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The weather in The Netherlands may have been foul, but Belgian Sven Nys (Rabobank) was in a sunny mood following his win at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup on Sunday in Hoogerheide. With only a week until the world championships in his home country, Nys scored a decisive win under appalling conditions, a steady cold, driving rain that relented only when it turned into hail. The rain and dropping temperatures created a dynamic race with riders suffering and thriving in turn throughout the entire 60 minutes. While Nys went on to win comfortably, his early race left many in the partisan crowd

Another day, another gold for Sarah Hammer — our man Casey Gibson was on hand and snapping away. Here's what he saw.

Sarah Hammer put to rest any ideas that she’s not a top mass-start racer with a gold medal in the Los Angeles World Cup scratch race, her third win of the three-day event. Hammer won the opening-night points race and followed it up with gold in the individual pursuit. Hammer and American Becky Quinn repeated the tactic that put them one-two at last year’s World Cup scratch race in Los Angeles. Hammer hit the front with a few to go, Quinn battled to get on her wheel, then Hammer dialed up the pace so high no one could come around her. There was no need for the UCI officials to check the photo

That's a wrap — three days of racing, three golds for Sarah Hammer and three cheers for our man Casey Gibson, whose shutter kept clicking from lights on to lights out.

Robbie the Rocket wins ahead of an angry Renshaw.

Elmiger celebrates a solidly tactical victory.

Elmiger stayed close...

and overcame some serious opposition to win the sprint, locking up the overall title in the process.

Menzies' teammates fought to control the pace as they day's first bonus sprint approached.

Elmiger gets a boost going into the European road season.

Hammer likes racing before a hometown crowd

Ukraine comes from behind to take the men's team pursuit

The aggressive Meyer was scoring his first points as a senior

Bauge and Chiappa dueling in the sprint

Nys starts slowly, but finishes first

Kupfernagel shows solid form going into the world's

Sarah Hammer visualizes the win . . .

. . . and then goes out and gets it

Scot Chris Hoy turns in the fastest 200m time

Gideon Massie in the 200

Americans Liz Carlson and Jennie Reed in the women's team sprint final

Mike Creed shows off the new Slipstream kit as he chases in the points race

Roberto Chiappa and Hoy in the prelims of the sprint

Chiappa's legs show the veins of multiple sprints

The Danes started strong in the team pursuit . . .

. . . only to fall apart

Hammer hits the line first with Quinn second

Saluting the home crowd

Reed en route to bronze in the keirin

The Brits took the team sprint

British beef: from left, Hoy, Staff and Crampton

Huff and Creed in the madison prelims

Creed grits his teeth and digs in

Morkov and Rassmussen, Madison winners

Hammer leads the entire field on the last laps

Francois Pervis of France in the team-sprint reride after his crash

The US team sprint led by Gideon Massie

Quinn, Hammer, and Visser on the podium after the scratch race

Bobby Lea chases down the break

It may be the off-season to you, but not to the intrepid Casey Gibson, who has lugged his bag of camera bodies, lenses and computer gear from snowy Colorado to the ADT Event Center in Carson, California, for the UCI track World Cup. Here's a peek at what he sent home.

Swiss racer Martin Elmiger was rewarded for his persistence with the lead of the Tour Down Under after the fourth and penultimate stage on Saturday. On another rain-soaked day in the hills around Adelaide, Elmiger took the ochre jersey from overnight leader Karl Menzies of UniSA after the Australian managed only to finish 11th in the 147 kilometer stage. The 24-year-old Belgian Pieter Ghyllebert won the stage, picking up his maiden professional win and the second in the five-stage race for his Chocolade Jacques outfit. Teammate Steven Caethoven celebrated a fine win on Thursday. A former

World individual pursuit champion Sarah Hammer (Ouch Pro Cycling) set a national record in a qualifying ride on day two of the Los Angeles World Cup. Hammer turned a 3:32.058 on Saturday to beat the old mark of 3:32.865, which she set in October at the 2006 track national championships. The record-breaking ride followed Hammer's victory in the points race the night before. "I really didn’t expect to break the record after doing the points race last night," Hammer said while getting her legs rubbed down after the effort. "It wasn’t a good ride, legs-wise. I was hurting. But the goal

It turns out there is a little something to those rainbow stripes. At the opening night of the Los Angeles Track World Cup, American Sarah Hammer, Brit Chris Hoy and Aussie Anna Meares showed their respective fields just why their biceps are circled with cycling’s most powerful design. Tour de France winner Floyd Landis and his friend, CSC rider Dave Zabriskie, were among the crowd of thousands at the Home Depot Center velodrome. Hammer, a world champion in the individual pursuit, won the January 19 women’s points race with some last-lap assistance from her American teammate Becky Quinn.

Australian cyclist Mark French has been sent home after breaching the national team's code of conduct on Wednesday during a Qantas flight to Los Angeles, where he was to have raced in this weekend's round of the UCI track World Cup series. French, who would not say what happened on the flight, is trying to resurrect his track-racing career, stalled for 18 months following drug allegations that led to a two-year ban in 2004. The Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned the ban on July 2005. While he successfully fought to prove his innocence then, the former world junior champion is

Hammer nails the points race

Ghyllebert grabs a win, but third-placed Elmiger was a big winner, too.

Elmiger moves into the lead, but it's still close.

The weather is still rougher than usual this year.

Brouchard was in the hunt for sprint points

The escapees stayed out for most of the day...

... until the chase began in earnest.

The Nav's lend a hand

Elmiger had hoped to gain time on the climb.

Menzies was not happy with the outcome

Hammer cranking it up

How'd I do, coach?

Hampton in the scratch race . . .

. . . and on the podium

Hoy in the keirin

Another view

Meares in the sprint

Meares

Quinn in the points race

Hammer en route to cracking her own U.S. pursuit record

It's Hammer time again

The arrival of Iban Mayo helps bolster Saunier Duval-Prodir as a major player going into the 2007 season and gives the Spanish team more options in the grand tours. With Gilberto Simoni focusing on the Giro d’Italia and rising star José Ángel Goméz Marchante the man for the Vuelta a España, team management can only hope the troubled Basque climber can return to the same heights he enjoyed when winning Alpe d’Huez at the 2003 Tour and the overall at the 2004 Dauphiné Libéré. “Mayo is a major ‘star’ but we have 28 riders on this team who will be able to achieve goals,” said Saunier

The on-again, off-again courtship between Russian businessman Oleg Tinkov and Jan Ullrich may be back on again, if recent press reports are to be believed. Back in November 2006, Tinkoff Credit Systems team manager Omar Piscina told Agence France Presse that title sponsor Tinkoff was "a huge fan" and wanted to sign Ullrich, but that the former Tour de France winner didn’t seem interested. "It has been more than a month since we spoke," Piscina said at the time. On Friday, during a team presentation in Moscow, Tinkov confirmed reports that he had tried to sign Ullrich and said the major

Unibet sprinter Baden Cooke underlined his early season ambitions by claiming a well-deserved victory onthe rain-soaked third stage of the Tour Down Under Friday. Cooke, a former Tour de France green jersey winner, flew first over the finish line of the 128km stage, drenched but happy having stayed true to his morning pledge to claim a win in the early part of the season. Five seconds further back was Australian Chris Jongewaard (UniSA), one of six riders contending the finale, who was initially part of a 19-man breakaway but whose powerful riding left the peloton trailing 14 minutes

Border guard: Your papers, please!Hippie: Sorry, man, all I got is a pipe.—A Child’s Garden of Grass I’ve heard it said that the French love Jerry Lewis movies. But anti-doping chief Pierre Bordry must be a Cheech and Chong fan, because he seems to be modeling his pursuit of cycling cheats on the work of Sgt. Stedenko. If salbutamol could put a wanker on a Tour podium, I’d have won eight or nine of the damn’ things by now because I’ve been an asthmatic since childhood. Alas, my various inhalers failed to land me a berth on the U.S. Olympic swimming team back in the Seventies, and a pro

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SAN FRANCISCO – For the first time in San Francisco, residents can use their pedal power to support the fight against cancer during PedalFest 2007. PedalFest – an Amgen Tour of California professional road cycling race pre-event – is a unique, stationary cycling fundraiser in which miles pedaled will earn matched dollars. U.S. individual time trial champion David Zabriskie of Team CSC, the No. 1 cycling team in the world and winners of the 2006 Amgen Tour of California, will join local residents as they "pedal their way" to raise money and awareness aboard stationary bikes. The event will

Mayo swaps orange of Euskaltel for yellow of Saunier Duval, but will be it enough for the maillot jaune of the Tour?

Gilberto Simoni makes a watery arrival at the team presentation. Can the aging general still muster the forces to win the Giro? Gibo says it's so.

Saunier Duval-Prodir's team presentation at the Crowne Plaza hotel was a posh affaire. The team training camp continues through the weekend before the racing season begins in earnest.

Cooke wins it under rainy skies.

A big group formed up, but no one posed a threat to Menzies's lead.

The Chocolade Jacques squad lent a hand monitoring the break

The pace started out high as escapees tried to sort out a potentially successful combination.

Vansevenant (Predictor-Lotto) tried his hand, but was caught.

Asthmatic child, or future Tour winner and notorious dope fiend?