski after last year's women's D-II event

Ft. Lewis drives to a TTT win last year

Hamilton is benched again

How can I record my bike position so I can duplicate it?

Making the transitionDear Lennard,I have spent a couple of years "tinkering" with my position on thebike. I feel like my position is now as close to perfect as possible.I am now worried that if I change shoes or damage my bike, etc. that Iam going to lose my "perfect position". What measurements shouldI record in order to duplicate my current setup on a new bike in the future?Also, I currently wear Sidi cycling shoes. How difficult is it toduplicate my cleat placement on a different manufacturer's shoes if I chooseto switch brands in the future?RyanDear Ryan,This is a perfect question for

Organizers of Costa Rica’s famed La Ruta de los Conquistadores mountain bike race unveiled an updated course Monday. For the first time in the event’s 15-year history, there will be a fourth day of racing. “We included a new stage on day 2 that will link the finish venue of day 1 with the start venue of day 3,” said La Ruta race director Luis Viquez during a press conference in San José, Costa Rica’s sprawling capital city. “Now we will truly cross Costa Rica from coast to coast.” Day 1 will depart from the Best Western Jacó Beach Hotel on the Pacific Coast, and finish 96km later at El Rodeo