All Content

Maybe the best thing about the mountain bike venue for Friday’s women’s cross-country was that it wasn’t in Athens. Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t have anything against the Olympic host city. I’m just not a city boy at heart, so it was nice to get up in the hills for a day. The course was set at the base of Mount Parnitha, which (fittingly) kind of looks like the hills east of Los Angeles (air pollution reference there). It’s barren, dusty, dry terrain. But when the sun finally tucked in behind the hills and the temperature came down, it was a pretty pleasant place to be. And the sky is

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (August 27, 2004)- Event producers Tailwind Sports and Threshold Sports announced today that a record 42 number of men’s and women’s teams will compete in the 2004 T-Mobile International, presented by BMC Software, on September 12th. The internationally diverse field will be comprised of 22 women’s teams and 20 men’s teams with riders representing the United States, Canada, Spain, and Italy, among others. Six-time Tour de France champion and U.S. Postal Service team leader Lance Armstrong will highlight the men’s field along with other standout Americans such as Olympic

USA Cycling’s fifth annual Colorado state championship MTB race for middle and high-school students is slated for October 30 at the Black Forest Camp and Conference Center east of Monument, Colorado. The race is open to private, public and home-school students in grades six through 12. The Black Forest camp is a 300-acre private venue with a wooded course; housing (75 beds available on Friday night with a meal package); RV hook-ups; and a post-race feed before the awards ceremony. For more about the event, see the host club’s website. For more about the camp, see www.bfccc.org. To

The Mail Bag 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.Olympics coverage much worse than Tour TV Editor:Having read your mailbag and other cycling forums with all the whining about Al, Bob, Phil and Paul during the coverage of the 2004 Tour de France, I found the comments quite comical after hearing some of the butchered commentary during

Mike Jones (Health Net-Maxxis) won the 80-mile third stage of the Colorado Cyclist Classic stage race on Friday in a four-up dash to the finish line in Estes Park, Colorado. After 10 laps of the hilly, 8-mile Devil’s Gulch Road Race circuit, Jones took the victory in 3:23:48, with Jeff Louder (Navigators Insurance) second, Aaron Olson (Ofoto-Colavita) third, and Michael Sayers (Health Net-Maxxis) fourth, all in the same time. Will Frischkorn (Ofoto-Colavita) retains the overall lead by five seconds over Danny Pate (Health Net-Maxxis) with Dan Bowman (TIAA-CREF/5280) third at 1:42. In the

The last three weeks Paolo Bettini and Davide Rebellin have done some serious racing - especially Bettini, who has competed in the Olympics on top of the three World Cups. The Championships of Zürich was the last of the World Cups until the two final weekends in October - Paris Tours and Tour of Lombardy. Rebellin and Bettini have been dueling for the lead the last few weeks, and Bettini is slowly tugging Rebellin’s leader’s jersey from his shoulders, consistently placing in front of him in the races. Zürich is a tough race with one large rolling loop and then four hilly 40km loops. The

Dahle bobbled once, but was otherwise unstoppable

McConneloug crossed in ninth, more than nine minutes back

The medalists

Dahle's winning streak continues

Spitz beat the heat to claim the bronze medal

This is the view the field had of Gunn-Rita Dahle all day long

Until they saw her here, that is

Dahle blazes the berm on the start lap

Alison Sydor just missed medaling, crossing fourth

Two-time Olympic medalist Paola Pezzo bailed after finishing the first lap in 11th place

Jimena Florit finished 12th.

Mary McConneloug's family dons their war paint

The lone American racing climbed to a top-10 finish

Mary McConneloug

Mary McConneloug

Marie-Helene Premont grabbed silver

The heat sucked the legs right out from under Sydor

Dahle shows off her prize.

Premont shows off her smile.

Athens is down there…somewhere.

The cross-country course traced through these hills.

Keeping the dust at bay.

The 30-rider women’s field.

The Norwegians were out in force, but notice the inside-out jersey.

Dahle’s cheer squad.

The winning moment.

Dahle celebrates with sister Peggy.

McConneloug takes a moment to collect herself before facing the media.

Jose Antonio Hermida’s new carbon Merida.

Frischkorn bundles up for the brisk stage

Whatever happened to the 'sunny' part of 'sunny Colorado?'

ScrewedFirst off, you’re probably wondering why you’re looking at a photo of VeloNews’s Lennard Zinn drilling a hole into the sole of a perfectly good $400 pair of cycling shoes. Good question. As we put the finishing touches on our 2004 carbon road shoe comparison, we’ve begun to notice that actual sole thicknesses seem to vary a bit from numbers claimed in advertising. Because most manufacturers want their numbers to reflect the lightest/stiffest/thinnest “interpretation” of the measurements, Zinn and I decided that the only way to find out exactly how thick the soles were was to measure

Track racing at the 2004 Olympics in Athens wrapped up Wednesday with the Madison, the keirin finals and the women's points race. As has been the case throughout these Olympics, VeloNews photographer Casey Gibson has been there to record his impressions on film... well... a really large array of digital pixels.

In almost the same style with which he took the overall victory at lastyear's edition, U.S. Postal's Viatcheslav Ekimov won the time trial stageof the Tour of Holland, Thursday, taking the overall lead in the race fromDutch Max van Heeswijk.Ekimov's win in the fourth stage time trial, 22.2km race agains theclock in Goch, was the third Postal victory in the Tour. Van Heeswijk scoredsprint wins in the first and second stages and retained the leadafter Alessandro Petacchi's stage 3 sprint win on Thursday morning.Ekimov's win comes on the heels of his silver-medal ride in the Olympictime trial in

The search for truth takes us down many roads

Testing a SID

Trashed

New SRAM prototypes

The '05 MC3

Graeme Brown and Stuart O'Grady were the stars of the Madison this year

Wednesday's win gives Australia two successive Olympic wins in an event...

... that the French call 'l'Americane'...

,,, but had no Americans this time around.

American Marty Nothstein missed the medal rounds in the keirin...

France's Bourgai made the final, but didn't reach the finish line...

...but Australia's Bayley sure did.

American Erin Mirabella took fourth in the points race

Russia's Olga Slyusareva takes the win

Boobar shows off Rock Shox's new Olympic ride

For the second straight day the Russians proved to be the masters of the points race. This time it was Olga Slyusareva, who powered to a six-point win over Mexico’s Belem Guerrero in the 100-lap race at the Olympic velodrome on Wednesday. Slyusareva was quiet early in the race, while Guerrero and Colombian Maria Luisa Calle Williams were trading the lead, but the Russian won two straight sprints at lap 80 and 90, putting her over the top. Guerrero came back to score two points in the final sprint snagging the silver, with Calle settling for bronze. Slyusareva is a four-time world champion,

Whispers that U.S. Postal Service strongman Floyd Landis is leaving theblue train took on more weight Wednesday when sport director Johan Bruyneelconfirmed reports that Landis is poised to join former teammate Tyler Hamiltonat Phonak.In an interview with the Spanish daily MARCA, Bruyneel all butconfirmed Landis´s departure from Postal Service, where he rode thepast three years alongside Lance Armstrong en route to Tour de France victories.“We had an option to keep him and we were ready to equal the offer madeto Phonak, but at the same time we didn´t want him to force him tostay with us,”

In the moments after a tacitly perfect run to Olympic glory in the Madison, Aussie Graeme Brown could barely stand. Minutes earlier he and teammate Stuart O’Grady had given Australia its fifth gold medal of these Athens Olympics, but now Brown needed help getting his shoes off. “It was the most painful race I’ve ever ridden,” said Brown. “I never been in so much pain in my life.” Clearly the pain was worth it, though. Brown and O’Grady started fast, gaining a lap along with the German duo of Robert Bartko and Guido Fulst. From there the Aussies picked their spots wisely, winning the fourth

Aussie Ryan Bayley affirmed his status as world’s fastest man on a bike, taking his second gold medal of the 28th Olympiad by winning the keirin on the final day of track racing in Athens on Wednesday. The shaggy haired 22-year-old shot out from the bunch in the final of the keirin, cruising across the line well ahead of second-place finisher Jose Escuredo of Spain. German Rene Wolff was third, but was later relegated by the judges giving Shane Kelley the bronze, yet another medal for the green and gold. Paired with the Madison win by Graeme Brown and Stuart O'Grady, Australia will leave

Olga Slyusareva

American Erin Mirabella takes fourth

Brown: 'The most painful race I’ve ever ridden.”

Brown kept close tabs on Bartko

The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) said on Tuesday it will ask Athens Olympic organizers to try and get medals for cyclists Peter Dawson and Stephen Wooldridge who missed out on a team pursuit gold medal. Dawson and Wooldridge were nearly inconsolable after missing out on Australia's gold medal win on Monday in the 4000m team pursuit after riding in the record-setting qualifying round on Sunday. Under cycling's rules, unlike swimming's relays, only those who ride in the final get the medals. The Olympic rule differs from world championship events, in which all teammates share in the

In a battle of grace and finesse versus brawn and power, the brute force of Australian Ryan Bayley was the ticket to gold in the men’s sprint at the Olympic velodrome on Tuesday. After losing the opening heat of the best-of-three final against Dutchman Theo Bos, Bayley stormed back to take two straight, giving Australia its fourth cycling gold medal of the 28th Olympiad. It’s the best ever showing for the green-and-gold clad team that had been shadowed by a drug scandal on the lead-up to the Games. “After I lost the first heat I just got really agro,” said Bayley, who fits the part of a

Lori-Ann Muenzer earned Canada's first-ever Olympic cycling gold medal in the women's match sprint on the boards of the Athens Velodrome Tuesday. To reach the podium, Muenzer first had to reverse her world championship sprint loss to Australian Anna Meares in the semifinals and then dispatch Russian star Tamilla Abassova in the final. In a sport which rewards youthful power and speed, where certified legends like Florian Rousseau (30) and Jens Fiedler (34) just retired, Muenzer climbed to her sport's summit at 38 years of age and has no plans whatsoever to quit. "Age is just a number

The Spanish newspaper MARCA is reporting that Tyler Hamiltonwill race next month´s Vuelta a España to make up for his disappointing Tour de France, when he was forced to pull out after injuring his back after falling in the first week.Hamilton is fresh off his gold medal performance in the Olympic time trial race and said last week he still wasn´t sure about which races he would start in the second half of the season.Hamilton told VeloNews editor Jason Sumner last week in Athens he was considering racing the Vuelta and had even gone to check out some of the routes after he returned to his

After warming up with a weeklong training camp in France, the American triumvirate of Todd Wells, Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski and Mary McConneloug arrived in Athens on Monday and got their first look at the Mont Parnitha mountain bike venue on Tuesday. With only one sustained descent, and two sharp climbs, Wells said there wouldn’t be much time to rest. “You’re going to be pedaling most of the time,” said the GT-Hyundai rider, who qualified for the Olympic team behind a 10th place finish at the Calgary World Cup. “It’s really dry, kind of loose and pebbly. There’s two climbs and a couple of

It's been an eventful two days at the velodrome in Athens. Photographer Casey Gibson has been there, documenting everything from Australia's team pursuit title to Lori-Ann Muenzer's ride to Canada's first-ever Olympic cycling gold medal.

Olympic cover-upDear Lennard,After watching the Olympic road race and time trial, I noticed an abundanceof tape covering helmet, bike and component logos. Why would countriesgoverning bodies force this on riders knowing that they race professionallyfor other teams?Some examples: Julich and Hamilton covering up the Bell logo on thesides of the TT helmet but not the front. While it looks like most peoplein the TT field were covering up bike and fork logos on the headtubes andfork legs. What gives?ShawnI’ll let Bell Sports answer that:It basically comes down to limits on equipment logo sizes

Pearce

Bayley outsprinted Bos 2-1