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The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.The man is innocent!Dear VeloNews,Floyd Landis will be exonerated of all doping charges! I can only wonderwhy all the information that was "leaked" before any formal announcementswere made about this debacle was all negative.I still haven't heard anything about the results of the six

Our latest reader-submitted Photo Gallery is now up for your viewing pleasure. Of course, a new gallery also means the naming of the winner of ourmost recent contest. Take the time to wander through that gallery and see if you agree or disagree with our choice of winner. Maybe it’s just the timing, but for some reason, we were drawn to Anthony Kahn’s photo of his seven-year-old son Ellis riding an old road bike on La Toussiure. (For one thing, it’s good that Anthony is teaching the boy to shift like a real man before he graduates to integrated levers.) The shot just seemed to remind us

The road to the Vuelta a España goes through the Tour de l’Ain for Discovery Channel’s Tom Danielson. The 28-year-old is racing in the French event this week in his final competition ahead of the August 26 start of the Vuelta, where he will line up as a grand-tour team captain for the first time. "This is the best race I could do before the Vuelta," Danielson told VeloNews. "The race has shorter stages and it’s always up and down, so it’s good to get some good racing in the legs without being too taxing." Danielson won the Tour of Austria in July for his first European victory since

German Jens Voigt (CSC) consolidated his lead in the Tour of Germany by winning Monday's sixth stage by just two seconds over defending champion Levi Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner). Kazakh Andrej Kashechkin (Astana) crossed third after the 196.6km run from Seefeld to St Christoph in the Austrian Alps. Voigt, winner of the third stage and the overall leader since Sunday, holds a 24-second advantage on Leipheimer ahead of Tuesday's penultimate stage, a time trial in Bad Sackingen. Evgeni Petrov (Lampre) sits third at 56 seconds back. The 34-year-old Voigt, who has worn the leader's

Chilean downhiller Bernadita Pizarro lies in a coma in Vancouver’s St. Paul’s Hospital after suffering complications during surgery to repair a broken leg. Pizarro, 20, was competing in last month’s Crankworkx Freeride Festival in Whistler, British Columbia, when she lost control during a warm-up on the mountain’s A-Line trail. Pizarro flew over her handlebars and landed on a large pile of rocks, breaking her right femur. According to Michelle Leroux, a spokesman for Whistler-Blackcomb quoted in the Vancouver Sun, safety patrollers set Pizarro’s leg in a splint and took her by ambulance to

A thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for.— W.C. Fields I have an announcement to make. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a Foaming Rant lauding Floyd Landis for beer-drinking his way to a Tour de France-winning comeback. I have subsequently tested positive for wine. White wine. French white wine. No doubt you feel shocked, astonished, perhaps even betrayed. But imagine my dismay when the Ancient and Honorable Brotherhood of Rounders, Roisterers and Rumormongers informed me that both my "A" and "B" samples — taken immediately after my having finished the column and traded it to

Ellis Kahn (7) downtube shifting on La Toussiure

Voigt makes a successful late charge

This beer tastes ... French

Astana is Vuelta-bound and Alexandre Vinokourov will be team captain. The troubled team filed the necessary paperwork Friday with Vuelta a España organizers to get the green light to start the season’s third grand tour, set to start Aug. 26 in Málaga. While the issue of the team’s ProTour license has yet to be settled, Vuelta organizers will allow the team to race if none of the riders are implicated in the ongoing “Operación Puerto” doping investigation in Spain. Vinokourov, currently racing in the Tour of Germany, said he’s unsure what to expect in the mountainous Vuelta. The Kazakh was

Green and gold signs celebrating Floyd Landis' Tour de France victory still hung by a freeway off-ramp and on the gates of the private community in Murrieta, California, where the cyclist holed up Saturday. The festive billboards stood in sharp contrast to the doping scandal that has enveloped Landis, and heated up Saturday when a second test disclosed abnormal testosterone levels, putting his title in jeopardy. "I don't think he's guilty after knowing the guy, who he is, what he's about," said Matt Barringer, the owner of I.E. Bikes in Murrieta, a bedroom community of

Reigning champion Levi Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner) won the fifth stage of the Tour of Germany on Sunday, a 163km leg between Bad Tolz and Seefeld. The American crossed just two seconds ahead of Kazakhstan's Andrei Kaschechkin (Astana) and Italy's Marzio Bruseghin (Lampre-Fondital). A riders' protest ahead of the start of Sunday's decisive climbing stage prompted organizers to eliminate the day's hardest ascent, the 2,020-meter Kühtaisattel climb, which was pelted with high winds, freezing temperatures and icy roads. "You have to think of the safety of the riders. The

Swiss Fabian Cancellara (CSC) won the Tour of Denmark on Sunday, while German Robert Forster (Gerolsteiner) won the sixth and final stage. In the overall standings, Cancellara, who grabbed the yellow jersey in Saturday's fifth stage, finished 20 seconds ahead of Australian teammate Stuart O'Grady and 51 seconds ahead of German Thomas Ziegler (T-Mobile). Forster won Sunday's 154.5km final stage between Gilleleje and Copenhagen. T-Mobile's Olaf Pollack came in second, followed by Magnus Backstedt (Liquigas-Bianchi). Sixteen teams and 128 riders competed in the 872.3km route

Shawn Milne (Navigators Insurance) and Tina Pic (Colavita-Cooking Light) won their respective events Saturday evening during the Bank of America Invitational criterium in Charlotte, North Carolina. [nid:36034]In the 53-mile men’s race, Milne bridged to Jackson Stewart (Kodakgallery.com-Sierra Nevada) and Rahsaan Bahati (TIAA-CREF) with about 15 laps of the 1.2-mile course remaining, and the three began to extend their lead over the bunch.

USA Cycling has referred Floyd Landis’s case to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, the national governing body announced in a press release Saturday. USADA is responsible for opening a formal disciplinary procedure against Landis based on the analysis and subsequent positive result of both the "A" and the "B" samples provided by Landis following Stage 17 of the 2006 Tour de France. USA Cycling said it would have no further comment and would refer all questions on the matter to USADA. "To maintain the same level of sensitivity and respect for both the rights of all athletes and due process as the

The reaction of the French press to the news that Floyd Landis could be stripped of his Tour de France title was muted, especially when compared to the attention the country's media gave to Lance Armstrong. L'Equipe, the biggest and most respected sports newspaper in the country, had a reference to the Landis story on its front page Sunday, with a headline proclaiming "Landis, yellow jersey dethroned." The full story of the American cyclist's positive "B" sample, which confirmed his high level of testosterone, was on page 12 with the headline, "Landis will lose his

Just hours before the start of Saturday’s dual slalom at the No. 5 NORBA National Mountain Bike Series race in Brian Head, Utah, veteran gravity racer John Kirkcaldie announced his pending retirement from mountain-bike racing. "I’m getting too old for this," said the 30-year-old Kiwi, who admitted he had contemplated ending his 11-year career several times over the past two seasons. Kirkaldie (Maxxis) appeared motivated by his impromptu announcement, and rode like a man possessed, fighting his way past Cody Warren (C-Dub Racing) and Andrew Neethling (Mongoose) and into the finals of the dual

Weather made lower altitudes uncomfortable and higher altitudes too dangerous

Leipheimer wins the shortened mountain stage

Bad weather triggered a rider protest and a shortened stage

Pic in the early going

Pic wins

Stewart leads as the rain starts

Health Net chases

With two laps remaining, Stewart drives the break

Milne wins

Cavalier (left) gave the retiring Kirkcaldie no freebies

Buhl and Hill celebrate downhill wins

Reeves is back.

JHK solos for the win

Haywood scores a short-track win

Floyd Landis came one step closer to losing his 2006 Tour de France title when the UCI announced on Saturday that a counter-analysis of an earlier anti-doping control also came back positive. A UCI communiqué* said that analysis of the so-called “B” sample, conducted at France's national anti-doping laboratory at Châtenay-Malabry, confirmed the original “adverse analytical finding” of urine samples taken after Landis’ remarkable Stage 17 victory into Morzine. In keeping with anti-doping procedures, the UCI has formally requested that the USA Cycling open disciplinary action against the

Australia's Graeme Brown (Rabobank) won the fourth stage of the Tour of Germany on Saturday, a 203km leg between Heidenheim and Bad Tolz. Brown won a tense sprint finish against German duo Stefan Schumacher (Gerolsteiner) and Erik Zabel (Milram), finishing in four hours, 34 minutes and 38 seconds. The 36-year-old Zabel took the overall lead from Russian Vladimir Gusev (Discovery Channel). Gusev slipped back to second, seven seconds behind Zabel, with German Linus Gerdemann (T-Mobile) third, eight seconds down. "It was my last chance to take the lead before the mountains," Zabel told

Floyd Landis' parents planted a "God Bless, Went Camping" sign in their front yard Saturday, leaving it to friends and neighbors to defend their son against the doping scandal that threatens his Tour de France title. Tammy Martin, one of the Landis' neighbors and closest friends, said Landis has proven his "outstanding skill" as a cyclist and that he ultimately will be exonerated. "All he has accomplished, he has attained through his hard work and discipline," she said at her home in Farmersville, a rural crossroads just outside the borough of Ephrata in eastern

Oscar Pereiro said he felt like the true Tour de France champion Saturday, after confirmation of a drug test for Floyd Landis that is expected to see the American stripped of the title. Pereiro said the fact that he now stands to win the title by default after Landis will likely lose the title for doping, would not diminish his achievement. "Right now I feel like the winner of the Tour de France," Pereiro said at a press conference in Vigo, Spain. The comments are a shift from Pereiro's initial response, when he said he would be reluctant to accept the yellow jersey after a

In preparation for the August 5-6 NORBA National Mountain Bike Series stop at Brian Head, Utah, husband-and-wife duo Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski and Heather Irmiger borrowed the Irmiger family pickup and headed to Winter Park, Colorado, for a quick high-altitude training camp. The regimen included staving off mosquitos, shooting slingshots and a few epic training rides through the Rocky Mountain backcountry. "We just wanted to have fun, and it worked out because the riding was great," Irmiger said. "I had a pretty awesome bonk one day. I broke my derailleur and ran out of water and food. Jeremy

Landis's Stage 17 attack ranks among the most decisive in Tour history. Will it remain so once the hearings are over?

Landis heads to the doping control trailer after his stunning win in Morzine.

Brown exults

Pereiro may end up with the jersey after all

Hi, honey, I'm home

And now, while we wait for our feature presentation, a couple of selected shorts

Team CSC made what’s likely cycling history on Thursday when the team won three races in three different events all on the same day. With ProTour squads boasting enough riders on their roster to run three programs, Team CSC scored an unprecedented “hat-trick” Thursday, taking stage-wins at the Deutschland Tour with Jens Voigt, Tour of Denmark with Fabian Cancellara and Paris-Corrèze with Marcus Ljungqvist. “It’s a very special time for the team,” Team CSC sport director Tristan Hoffman told VeloNews. “We have a good combination of riders on the team who can win races. We have a very good

A prosecutor in northern Italy has asked for an investigation into a group of Spanish cyclists suspected of using doping products during competition in Italy, Spanish daily El Pais reported on Friday. Other investigators have also asked to question Giro d'Italia champion Ivan Basso later this month. According to the paper, the cyclists targeted by a Bergamo prosecutor are Marcos Serrano, Joseba Beloki, Unai Osa and Angel Vicioso. Italian police, according to El Pais, "have received documents sent to them by Spanish police which indicate several Spanish riders used doping products

Gerald Ciolek, of the continental Wiesenhof team won a frantic sprint at the end of the third stage of the Tour of Germany, Friday, a 203.3km race from Witzenhausen to Schweinfurt. The stage was marked by a long 145km solo break by Saunier Duval’s Marco Pinotti, who was eventually reeled in with 25km to go, setting up a fast closing stretch with none of the top sprinters’ teams able to control the field as it rushed through the final kilometers into Schweinfurt. Ciolek - who at 19 is seen as the next great hope of German cycling - clinched his first victory on the ProTour after pipping

San Diego computer entrepreneur Michael Robertson on Thursday offered Tourde France winner Floyd Landis $100,000 to "clear the air" and take a polygraphexamination while addressing charges that he doped on his way to victoryin the Tour.Robertson, who made his fortune off of investments in a host of softwarecompanies - including a Linux-based operating system called "Linspire"and and VOIP system know as SIPphone - is also a former collegiate cyclistand fan of the professional peloton. Robertson sent a fax addressed toLandis on Thursday offering to test the cyclist using a set of

Five North Americans are among a preliminarystart list for the 61st Vuelta a España Released Friday by race officials in Spain, all 20 official teams have outlined their early starting riders and substitutes for the season’s third grand tour, set to start Aug. 26 in Málaga. Getting the nod are Ryder Hesjedal (Phonak), MichaelBarry and TomDanielson (Discovery Channel), ChrisHorner and FredRodriguez (Davitamon-Lotto). AaronOlson (Saunier Duval) is listed as a substitute. Barry will back for his fifth Vuelta start while Danielson is expected to line up as team captain for Discovery Channel

Former T-Mobile rider Jan Ullrich was supplied with a potent cocktail of performance-enhancing drugs by the Spanish doctor accused of running a doping ring that has left the sport in crisis, it was reported here. Former Olympic champion Ullrich, who was barred from competing in this year's Tour de France after being implicated in the scandal, was given EPO, steroids and human growth hormone by Madrid physician Eufemiano Fuentes. The allegations were made by anti-doping campaigner Werner Franke in an interview to be published in Saturday's Hamburg Morning Post. "I've seen a

The 2006 National Mountain Bike Series holds its fifth event of the year this weekend, as the series returns for a second-consecutive year to remote Brian Head, Utah. The venue hosts the full spectrum of NMBS events: cross-country, short track, downhill, dual slalom, Super D and marathon cross-country. Located 200 miles east of Las Vegas, about an hour’s drive from St.George, the Brian Head ski resort rises above 11,000 feet elevation, and towers above the Western Utah town of Parowan. The area is best known for Cedar Breaks, a picturesque system of sedimentary rock canyons whose stratified

Cancellara wins in Denmark

Voight wins in Germany

Big Effort: Ciolek's win wasn't an easy one

The great German hope: At 19 Ciolek certainly has some good years ahead.

The happy couple

Minnaar

A small vial tucked away inside the Châtenay-Malabry laboratory near Paris contains what is probably one of the most-watched batches of urine in recent sports history. Officials are expecting a Saturday conclusion to a counter-analysis of Floyd Landis’ “B” samples, taken after his heroic victory in stage 17 into Morzine during the 2006 Tour de France. Lab technicians began work on the counter-analysis on Thursday. Landis’ own attorneys expect the tests to confirm the unusual T/E ratio, which was confirmed by Landis’ representatives to reflect an 11-to-1 ratio of testosterone to

An unnamed retired Italian sprinter insists that cycling has lost the war on doping and that no one can win major three-week races like the Giro d’Italia without resorting to banned performance-enhancing practices. La Gazzetta dello Sport ran the candid interview with the ex-pro, now retired for five seasons who won “six major races” during his career at the elite level. He now works as a carpenter, but didn’t want his name to be published in the story. “Do I know a racer that wins clean? None. No one can win the Giro without doping. I don’t believe it’s possible,” he said in La Gazzetta

Spanish star Alejandro Valverde will return to competition next weekend for the summer classic Clásica San Sebastián, but isn’t expected to race the weeklong Vuelta a Burgos. Valverde, 26, fractured his clavicle in stage three of the 2006 Tour de France and will use the one-day race on Aug. 12 in northern Spain to prepare for his run at the Vuelta a España title. Illes Balears-Caisse d’Epargne officials said Valverde isn’t quite in condition to race the Burgos tour, set for Aug. 6-10. “As of today he won’t race the Vuelta a Burgos but he will be at the Clásica,” sport director Eusebio

Dear Bob,I live in the Minneapolis, Minnesota metro area. The city of Minneapolis has had for several years a 10mph speed limit on city trails. In some areas this limit does make sense such as around the chain of inner city lakes where the density of people, skaters and bikes is very high. Being that we can and do ride the adjacent roads and have no problem with traffic, it is not a big deal. By law in Minnesota a bike is classified as a vehicle and must obey the traffic laws when on the road. So far so good, we have state wide residential speed limit of 30mph. So as a cyclist we have a nice

German CSC rider Jens Voigt on Thursday won the second stage of the Tour of Germany over 181.5km between Mindent and Goslar ahead of Italian Davide Rebellin (Gerolsteiner) and Kazakh Andrey Kaschechkin (Astana). The German CSC rider clinched victory after mounting a bold attack on the final climb before outpacing Rebellin and Kaschechkin in a sprint finish at the end of the 181.5km stage. Voigt, 35, a stage winner at this month's Tour de France and a yellow jersey holder during the 2001 and 2005 editions of cycling's most prestigious event, was delighted with his victory. "To

The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.It was good, but it was believableDear Editor,Never having the occasion of doping with anything other than caffeineand ephedrine I cannot actually attest to what it might feel like to supplementtestosterone. (I reckon it works good however).But having twenty years in the "game" I do

Fields have been announced for the two biggest races on the North American road-racing calendar, the Bank of America Invitational Criterium and the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah. With the Tour of Utah beginning just 36 hours after the Charlotte, North Carolina, B of A Criterium ends — and with the August 13 Tour of Elk Grove Criterium, held near Chicago, taking place the day after Utah ends — it’s a good bet that the North American peloton will be split into two, with sprinters looking to bring home cash from the calendar’s biggest prize lists. The Bank of America Invitational Criterium,

La Gazzetta dello Sport for Thursday, August 3, 2006

ProTour leader Valverde crashed out of the third stage Tour.

Voigt wins one at home

Sastre unsure as Vuelta expects heavy Spanish accentWith the “Puerto Nine” not welcome and a host of foreign stars expected to skip the season’s final grand tour, Vuelta a España organizers are putting a heavy Spanish accent of the 2006 edition. Race organizers revealed a preliminary start list Tuesday that’s laden with Spanish stars and lean on foreign riders. Defending champion Denis Menchov and his Danish climbing Rabobank counterpart Michael Rasmussen are the biggest foreign stars expected for the Aug. 26 start in Málaga. Confirmed Spanish riders include Tour de France runner-up Oscar

Kazakh rider Assan Bazayev gave the Astana team a much needed boost as he landed the first stage of the Tour of Germany ProTour cycling race, over 198.2km between Dusseldorf and Bielefeld, on Wednesday. The 25-year-old beat home Lampre's Danilo Napolitano and veteran Germansprint specialist Erik Zabel (Milram) to give the team its first victory under its new sponsor. The win lifted some of the gloom surrounding the squad since the team was unceremoniously thrown out of the Tour de France on the eve of the race because several of their proposed line-up had been implicated in a doping

Sastre finishes Tour de France stage 17 in Morzine

The 25-year-old Bazayev beat some experienced sprinters into Bielefeld.

The head of a leading international anti-doping laboratory on Tuesday called for a complete change in the strategy used to fight illicit testosterone use in sport, warning that current detection methods were inadequate. Martial Saugy, the head of the Swiss anti-doping laboratory in Lausanne, said the science of detection had fallen behind because of fears of legal wrangling, while testosterone doping methods had become more sophisticated. Doses used when the approved testing methods were set up in 1982 were "massive", he explained in interviews with Swiss radio RSR. "We are no longer in

Spanish authorities are investigating links between Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes – the central figure of the ongoing “Operación Puerto” investigation – and possible connections to doping networks in Germany and Italy. According to reports in the Spanish daily El País, members of the anti-doping brigade are working with Italian and German officials to follow up on alleged connections between Fuentes and sources of doping products in those respective countries. Some police investigators believe there could be a large, pan-European network of alliances between doping rings in Spain, Italy

Some of the testosterone found in Tour de France winner Floyd Landis' "A" sample is from an external source and not his body's, The New York Times reported on Tuesday, quoting an unidentified UCI official. The carbon isotope test on the first of Landis' two urine samples taken after his 17th stage win in last month's Tour indicates the presence of synthetic testosterone, said the official with knowledge of the results from France's Châtenay-Malabry anti-doping laboratory. The UCI said Tuesday that Châtenay-Malabry laboratory has agreed to extend its normal operating

Levi Leipheimer lines up as defending champion Tuesday at the nine-day Tour of Germany with hopes of erasing a disappointing Tour de France. The 33-year-old Gerolsteiner captain will be looking to redeem himself after finishing a distant 13th overall at the Tour, the first time he’s not been among the Tour’s top 10 in four arrivals on the Champs Élysées. This could be Leipheimer’s last major race for Gerolsteiner, after penning a deal to join Discovery Channel for 2007. The Californian won last year’s Deutschland Tour after a strong performance in a brutal climbing stage in Austria and

Discovery Channel's Vladimir Gusev won the 5.5km prologue of the Tour of Germany in Dusseldorf on Tuesday. The 24-year-old time-trial specialist timed 6minutes 42.61seconds and finished ahead of Linus Gerdemann (T-Mobile) and German national time trial champion Sebastian Lang (Gerolsteiner). Defending Tour of Germany winner Levi Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner) finished in 111th place, 42 seconds off the Russian's pace, though he raced cautiously because of the persistent rain and strong winds. Gusev, who has been a professional since 2004 and joined the Discovery team at the beginning

Landis faces questions at a press conference in Madrid last Friday

Leipheimer made his mark on the brutal climb to Sölden in Austria

Gusev defied slick conditions and earned the win

Gusev gets the jersey

Comunidad Valenciana – the continental team which has taken more licks than most in the fallout of “Operación Puerto” – received some good news late last week from the Spanish courts. The team was notified that none of 13 riders supposedly implicated in the ongoing police investigation have any pending legal action against them, essentially clearing them of allegations that have dogged the team since mid-May. Thirteen riders were cleared after a court secretary notified the team with an official document dated July 28. The riders cleared include: Vicente Ballesteros, David Bernabéu, David

Marga Fullana scored a big victory over the seemingly unbeatable Gunn-Rita Dahle by taking gold in Sunday’s European mountain bike championships in Italy. The rail-thin Spanish rider from Mallorca took 1:31 out of the Norwegian dominator to claim her biggest win in years. “I dedicate this win to all those who kept believing in me,” said Fullana, who scored silver at the Sydney Olympic Games, but faded out of the picture following a string of personal problems. “I have demonstrated that I am still here, that I have fully recovered and have confidence I can return to be on the highest steps of