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Mauri at the Vuelta.

Race leader Isidro Nozal is the revelation of the Vuelta a España,holding onto the race leader’s golden jersey through three difficult daysin the Pyrénées despite working hard to help protect ONCE’sdesignated leader in Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano.Despite his golden run and a growing consensus that the Vuelta is histo lose, the modest rider insists he’s still a gregario for Galdeano.“I have it very clear – I work for the team and I do it with pleasure,”Nozal told journalists on Tuesday’s rest day. “Everyone dreams of winningthe Vuelta, but now I am concentrating on helping the team. I still

Erik Zabel made it through three stages in the Pyrénées to win Monday’s frenetic stage into Sabadell and snagged another victory after he got over a tough cobble-stoned Category 3 climb late in Wednesday’s 162km 11th stage. Zabel’s Team Telekom did great work to reel in the attacking David Etxebarria (Euskaltel) and Santos Gonzalez (Domina Vacanze), erasing a 39-second gap with 10km to go put Zabel in position to win. Gonzalez and Etxebarria were caught with 500 meters to go and Zabel charged up the left hand side of the finishing straight to nip a surging Tom Boonen (Quick Step) by inches.

USA Cycling on Wednesday announced its long team selections for the 2003Road World Championships to be held in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, October6-12.From this list, the final selections will be made and announced on Monday,September 22.(Selections for junior categories have been finalized.)Elite Men Road Race (12 Start Positions)Automatic Qualifiers:Mark McCormack (Northeaston, Mass.)Tom Danielson (Durango, Colo.) *Chris Horner (Bend, Ore.)Long list for remaining 10 start positions:George Hincapie (Greenville, S.C.)Floyd Landis (San Diego, Calif.)Bobby Julich (Reno, Nevada)Levi Leipheimer

Dear readers;Issue No. 17 of VeloNewsincludes an article on balanced vegetarian eating. As a result, I've received a number of great cooking suggestions and so, instead of my usual Q&A column, I thought I should provide you with some of those recipe contributions this week. Bon Appetit and thank you to everyone who provided comments, suggestions, and recipes on vegetarian diets for the endurance athlete. Monique Doug’s RajmaThis is an Indian dish, which is a bean curry.1 can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed2 tbsp. vegetable oil (canola oil)½ tsp. Cumin seeds1 onion, thinly sliced1 fresh

Just days after celebrating victory in San Francisco’s T-Mobile International, riders on the Saturn Cycling team have been told that they may well be without jobs in 2004. In a conference call with riders late Wednesday afternoon, Team Sports manager Tom Schuler said that the program’s major sponsor, the Saturn division of General Motors, will end its sponsorship at the end of the year. Saturn, whose 12-year involvement in American cycling makes it the longest-running major team sponsor on the domestic scene, had been rumored to be ending its support for its elite men's and women's team

Etxebarria and Gonzalez were caught with 500 meters to go

Landis joined what might have been a winning move

The day's only rated climb threw a wrench in the works for some.

Nozal: Still the man to beat.

The last hurrah? Chris Horner wins in San Fran'

Being in San Francisco this past weekend felt like a bit of homecoming, as it was my first visit to the United States since the Philadelphia Liberty Classic in June. I have been in Europe most of the summer, training and racing. It was neat to see everyone in American cycling gathered for this event. I have nice memories of the race in San Francisco. The last time I was here was to watch my husband, Michael, race through the streets and up the hills. I wasn’t racing much at the time and was attending school so I walked around the course, wandering through the hundreds of thousands of

Dear Lennard;I have 1990 Campagnolo 8-speed set-up, which still works fine, but,I have beaten my two sets of wheels to a pulp and they can no longer betrued to round. I would like some lighter, new-fangled (and hopefully round)wheels, however none of the new-fangled wheelsets are compatible with Campy8-speed and you can't buy new Campy 8-speed hubs anymore. Now,  I’mtoo cheap to drop $700+ to upgrade the whole drive-train to Shimano 9 orCampy 9/10, then another $300 to $800 on wheels. Do you have any feedback on how well the "Wheels Manufacturing CassetteConversion Kit" works? Excel Sports

October is just around the corner and, if you’re a cyclist, that can meanonly one thing. No, not road world’s. I’m talking about the Interbike tradeshow. Coincidentally, the powers that be at Interbike were either unable orunwilling to reschedule their event (October 12 -14) around the road world’sin Hamilton, Ontario, (October 6 -12) the first time that event has hitNorth America since 1986. So, die-hard techie/race fans must choose betweenthe elite men’s road race or the opening day of Interbike. I suppose thosetruly devoted could hop on a plane immediately after the eventand scoot on out

Today we have a day off. And I think I can safely say that it is well deserved. Monday’s stage was, once again, fast and furious from the start. Whatlooked to be an easy stage on the course profile turned out to be a fairlyhilly nervous and aggressive day. At day’s end when we climbed in the teambus in Sabadell to travel to our hotel four hours down the road in Valenciawe were all a little tired and looking forward to a relaxed day with norace sign on, race food, or race radios plugged into our ears. Everybodyfrom the staff to the riders looked happy to be at the hotel in Valencialast

They even get their own lights!

Savior of the planet?

La Vuelta de Barry: At the beach

La Vuelta de Barry: At the beach

La Vuelta de Barry: At the beach

Erik Zabel might not be as fast as he used to be, but the Telekom veteran still got around the man who is regarded as the peloton’s fastest these days to win Monday´s 10th stage of the Vuelta a España. Fassa Bortolo´s Alessandro Petacchi delivered on his promise to get through the Pyrénées and almost rewarded his team with his third Vuelta victory, but Zabel had his own plans. After Fassa and ONCE worked hard to reel in a six-man break early in the race and control a frenetic final 10km, Petacchi shot to the line with 400 meters to go up a slightly rising finish into Sabadell, a Barcelona

Taking care of business... no flash, no signals, just a win.

Did I really beat him?

Nozal: Still golden

Coming into the final stretch of the T-Mobile International, Saturn’s Chris Horner knew he’d won the race, he just didn’t know preciselywhen. Away on a solo break — with a one-minute advantage over teammate Mark McCormack and loud crowds drowning out his earpiece — Horner passed through the start/finish area on San Francisco’s Embarcadero and kept right on rolling until spectators lining the area waved him around. “I absolutely believed I had another [5-mile] lap to ride,” Horner smiled, adding, “And I would have held them all off if I had to.” Course understanding aside, Horner and USPRO

Gunn-Rita Dahle (Merida) has completed her streak of World Cup victories, taking the fifth and final race in Kaprun in decisive fashion, ahead of teammate and new world champion Sabine Spitz of Germany. Marie-Helene Premont (Oryx) confirmed her status among the elite women riders by finishing third. The weather gods finally smiled, and for the first time in a week racegoers were treated to sunshine. Marga Fullana led the charge up the first steep climb, but by the end of the first of four laps it wasDahle at the front and pulling away. Fullana steadily dropped back, leaving Spitz and Premont

Who could have imagined a bunch sprint atop a 2410-meter chunk of rock in the heart of the Pyrénées? But that's just what happened in Sunday's 174.8km ninth stage. Okay, it wasn't a classic Mario Cipollini train, but Kelme phenom Alejandro Valverde won a 13-up sprint in an exciting summit finish up the "especial" Port d'Envalira climb in Andorra. "I'm very happy. I don't know what to say," said Valverde after nipping Italian Dario Frigo (Fassa Bortolo). "This stage was full speed all day. The team had a lot of confidence in me. I'm very happy with what's happened so far." Despite efforts

Swiss Alex Zülle (Phonak), double winner of the Vuelta a España (1996 and 1997), abandoned this year’s race on Sunday and said he would not race any more grand tours. Obviously tired, the 35-year-old Zülle – who was 114th overall at more than an hour off the lead – told Spanish radio: "I can’t keep the pace. You will not see me me any more in the Vuelta. It was my last grand tour. I will re-examine my calendar the next year, and I will take part only in small tours and the classics." Twice on the podium of the Tour de France (1996 and 1999), Zülle excelled in time trials but was less

With two more days in the Pyrénées under our belts, we are now on our waytoward the coast and Barcelona on Monday night.On Saturday, we once again started racing fast out of the blocks - notan ideal way to start a stage that has four climbs over 10 km long (see"ONCE'sRodriguez takes stage 8 at Vuelta").  Again, everybody onthe team, save Roberto and Triki, were to follow the attacks and keep therace under control so that they would have a good situation as we nearedthe finish.Forty kilometers into the race we began the big climbs. One after another,they hit us with little recovery in

Dahle rides solo to the World Cup win

World champ Meirhaeghe shows it was no fluke

Valverde showed his quality today

Osa on the attack

Finally finished, Horner could celebrate

Barry was racing to win

A party on the Streets of SF - Postal launches a vicious, but ultimately ineffective, attack.

Sabrina Jonnier and Nathan Rennie are the 2003 World Cup downhill champions, each battling it out on the final run of the season in what were possibly the tightest races in the history of the World Cup. Marla Streb (Luna) and David Vasquez Lopez (MSC Bikes) won their respective races on a muddy, strength-sapping course in Kaprun, Austria, but all attention was on the overall standings. The bottom portion of the course gave many riders problems. If they slid too far down in the final corner, they would get bogged in a swampy dip just before the drop to the finish, with some riders coming to

Someone needs to tell Isidro Nozal he's not supposed to be leading the Vuelta a España. Nozal retained the overall lead in Saturday's eighth stage on a day when all of the Vuelta's main players stayed on equal footing in the four-climb romp across the Pyrénées except U.S. Postal's Manuel Beltran, the one man poised to step into his shoes. Nozal powered the lead group across the line in the sun-blasted Plá de Beret ski area at 3:51 behind stage-winner Joaquin Rodriguez (ONCE-Eroski). Beltran couldn't match the accelerations initiated by a re-energized Aitor Gonzalez (Fassa Bortolo) and lost

The four-cross has been canceled at the World Cup final. Despite using a helicopter to dump gravel on the lower part of the course on Friday, the officials decided that the course was still too dangerous at the top, where no gravel was spread. The decision was not well received – many riders had come to Kaprun just to race the four-cross only to find themselves left with no event. There have been problems with the course since it was built. The organizer simply removed the top layer of grass without packing down the topsoil underneath, and during the past week of rain the course degenerated

Defending Vuelta champion Aitor Gonzalez has had a season he'd like to forget. Now he's making a Vuelta he wants to remember. Although he won a stage at the Giro d'Italia, Gonzalez couldn't deliver the big win for his Fassa Bortolo team. Then his Tour de France was short-circuited by a virus that ran through the Fassa team and sent everyone home early except Ivan Basso and two teammates. Going into the Vuelta's second week, Gonzalez is slowly coming back to life, and he let the peloton see it on the Col del Portillón at 120km into Saturday's eighth stage when he rode strongly over the steep

The Bay Area is heating up as riders from across the globe have amassed in San Francisco for the T-Mobile International, an event that, in just its third year, is being hailed as the strongest field ever assembled on American soil. Organized and directed under San Francisco Cycling LLC, a joint cooperative of Tailwind Sports, the management company that runs the U.S. Postal Service Cycling Team, and Threshold Sports, organizing body of the Pro Cycling Tour, the event has again drawn Postal’s Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, as well as first-time appearances from two-time Giro

The four-cross course was so deadly that Carter was forced to ride it in his undies

Jonnier took second and the overall

Rennie's third place was good enough to claim the Cup

Who'da thunk it? Nozal maintains his lead

Teammate Rodriguez wins the stage

Beltran's in striking distance, but says Heras is the man

A revitalized Gonzales on the attack

Perez leads an assault on the front-runners

Vinokourov, signing autographs for attractive, adoring fans.

95 degrees in the shade

Fraser (1) after the crash

Team Genesis-Scuba’s Candace Blickem, Sue Palmer-Komar and Iona Wynter.

Ken Ilegems, Telekom mechanic, puts the touch on team bikes. “We didn’t bring 27-tooth cogs,” Ilegems said. “The team rode the course today, and now we are looking for them.”

With five kilometers to go to victory in Friday’s difficult four-climb stage, Michael Rasmussen knew he had it in the bag. The former mountain bike world champion held off a counter-attack from U.S. Postal’s Manuel Beltran and Cofidis’ Luis Perez on the Category 1 summit finish to the Cauterets Cam-Basque ski station and slipped across the line to win the seventh stage of the Vuelta a España. “This is a dream come true for me, to win a stage with a mountain top finish in a grand tour,” said Rasmussen, who won in 5 hours, 1 minute, 14 seconds. “By far this is the most important victory of my

Jan Ullrich, second in the Tour de France this year, said he is aiming to win a triple of the Tour, the Giro d'Italia and to defend his Olympic title during the next three years. "First I would like another victory in the Tour de France," said the 1997 Tour winner said on his website Friday. "The Giro is important for me, too. The last time I raced in the event I vowed I would return and win it. I would also like to defend my gold medal at next year's Athens Olympics." The 29-year-old Ullrich, winner of the Olympic road race in Sydney, surprised many by making the 2003 Tour de France a real

Michael Rasmussen's big win in Friday's seventh stage of the Vuelta a España further reinforces his belief that he made the right decision to leave behind mountain bike racing at the end of the 2000 season and take a chance on the road. While bigger names such as Cadel Evans and Miguel Martinez have garnered more attention in their transition from fat to skinny tires, Rasmussen's proven the most successful. He scored a big victory in the "queen's stage" of the 2002 Tour of Burgos and capped his conversion with the historic win Friday. "This is the Formula 1 of bicycle racing. It's the best

The international mountain bike season will slide to a wet and muddyfinish this weekend with the World Cup Final in Kaprun, Austria, site ofthe last year's world championships. Nearly all of the teams and riders have arrived from the world’s inLugano, Switzerland to pre-ride the courses. Unfortunately, it is raining,and been doing so for most of the week, with no relief in sight. Indeed,so much rain had fallen by Friday, that the UCI was still debating whetheror not to even run the 4-cross final, because course conditions were sobad. This does not bode well for the weekend - last year, rain

The first time trial is over, we are in the Pyrénées, and the race for the overall is starting to sort itself out. The two big tests for the team leaders have taken place over the past two days: a time trial and a hard mountain stage. Thankfully, our leaders have come out near the top in both tests. Yesterday’s time trial looked easy on paper. The profile showed a flat course on straight roads with a few 180-degree turns in the center of the roadway. We woke up to howling gale-force winds, and when Floyd, Roberto and Triki returned from previewing the course the warning was that it was

Friday's escape.

Nozal still up there.

Perez, Beltran and Cardenas

Fixing the 4-Cross

Coffee with the rainbow club

The Vuelta a España always serves up surprises and Isidro Nozal’s winning ride in Thursday’s 43.8km individual time trial ranks as the biggest so far this year. To be sure, Nozal promised he’d put everything into defending his 50-second hold on the race leader’s jersey, but no one expected him to do it in such dominant fashion. Not even Nozal himself. “I thought I had good chances to limit my losses and keep the jersey, but I never dreamed of winning like this,” said Nozal, who powered through fierce winds to beat David Millar by an impressive 1 minute, 20 seconds. Nozal, whose lone

Dear Bob;I was hit by a car while riding my bike. The driver had insurance,but his insurance company told me that while I can get my medical billspaid, I can’t collect for anything else because I chose the “verbal threshold”on my car insurance. How can my policy affect my ability to recover againstthe other driver?B.G.,New JerseyDear B.G.,Unfortunately, it may be difficult for you to sue the driver or hisinsurance company in New Jersey for so-called non-economic medical injuries—whichinclude such things as pain and suffering, scarring, loss of sexual functioning,or even the temporary loss of

I had an incredible week between the two mountain-bike world championships. It was very hectic, but I enjoyed every minute of being the marathon world champion. I can't really say I was recovered perfectly, but I had big motivation to give it all again in the cross country. Unfortunately, my race went wrong before it even started. The UCI was too lazy to update the world-ranking list after the marathon world championship, which had a huge impact for me. With my points from the marathon I should have been ranked as the best Swiss rider and started in the first row. Instead, I was 11th,

Frischy had a bad start and a disappointing finish in the cross-country ... but he's still the marathon world champ

That hurt!

Millar's time stood up to all but one

Gonzalez rode well, but couldn't match Millar and Nozal.

Landis finished in 30th at 4:33

Galdeano was expected to end the day in gold

Two-time Vuelta winner Alex Zülle (Phonak) finished 13th