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Editor:Last year I went to France to follow the Tour. I was well aware of the history of Mario Cipollini in the Tour, good and bad - but my feeling was that the Tour de France went beyond what was reasonable and into the realm of personal vendetta when spots for additional teams opened up after the 2002 Giro and Cipollini's team was not selected. I enjoyed my trip to the Tour immensely, but in every sprint, I knew that the best was not there, though Cipollini had done what the Tour had demanded, reinventing himself with breakaway wins, courageously traversing mountains, a grand-tour finish

“Life is what happens when you’re making other plans,” John Lennon once said. Words of wisdom, Lennon’s fortune-cookie philosophy, and lately it seems I’ve been experiencing plenty of life - which, I suppose, beats the alternative. Maybe I should stop making other plans. For starters, with mortgage rates dipping to a 40-year low last week, I’ve been actively looking into buying my first place, which means applying for my first home loan - a procedure that has thus far involved countless conversations with various real-estate agents, lenders, sellers, and my mother - who, in my case,

Dear Bob;Do you have any information regarding the procedures and method inwhich athletes are selected by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency drug testing?What is their authority to test? Is the testing method fair and legal asimplemented? What are the ramifications for an athlete who fails to showup for testing?TJColorado Dear TJ;You raise two separate legal questions:1) What are the limits of the authority of the USADA to requiretesting; and2) What are the limits on the USADA or the National GoverningBody (NGB) for enforcing non-compliance, either after a positive test ora failure to comply with

The former site of the Iraq National Olympic Headquarters, complete with its recognizable five rings on the wall outside and a toppled statue of Saddam Hussein inside the walls, stands a charred wreck. It sits near the Canal Expressway in Western Baghdad, filled with a few poor Baghdad residents sifting through the wreckage for something useful to loot. Already, the head of the statue of Saddam that once stood outside had been sawed off and taken away. According to the New York Times, a metal framework used for administering electric shocks to athletes who didn’t perform, was taken to a

Thursday’s elite national road championships in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania, saw a continuation of the T-Mobile dominance on the women’s side with Amber Neben leading a 1-2-3 sweep by the women’s national team. In the men’s race, Mike Voight brought home the first-ever elite national road champion’s jersey for the longtime East Coast regional powerhouse Snow Valley team, after an epic day of racing that ended in the rain after five hours in the saddle. The brutal 28-mile course beginning and ending in the Seven Springs ski resort featured a wide variety of climbs, from short, steep power

Italian Fabiana Luperini (Aurora RSM) outkicked Nathalia Boyarskaya of the Russian national team in stage 6 of the Tour de l’Aude Feminin, while Saturn’s Lyne Bessette collected her second leader’s jersey with a little help from her team. Luperini and Boyarskaya got away 76km into the 115km circuit race around Castelnaudary, on the Fanjeaux climb, and since neither was a threat to Bissette, Saturn couldn’t have been happier, according to assistant general manager Giana Roberge. “Riding tempo and looking after Bessette's safety, Ina Teutenberg, Katie Mactier and Manon Jutras spent the

... and leaves Casagrande to ride his own race

Glory days in San Francisco.

Simoni shines

Simoni makes his move...

Belli

Marzio Bruseghin

The day's first escape

The climb all have been dreading

Pantani says he's back; Thursday showed he might be right

Thursday was tough... even on the 'easy' parts.

Pantani showed some of his old form

Garzelli minimized the damage.

Simoni established his supremacy in the mountains.

Simoni managed to make even the steep parts look easy.

Simoni wins.

Simoni celebrates.

Voight

Neben on the attack

T-Mobile in control

Neben wins

Domina Vacanze team owner Ernesto Preatori says he's trying to convince Tour de France organizer Jean-Marie Leblanc to include Mario Cipollini in July's race by adding a 23rd team to the peloton. "I think we've got less than a 50 percent chance of getting a place but I'm optimistic and think our chances are increasing," he told Eurosport. "I'm doing everything I can." UCI president Hein Verbruggen and Leblanc are reportedly set to meet to Friday to discuss several issues, including the international outcry at Domina Vacanze's exclusion from four wild-card bids that were announced

There's never an easy day in the Giro d'Italia. Wednesday's 222km dead-flat stage from Faenza to San Dona Di Piave was supposed to be a relatively light day in the saddle before Thursday's difficult stage to Monte Zoncolan. Bad weather and a poorly designed finish with a left turn just 160 meters from the finish line served up a messy conclusion for the 11th stage, with Mario Cipollini (Domina Vacanze) crashing out after Kelme's Isaac Galvez slid into him. Cipollini was later transported to a local hospital for X-rays on his left shoulder, which he was cradling after the spill. No word yet

Eating and drinking properly in the hours before training and racing offer several advantages, from topping off your liver and muscle glycogen levels to minimizing the onset of dehydration. And working out your race-day nutritional strategies in the course of your daily training — what, how much and when to eat — will spare you some unpleasant surprises on the race course. “It is not a good idea to start with too much in the stomach, as it tends to come right back up with a hard effort on the bike,” says U.S. Postal pro Michael Barry. “I generally eat three hours before the start. I try and

In contrast to the broad, sweeping curves of last Saturday’s Terminillo climb, the road ascending to Thursday’s stage 12 finish on Monte Zoncolan is narrow and twisty. This mountain in the remote northeast of Italy, close to the Austrian border, has never been raced up before, so the field will literally be riding into the unknown. The race reaches the base of the climb at Sútrio after already crossing the flank of the mountain on a 6km uphill, followed by a sharp descent to the valley at 1750 feet elevation. The ascent to the finish is 13.3km long (half a kilometer shorter than the Tour de

It’s a story we’ve seen in the U.S. all season long: the complete and total domination of the podium by a single team uniform. But no, this time it wasn’t the yellow-and-red of the Saturn men sweeping the top spots. On Wednesday, the all-American T-Mobile squad took the top five places at the elite time trial national championships, with two-time defending champion Kimberly Bruckner leading the charge. The Saturn men, meanwhile, were denied the top spot at the awards ceremony, as Navigators’ Chris Baldwin had a breakthrough victory, beating Saturn phenom Tom Danielson by 42 seconds. On a

The U.S. Military National Cycling Championships are under way in Pennsylvania - but with America’s armed forces otherwise occupied in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, is anyone wearing Lycra instead of desert camo’? The 2002 road-race champ, Mike Easter, isn’t defending his crown this year, according to Debra Ponzio, the U.S. armed forces liaison to USA Cycling. Happily, it’s not because he’s somewhere getting shot at - it’s just because the Marine lieutenant separated from the Corps last fall. One of last year’s medalists is overseas, Ponzio says. Army Sgt. 1st Class Jim Sharp, who took

The course profile alone was enough to strike fear in the hearts of many a rider … or at least enough to make you think the promoter was nuts. Either way, the 140-mile climbers’ fest between Boulder and Breckenridge, Colorado, became a favorite in its three-year history. Unfortunately, race promoter Len Pettyjohn said Wednesday, he has been unable to secure a replacement for title sponsor Saturn after the auto manufacturer pulled out in March, forcing him to cancel the race for 2003. “We had a number of companies interested in replacing Saturn as the titlesponsor, but current economic

Saturn’s Lyne Bessette seized the lead in the Tour de l'Aude Féminin Wednesday after finishing fifth in stage 5, a 31.5km time trial in Caustenaldry. “As the times came in it was clear that Sara Carrigan would be the time to beat,” said Saturn’s Giana Roberge. Indeed, at the halfway mark, the Bik Powerplate rider was 1:20 faster than her closest competitor, and Carrigan would win the stage in 45:19, 43 seconds ahead of Olivia Gollan (Australian National) and a further four seconds up on Judith Arndt (Nurnberger Versicherung). Bessette, meanwhile, began the day just nine seconds behind race

I just got back in from Team Big Bear's 15th consecutive National Points Series race. And if you've been following Jason Sumner's online race reports, you know the weekend was full of extremely high-highs (a bevy of fresh faces on the podium) and devastating lows (namely the tragic death of Japanese downhiller Haruko Fujinaka). One event that took place over the weekend that Jason didn't get a chance to write about was the much-vaunted "Super D" downhill held late Saturday afternoon. The event was conceived three years ago by promoters Pat Follet and Tom Spiegel after they saw the need to

Preview: The challenge of Monte Zoncolan

Cipollini got up and finished the final 160 meters

The pack of riders cycle along the Comacchio valley

The Giro d'Italia pack rides under heavy rain clouds

Australian Lotto domo rider Robbie Mc Ewen raises his arms after crossing the finish line

Australian Lotto domo rider Robbie Mc Ewen raises his arms after crossing the finish line

Mario Cipollini arrives at the finish line after he crashed on the last corner

The men from Tenax

The day started nice

Simoni avoided the carnage, but was angry.

Pettyjohn concedes defeat

Baldwin surprised the Saturn boys

Bruckner

Long

Super Big Bear

Super Big Bear

Breaking the all-time Giro d’Italia stage win record couldn’t ease the disappointment Mario Cipollini felt after being snubbed by Tour de France officials Monday. “I want to speak to Tour boss Jean-Marie Leblanc face to face to find out why he didn’t invite me to the Tour de France,” Cipollini told Reuters. “I spoke to him on the telephone in March and he told me that if I wanted to ride the Tour and if I was competitive he’d be happy to (give) my team a place. I think I’ve been competitive but now he has changed his mind. “I’ve heard the reasons he has given for not inviting me and my team

Saeco’s Gilberto Simoni wrestled the maglia rosa from Stefano Garzelli after a daring attack in a dramatic shoot-out Tuesday between the Giro d’Italia’s two strongest riders. Simoni jumped hard on a steep but unrated climb 40km from the finish in the difficult, four-climb 202km 10th stage from Montecatini Terme to Faenza. Simoni took an 8-second time bonus after finishing third behind winner Kurt Asle Arvensen (Team fakta) to erase a 31-second deficit to move two seconds ahead of Garzelli. With Thursday’s difficult climbing stage to Monte Zoncolan on the horizon, Simoni took the race into

Dear Lennard,I've seen recent photos of Tyler's TT bike he used in the prologueat the Tour of Romandie and I noticed he had three shifters mounted tohis bars.He had bar-end shifters on his aero bar, and a Dura-Ace STI shifteron the right side of his bullhorn bar. Is it actually possible to threadtwo shifters into the same rear derailleur, and if so, what would the advantagebe even on what was described as a technical course? Of course he did revert back to a traditional brake on the right sidefor the final TT, so maybe CSC needed a replacement lever and didn't haveone other than the STI?

Last week, we left the comfort of the gutter in Belgium to tackle the hills of Luxembourg in the 54th running of the Fleche du Sud. There were some great moments this weekend, topped off with Mark Fitzgerald winning the second stage and taking the GC on the same day and Mariano Friedrick placing 8th in the first two stages. I don't really have a whole lot to say about the race. Yep, it was hard, scary at times (descending mountains in the rain at 50 mph), and yep, I am definitely not a climber right now. What I can say is this: Mark rode in a break for 50 kilometers and then attacked the

The move.

It was a hilly stage on Tuesday

Fakta's Kurt Arvensen (L) leads the break

Arvensen knows he's won.

Arvensen strikes the pose

First, the champagne ...

... then the kiss.

Garzelli in pursuit

A dangerous move

Norways' road champion takes the stage

Will these guys aim for 43 tomorrow?

Where's Mario? Let's just say this was not the Lion King's type of course

The final cut

Technical Q&A with Lennard Zinn

Mark on the top step.