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Flying Start: 1:02 p.m. on N.90

Flying Start 12:27 p.m. on D.19 exit to Cluses

First rider: 10:45 a.m., then 2-minute intervals for the first until the final 20 riders, who start at 3-minute intervals.

Flying Start: 1:30 p.m. on D.35

Steve Peat (Troy Lee-Orange) and Anne Caroline Chausson (Volvo-Cannondale) won the third round of the downhill World Cup at Mont Ste Anne, Quebec in decisive fashion on Saturday. In the overall standings, Chausson has taken the leader’s jersey from Sabrina Jonnier, while Chris Kovarik’s lead over Peat has shrunk to 23 points. After some truly exciting racing, third seeded Steve Peat was the victor in the men’s race with an outstanding time of 5:09.67, almost 4 seconds faster than Cedric Gracia (Volvo-Cannondale). He was extremely happy with his win. As Gracia approached the finish and it

The blueprint of Lance Armstrong’s preparation for the Tour de France hasn’tchanged much for the last four years. The day-to-day training scheduleand the racing calendar get slightly modified to accommodate course changesand the demands on Lance’s time. But for the last three years, his preparatorywork has been on-target and Lance has arrived at the Tour in peak condition.All indications are that his preparation work will again deliver him tothe 2002 prologue on top form. The absence of Jan Ullrich caused a bit of shift in the way we are thinkingabout the Tour this year. Ullrich is an

On Saturday, Chris Horner and his Prime Alliance team took the race over at the Fitchburg-Longsjo Classic, while in the women’s race, Lyne Bessette (Quebec Selection Team) put in a dominant solo performance to all but lock up her fourth straight Fitchburg title. Bessette entered the 69-mile road race with a 12-second lead over Saturn’s Kim Bruckner. By the end, her advantage would be counted in minutes, not seconds. Bessette got to work on the second of six laps on the 11-mile main circuit, on wooded, up-and-down roads around Princeton, Massachusetts and the Wachusett Mountain ski area. On

Anne-Caroline Chausson took her second World Cup victory of the day,and Eric Carter was the surprise men's winner at the Mont Sainte-Anne WorldCup four-Cross, held Saturday evening.  Chausson and Brian Lopes bothextended their leads in the overall standings.From the start, the course drops from the ramp into a large left handberm. The strategy for the majority of the winners was to be the firstinto this turn. It also meant several crashes as riders jockeyed to bethat first person. From here there was the first of several double jumps,more berms and then a huge double jump where the better

Luxembourg - Luxembourg

Luxembourg - Luxembourg

Luxembourg - Saarbrücken

Luxembourg - Saarbrücken

Metz - Reims

Metz - Reims

Soissons - Rouen

Soissons - Rouen

Forges-les-Eaux - Alençon

Forges-les-Eaux - Alençon

Weisel (left) is an old friend and supporter.

There are a lot of folks involved in getting Armstrong set up right on this bike.

Bagnoles-de-l'Orne - Avranches

Bagnoles-de-l'Orne - Avranches

St. Martin-de-Landelles - Plouay

St. Martin-de-Landelles - Plouay

St. Martin-de-Landelles - Plouay

St. Martin-de-Landelles - Plouay

Lanester - Lorient (TT)

Lanester - Lorient (TT)

Bazas - Pau

Bazas - Pau

Pau - La Mongie

Pau - La Mongie

Lannemezan - Plateau de Beille

Lannemezan - Plateau de Beille

Lodève - Mont Ventoux

Lodève - Mont Ventoux

Lavelanet - Béziers

Lavelanet - Béziers

Vaison-la-Romaine - Les Deux-Alpes

Vaison-la-Romaine - Les Deux-Alpes

Les Deux-Alpes - La Plagne

Les Deux-Alpes - La Plagne

Aime - Cluses

Aime - Cluses

Cluses - Bourg-en-Bresse

Cluses - Bourg-en-Bresse

Régnié-Durette - Mâcon (TT)

Régnié-Durette - Mâcon (TT)

Melun - Paris Champs-Elysées

Melun - Paris Champs-Elysées

Chausson

Peat

Kovarik

Aiming for another yellow jersey in Paris.

Horner

Navigators patrolled most of the race

Épernay - Château-Thierry (TTT)

Épernay - Château-Thierry (TTT)

Chris Carmichael has been synonymous with Lance Armstrong’s success at the Tour de France. Carmichael’s been Armstrong’s trainer and coach since the early 1990s, helping guide him to three consecutive Tour de France victories. A former 7-Eleven pro and U.S. national cycling team head coach, Carmichael works closely with Armstrong and another dozen or so top athletes in cycling, triathlon, athletics and more recently in such mainstream sports such as NHL hockey. VeloNews’s Andrew Hood caught up with Carmichael for an interview a week before the start of the 2002 Tour de France. Here are

Reigning world downhill champion Nicolas Vouilloz will be forced to skip the upcoming World Cup events in Mont Ste Anne, Quebec, and Telluride, Colorado after undergoing surgery for hand injuries sustained earlier this month. Vouilloz injured himself during a practice run in Maribor, Slovenia, during the World Cup event in that former Yugoslav republic on the weekend of June 8. Vouilloz Racing team manager Stéphane Gerard confirmed that the 26-year-old French downhiller had undergone surgery for torn ligaments and tendons on the small finger on his hand last week. “This happened during a

“How about something positive to say — about anything? You wear me down.” — a critical e-mail from VeloNews.com reader Cary Smith I love a good, long road ride, especially one of those midweek flights of fancy that gobbles up the better part of a perfectly good workday while the proletariat slouches in its cubicles, staring forlornly into space, like trailer-park mutts on short chains. When I lived in Colorado Springs, and had teammates who were either entrepreneurs or slackers and thus could set their own schedules, I could count on two or three of these rides a week, generally on

On day two of the Fitchburg-Longsjo classic, three-time defending champion Lyne Bessette (Quebec Selection Team) moved a little closer to her fourth consecutive win, beating out Kimberly Bruckner (Saturn) in a head-to-head battle in the 40-mile women’s circuit race. In the men’s race, Prime Alliance’s Chris Horner edged out former teammate Mike Sayers (Mercury) for the stage win while Navigators Chris Baldwin grabbed the orange race leader’s jersey. After Thursday’s time trial, Bessette led Bruckner by one second in the general classification, so she was content to keep an eye on Bruckner

'Mr. Baughman, execute The Marksheffel Plan.'

Baldwin

Bessette got the better of Bruckner (r)

Baldwin follows Lieswyn in the break

Horner takes the win

A Lithuanian appeals court on Thursday released Latvian Olympic cyclist Juris Silovson on bail pending further hearings into charges that he tried to smuggle nearly 80,000 undeclared Euros across the border. Silovs had been sentenced to five-and-a-half years in jail for failing to declare cash he carried across the border. "You have to be there. You have to see the food there. Pigs get better feed," Silovs was quoted as saying by the Baltic News Service of the maximum-security prison where he was held. Silovs had been found guilty for failing to declare 76,750 euros (75,660 dollars) hidden

The French retail chain BigMat became the second high profile sponsor to turn its back on cycling this week, the decision taken at a shareholders meeting in Paris on Thursday. The news is a blow to the sport, coming as it does 24 hours after Italian firm Mapei announced the end of its near-decade involvement in cycling. BigMat partly blamed the pull-out on the decision by the Tour de France organisers not to grant them an invitation for next month's race. "It's the second time that we haven't taken part in the Tour," BigMat's director general Jean-Luc Leroy told

Belgium cyclist Frank Vandenbroucke appeared before a disciplinary commission in Brussels on Thursday as part of his campaign to return to the saddle after an appeals court overturned his recent ban for possession of doping products. Vandenbroucke was suspended for six months by the Belgium cycling federation after prohibited substances were found at his home at the start of the season. The ban was overturned on a legal technicality by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Tuesday, but it is the Belgium authorities who have the final say on whether to accept

Swiss veteran Alex Zülle (Coast), won the Tour of Switzerland which ended with a time trial in Bienne on Thursday. Zülle finished third in the stage – behind Tobias Steinhauser (Gerolsteiner) and American Bobby Julich (Telekom) – which was good enough to give him a lock on the overall title. The 1995 Tour of Switzerland runner-up had shrugged off a six month ban imposed in 1998 as a result of the Festina doping scandal when taking second to Lance Armstrong in the 1999 Tour de France. But Zülle had a less than satisfactory season last, with just one win all season, a stage in Paris-Nice.

Mercury’s Phil Zajicek and Quebec’s Lyne Bessette took the wins in the opening time trial on Thursday night at the Fitchburg-Longsjo Classic in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, to take the leaders’ jerseys heading into Friday’s Aubuchon-Glidden Circuit Race. Defending champion Bessette (Quebec Selection Team) narrowly edged out her former Saturn teammate Kimberly Bruckner, covering the 7-mile time trial in 17:49.53, just over a second faster than Bruckner. Rona’s Genevieve Jeanson was third, 44 seconds behind Bessette. In the men’s race, Zajicek beat out defending champion Eric Wohlberg (Saturn)

Zülle wraps up Swiss Tour; Julich second in TT

The Italian building materials company Mapei has announced plans to end its sponsorship of cycling at the end of the current season, bringing to a close nearly a decade of successful involvement with the professional peloton. "The Mapei group have decided to end their sponsorship of (the) sports team at the end of the current season," a statement released from the team said Wednesday three weeks after the drug-tainted Giro d'Italia. Mapei chief Girogio Squinzi said the sport was finally beginning to get its house in order but not enough was being done to convince him that Mapei's

Telkom’s Erik Zabel won the eighth stage of the Tour of Switzerland, a 235km stretch from Vevey to Lyss on Wednesday, continuing a pattern of wins that the German sprinter vowed to carry into next week’s Tour de France. Alex Zülle (Coast) retained the leader's yellow jersey, holding only a three-second advantage over Laurent Dufaux (Alessio) and 19 over Domo's Piotr Wadecki. Considered a strong strong time trialist, Zülle holds the advantage going into Thursday’s final stage a 34.5 km between Lyss and Bienne. Zabel said win on Wednesday gives him confidence going into the Tour de France,