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This could be the first of many

Another Golden day for Millar

McRae's New Colors -- the former Mercury man is riding for Postal in Spain

Hincapie and mayor Willie Brown

Barry, Hincapie and Klasna

The leaders climb Filmore St.

Klasna and Hincapie

David Millar won the opening time trial of the 2001 Vuelta a España on Saturday, confirming that he’s one of the top time trialists in cycling. The 24-year-old Cofidis rider said his crash in the opening prologue of the 2001 Tour de France weighed heavily on his mind during the technical, tight 12-km course through the streets of Salamanca. “This victory means as much to me as the victory in the Tour last year in the prologue,” said Millar, who won in 14 minutes, 56 seconds with an average speed of 48.214 km/h. “In every curve, I was thinking about the crash in the Tour. I was trying to

Today was an early start to the day by Spanish standards with an 8am wake up and 9am team ride to preview the TT course. I felt a little odd this morning with an upset stomach. I'm not sure if it was from something that I ate last night or just nerves. A lot of people turned out today to watch stage 1 lining the course from start to finish. The course itself was very technical with a minimum of 15 turns, many of them narrow or tight after the apex. I came off the start ramp ready for a good ride repeating in my head, "Seize the day." I accelerated quickly with my heart rate at 170, which is

With the cancellation of the women’s race at next week’s BMC Software Tour of Houston, the San Rafael Women’s Criterium in San Rafael, California, became the final event for the women in the BMC Software Grand Prix, and Saturn’s Ina Teutenberg put on a show that was worthy of a series finale. The German lapped the field twice en route to winning both the race and the overall series title on Saturday in the city in Marin County, across the bay from San Francisco. Teutenberg was part of a 10-rider break that was initiated early in the race by Gatorade-Olbas’s Dede Demet-Barry. Also included in

While the media focus in San Francisco over the weekend focused on Lance Armstrong and the inaugural San Francisco Grand Prix, most of the major U.S. men’s teams were on hand in San Rafael the day before, to contest the San Rafael Criterium and fight for a piece of the $10,000 prize list. And while all the sprinters were licking their chops for what looked to be a field sprint finish, Saturn’s Mark McCormack left them all hungry as he pulled off a surprise win on the final lap. After a day of sparring among Mercury, 7UP-Colorado Cyclist, Saturn and Navigators, the field was still all

Millar Time!

This could make up for the Tour prologue.

A strong performance by Leipheimer

The last major three-week stage race of the 2001 season kicks off Saturday under the intense Iberian sky of this bustling college town in western Spain. The 21-stage, 2986-km (1851-mile) Vuelta a España is a climber’s paradise, featuring seven summit finishes on some of the steepest roads race organizers could find this side of the Pyrenees. There’s no Lance Armstrong or Jan Ullrich, but some of the top names in cycling are here to duke it out in the 56th running of the Vuelta. Among the 21 teams will be two troubled riders looking to regain past glory, Mercatone Uno’s Marco Pantani and

EDITOR’S NOTE: Antonio Cruz is a 29-year-old American racing in his first season in Europe with the U.S Postal Team. He will be sending VeloNews readers daily updates throughout this year’s Vuelta a España. Welcome to my Vuelta Journal. This will be both my first grand tour and my first on-line journal. I will be calling my agent, Max Burgos, every day to file these reports; he will then transcribe them and send them to VeloNews. From my mouth to your computer all in the same day. As this is all a new experience for me, I will try to give a sense of what I am going through day by day. Not

Richard G. Bannister — better known to mountain-bike historians as Neil Murdoch, a member of the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame — was arrested by a U.S. marshal in New Mexico on Sept. 5 after 28 years on the run from drug-smuggling charges. According to The Denver Post, Bannister was charged in 1973 with sneaking 26 pounds of cocaine into New Mexico. He was freed on $20,000 bond and subsequently vanished. A year later, the man calling himself Murdoch had become renowned for adding knobby tires and low gears to old coaster-brake bikes in Crested Butte, Colorado; in 1976, he would open the first

Editor's note: The following is an update from stage 2 of the Tour de l'Avenir offered by the Mercury cycling team. What a long day! The Tour de l'Avenir is reserved for young riders, it's nicknamed "the little brother" of the Tour de France, but stage 2 was even longer than the stages in the Tour de France: 249.5 kilometers. They all made it, except Will Frischkorn, which is not a surprise. Mercury's young talent struggled to recover from his back injury and he felt that he couldn't last long. "This situation is more difficult to handle mentally than physically", he said. After a good

Vuelta a España: Heras on the line

Bannister as Murdoch -- or was that Murdoch as Bannister?

CSC-Tiscali’s Bo Hamburger has been barred from representing his country in athletic competition for life by the Danish Cycling Union because of allegations of drug use, DCU president Peder Pedersen confirmed Thursday. Pedersen said that 31-year-old Hamburger had been struck off the DCU register despite being cleared of doping by an arbitrary tribunal of the Danish Sports Federation (DIF) here last month. Hamburger, the 1997 world road race championship silver medallist, was declared positive with the French-pioneered urine test for EPO in Belgium on April 19 and was suspended by his

Saturn’s Petra Rossner scored her third successive stage win at the women’s Tour of the Netherlands on Thursday, taking the first of the day’s two stages, a wind-blown 85-kilometer road race in Bergeijk. Rossner, who earned stage wins on both Tuesday and Wednesday, now leads the six-day, seven-stage event by 16 seconds over Vlaanderen’s Debbie Mansveld and 29 over Acca Due’s Diana Ziliute. That lead may endangered, however, later on Thursday as competitors take on a 26-kilometer time-trial, one of Ziliute’s specialities. With such a slim margin in the overall standings between the top five

Three-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong will close his season with his only U.S. racing appearance of the year this weekend. Armstrong will head a field of 131 riders at the inaugural San Francisco Grand Prix, to be contested in the streets of San Francisco on Sunday. The 125-mile race will be contested on a 10-mile circuit in the Financial District, North Beach, Fisherman’s Wharf, the Marina and Pacific Heights in the famous city by the bay. Armstrong will be joined by a full U.S. Postal Service squad, including Ghent-Wevelgem winner George Hincapie, Olympic time trial champion

Belorussian Alexandre Usov (Phonak) won the 180km first stage of the Tour de l'Avenir, winning a field sprint into the town of Craon. Usov edged out Nicolas Liboreau (Bigmat)and Francaise des Jeux' Jean-Patrick Nazon to take the opening stage of France’s “Tour of the Future,” the event touted as a “little brother” to the Tour de France. The stage was marked by a long escape of eight riders, including Mercury’s Baden Cooke. The group was caught with 14km to go, however, setting up a field sprint won by Usov.

Armstrong headlines S.F. Grand Prix

Armstrong

The 2001 Tour de l’Avenir, or "Tour of the Future," begins on Thursday in France, with 21 teams of six riders, or 126 riders total, enrolled in the premier stage race for riders 25-years-old and younger. The 10-day race will begin in the town of Cosse-le-Vivien in western France and then cross the country from west to east before finishing in Morteau, near the German border. The race will really heat up in the final four days, beginning with the 26km stage 7 time trial in Rambervillers. That will be followed by three days in the Vosges mountains, including the final day’s circuit race that

World U23 champion Evgeni Petrov will ride for Mapei

The Vuelta a España will be Richard Virenque's first major tour since he finished up a 10-month doping ban last month and the Domo-Farm Frites rider knows he has a struggle on his hands. "You won't see the Richard Virenque who rode so well in the Tour de France in recent years, the next three weeks are going to present me with some real highs and lows," he told French sports daily L'Equipe. Virenque won the polka-dot climber's jersey at the Tour de France five times (1994-97 and again in 1999) but picked up a ten-month ban after admitting during a criminal trial last

Mercatone Uno has announced that team manager Giuseppe Martinelli will be sidelined for the Vuelta a España following a dispute with the squad’s troubled superstar Marco Pantani. A statement released by the team on Tuesday announced that assistant director Alessandro Giannelli would fill Martinelli’s role at the Vuelta. "Taking into account the publicly shown incompatibility between team manager Giuseppe Martinelli and Marco Pantani, the board of G.S. Mercatone Uno-Stream TV, with the agreement of the respective parties and in full respect of the professionalism of both parties, has

Labor Day weekend in Vermont has traditionally been filled on the calendar by the Killington Stage Race, but with the cancellation of that national calendar race, the gap was filled this year by the new Howard Bank Green Mountain Stage Race. The race combined elements of two well-known Vermont races, the Mad River Road Race and the Burlington Criterium, to create the new four-day event. In the men’s race, Mercury’s Scott Moninger took the overall title, based on finish- and intermediate-points, by winning two difficult stages, the 8.1-mile mass-start prologue climb to the Bolton Valley

AutoTrader.com director Mike Neel announced Tuesday that he will be leaving his post with the country’s number two women’s racing team this Thursday and close out the year working with Italy’s Saeco men’s squad and “finishing up the details on a new project for 2002.” Neel told VeloNews that he will take up a new role with Saeco, acting as an assistant director for the team while it competes in the upcoming San Francisco Grand Prix and the 2001 BMC Tour of Houston. Saeco is sending an eight-man team to the U.S. including sprinting ace Mario Cipollini and American Justin Spinelli. Neel, the

American riders dominated almost all aspects of the Masters World Championships of mountain biking this past weekend in Bromont, Quebec. The U.S. performance continued on Sunday in the downhill as Americans took gold medals in 6 of 13 categories and 13 of 31 medals awarded (6 gold, 2 silver, 5 bronze), repeating a stellar performance on Saturday in the cross-country. France finished second in the medal count with 6 medals (4 gold, 2 bronze) and Canada third (4 medals - 3 silver, 1 bronze). 495 riders from 21 countries participated at the World Masters Championships, ranging in age from 30

With no National Racing Calendar races on the schedule over Labor Day, the U.S. peloton was split between a number of races across the country. In addition to the Green Mountain race in Vermont, a number of top riders headed to the US10k in Marietta, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta, on Monday. Navigators came away with the win, with Glen Mitchell soloing away before the finish to beat Zaxby’s Max Finkbiener. Held in conjunction with the US10k running race and a weekend sports and entertainment festival, the cycling race offered a prize list of $10,000 and drew a number of top names,

Tilford took the men's 40-44 cross-country event in Bromont

Dawn Bourque took gold in the women's 35-39 downhill.

Piemme not ready for golf yet.

Dutchman Leon Van Bon snatched the overall victory at the Tour of the Netherlands after joining a six-man breakaway on the final day of the race on Saturday. The Mercury rider finished 6 seconds ahead of fellow Dutchman Erik Dekker (Rabobank) in the overall. Dekker won the 228.4km final stage between Blerick and Landgraaf, while Van Bon finished fifth. The breakaway group escaped 79 kilometers into the race and built a gap that couldn’t be closed by race leader Sergei Gontchar and his Liquigas team. Dekker was not part of the original break, but he bridged up with 15km to go and then

With one day remaining, world time trial champion Sergei Gontchar (Liquigas-Pata) held onto the overall lead at the Tour of the Netherlands, while Telekom’s Danilo Hondo took the stage 5 win on Friday. U.S. Postal Service’s Viatcheslav Ekimov holds down third place overall, with Mercury’s Leon Van Bon just behind in fifth. Americans Dylan Casey (U.S. Postal Service) and Chris Wherry (Mercury) also find themselves in the top 10. Gontchar took the race lead on Thursday’s stage 4 time trial, a 23km course in Denekamp. The Ukrainian beat Dutchman Bart Voskamp (Bankgiroloterij) by 33 seconds,

The line-up for the 38th Tour de l’Avenir in France was released on Friday, and two American teams will be among the 21 squads. Both Mercury and the U.S. National Team will field six-man teams in the 10-day west-to-east trip across France. The Mercury team will consist of Australians Baden Cooke and Matt Wilson, Americans Will Frischkorn, Ernie Lechuga and Phil Zajicek, and Canadian Svein Tuft. The U.S. National Team will feature Matt Decanio, Mark Fitzgerald, Damon Kluck, Jeff Louder, Danny Pate and David Zabriskie. Among other riders to watch will be Hungarian Laszlo Bodrogi, world

Gontchar

Odds and ends from last weekend’s World Cup final at Mont-Ste-Anne, Quebec. — With Mick Hannah out for the rest of the year after breaking his collarbone at Mount Snow, Global Racing has signed 16-year-old Finnish junior Matti Lekihoinen to race for the team at the world championships in Vail. Team director Martin Whiteley said if Koinen wins at world’s his team will sign the reigning European junior downhill champion for 2002. — GT’s Steve Peat was at Mont-Ste-Anne but didn’t race. The early-season World Cup leader is still recovering from a shoulder injury suffered in practice at the

The September 3 issue of VeloNews included an editorial supporting one of several propositions that appear on the annual election ballots mailed to voting members of USA Cycling. While the editors of the magazine have expressed support for Proposition A, we welcome comment from those who might hold a different opinion. Les Earnest, the primary author of Proposition B took advantage of our offer to present his views. VeloNews editorial on Propositions A and BBy Les Earnest, co-author of Proposition BThe 9/3/01 issue of VeloNews contains an editorial recommending the adoption of Proposition A

It’s already been an epic year for Canadian mountain bikers, with Roland Green winning the World Cup overall, and Ryder Hesjedal and Chrissy Redden having breakout seasons. Come September those three, plus a host of others will be making the trip south to Vail for the world championships, trying to bring rainbow stripes back to Canada for the first time since 1996 when Alison Sydor won the cross country. Green and Hesjedal will be trying to become the first Canadian males to ever win a world championship. For a look at the complete lineup that the Canadians will be bringing to Colorado click

Davide Rebellin, the number-2 ranked rider in the world, has quit the cash-strapped Italian Liquigas team Wednesday and joined Gerolsteiner, the German squad's sports director Rolf Golz said. The 30-year-old has signed a one-year deal and will be joined by three of his Liquigas teammates Gianni Faresin, Daniele Contrini and Ellis Rastelli. "The signing is all organized and we have his (Rebellin) agreement," Golz said. The management of ambitious Gerolsteiner squad hopes the signings will lift it into cycling’s top ranks for the 2002 season. There will be 30 Division I teams in 2002,

Crank up those VCRs. The Saturn Cycling Classic will be hitting the airwaves on Thursday, August 30. If you missed seeing it live, or just want to re-live the suffering caused by a 140-mile-long course that covers 14,000 feet of climbing and twice crests climbs at altitudes over 11,000 feet, ESPN2 will be broadcasting a 30-minute recap of the race at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time. Crédit Agricole’s Jonathan Vaughters – riding for the HandleBar and Grill squad – battled down to the wire with Mercury’s Chris Horner for the first prize, a brand-new, yet-to-be-released Saturn VUE Sport Utility

Spicoli or Kovarik?

On Monday, USA Cycling announced the 77-racer team that will represent the U.S. at the world mountain bike championships in Vail, Colorado, September 8-16. Among the cross-country team is two-time Olympian Alison Dunlap (GT), who finished sixth in this year’s overall World Cup standings. Fellow Olympian Ruthie Matthes (Trek-Volkswagen), who just won the national championship, also made this year's squad. Matthes announced her retirement earlier this year, making the world championships the last race of her professional career. Other automatic qualifiers included Susan Haywood (Trek-West

Listening to Lance Armstrong, you get the sense that in a not-so-distant past, when Texas Rangers rode horses, he would have been a gunslinger. Not a raw, do-it-for-kicks Billy the Kid, but a character like Paladin, portrayed by Richard Boone, the black-dressed hero of the mythical TV Western, "Have Gun, Will Travel." Like Paladin, the man called Lance is very intelligent, has a veneer of sophistication -- and shoots from the hip. Only Lance uses words, not bullets. At the ripe young age of 29, Armstrong commands the attention of a worldwide audience largely because the Tour de France has

Chann McRae found deliverance in the form of the U.S. Postal Service team from what's been a frustrating few months with Mercury. McRae, who hasn't been paid since June, signed a one-off deal to race with the Posties in the upcoming Vuelta a España, Sept. 8-29. "I finally got a good break after some hard times," McRae said from his home in the mountains outside of Madrid. "I always seem to have good form late in the season, so it works out well for everyone." McRae's surprise addition to the Postal Service team bolsters efforts to defend the Vuelta title for Roberto Heras.

In addition to his Sports Illustrated cover, Armstrong has gotten plenty of press since his third win in Paris. This 'Five Years From Now' spoof appeared in ESPN: The Magazine.

A field of the continent's top riders were readying for a 19km time trial on Saturday, August 25, when warm-ups were interrupted by the day's buzz: Geneviève Jeanson (Rona) was abandoning the race. Rumor was confirmed as fact when Jeanson's directeur sportif Andre Aubut announced that his star rider would not be starting the TT in Bedford. In a statement, Aubut said that Jeanson experienced pain on the back of her right thigh. The decision was made a few minutes into Jeanson's warm-up when the pain and discomfort became obvious. "Geneviève wanted to start in spite of the pain, but it would

It’s been a good swing up the East Coast for Canadian Chrissy Redden. A week after the Ontario resident won the cross-country and short track at the NORBA finals in Mount Snow, Vermont, Redden thrilled the home-country fans, winning the cross-country at the World Cup finals in Mont-Ste-Anne, Quebec. Redden (Subaru-Gary Fisher) trailed an on-form Caroline Alexander (Specialized) for much of the six-lap, 32.5km race. But Alexander dropped her chain on the final trip up race’s main climb, and surrendered all but 15 seconds of what had been a 30-second lead. From there, Redden was able to close

Jan Ullrich is becoming cycling's second-place hero. The 28-year-old German finished second behind Paolo Bettini of Mapei in a four-up sprint in Sunday's Championship of Zurich, giving the Telekom rider his third second-place finish in this World Cup race. "I am very angry I finished second again," Ullrich said after losing by a bike length to an ecstatic Bettini. "This race is tailor-made for me. Some day I will come back here to win." The bitter disappointment for Ullrich comes just weeks after finishing second to Lance Armstrong in the 2001 Tour de France, where he's finished second four

Saturday’s double stage of the Grand Prix Feminin du Quebec saw Saturn sweep the two stages, Intersports Pia Sunstedt move into the race lead, and Canadian teenager Genevieve Jeanson withdraw from the race due to a knee injury. Saturn won each of the day’s stages, with Lyne Bessette winning the morning’s 19.1km time trial, seven seconds ahead of AutoTrader.com’s Amber Neben and 31 seconds better than Sunstedt. With her third place, Sunstedt moved ahead of another Saturn rider, Anke Erlank, into the overall lead. In the afternoon, Sunstedt protected her 21 second lead in the 40km criterium.

Canadian Lori-Ann Muenzer took her second gold medal at the World Track Cup round No. 5, in Ipoh, Malaysia, on Sunday. Muenzer, who had already won the match sprint gold earlier in the weekend, won the women’s 500-meters, ahead of German Katrin Meinke and China’s Wang Yan. In other racing, Americans Colby Pearce and Jame Carney took silver in the Madison, behind the Swiss pair of Franco Marvulli and Alexander Aeschbach, and Marty Nothstein took bronze in the keirin, behind 19-year-old Australian Jobie Dajka and France’s Florian Rousseau.

The race billed as ‘an extreme sporting event before there were extreme sports’, the Audi Mount Washington Bicycle Hillclimb, was held Sunday in unusually fair weather conditions - particularly for the mountain known by Native Americans as "the home of the storm." While neither the men’s nor women’s records fell, both divisions found themselves worthy winners, as Saturn pro Tim Johnson and first-year racer Karen Bockel (Gatorade/Olbas) emerged victorious in the 7.6-mile, 12 percent average grade event. The men’s race was over nearly before it started, as Johnson put into practice lessons

Back in late July at the fourth stop of the NORBA national championship series, Roland Green made it known that he was planning on skipping the two upcoming World Cup races in Europe even though he was the overall leader at the time. Green said he wanted to concentrate on his preparation for September’s world championships in Vail, and though he knew he was giving up something big, it would pay off later. Well guess what? Turns out Green didn’t give up a thing. On Sunday at the World Cup finals in Mont-Ste-Anne, Quebec, the Trek-Volkswagen rider won the tough, technical men’s cross country

Redden celebrates her first World Cup win.

Alexander settled for second.

Bettini wins

Ullrich, Bettini and Casagrande (r-l)

Hincapie in the lead group

Dekker

Green won the battle and the war on Sunday.

Hesjedal and Green: Two names to remember come worlds.

Jame Carney scored the bronze medal in the points race on Saturday, the highlight of the U.S. squad’s performance in the first two days of the fifth and final round of the UCI World Track Cup, in Ipoh, Malaysia. Mathew Gilmore, riding for Belgium, won the points race on Saturday night, with Denmark’s Jimmi Madsen edging Carney for second place by one point, 16 to 15. The next best U.S. performance came from Erin Mirabella, who finished fourth in the women’s pursuit, won by Germany’s Christina Becker. Canadian Lori-Ann Muenzer won the match sprint.

After two stages of rolling terrain, the climbers came to the forefront in stage 3 of the Grand Prix Feminin International du Quebec on Friday. The 99km stage began in Richford, Vermont, and ended in stage winner Lyne Bessette's (Saturn) hometown of Knowlton, Quebec.

The chase for the overall World Cup downhill title has come down to one run — fastest man take all. That’s because Global Racing’s Greg Minnaar closed the gap between himself and Nicolas Vouilloz (Vouilloz Racing) to just eight points after posting the top time in Saturday morning’s semifinal at the World Cup finals in Mont-Ste-Anne, Quebec. By winning the semis Minnaar picked up 50 points, while Vouilloz was third earning just 30 points, finishing 3.02 seconds behind Minnaar’s time of 5:03.76. The point differential between any of the first six places in the finals would be enough push

If you believe Erik Dekker, the Championship of Zurich on Sunday is the decisive race in the 2001 World Cup. Dekker, a Dutch rider on the Rabobank team who leads the 10-race World Cup series, has 269 points going into the eighth round. Dekker, a winner at the Amstel Gold Race this year, is 69 points ahead of last week’s HEW Cyclassics winner, Erik Zabel. With Telekom’s Zabel missing the Meisterschaft von Zurich, as it’s called in Swiss German, Dekker’s nearest rivals are more than 100 points in arrears. "I think if I can finish among the top eight at Zurich, it could be the end of the

For the first time in the nine-year history of the World Cup downhill series, someone from outside the European continent has captured the men’s overall title. On Saturday, 19-year-old South African Greg Minnaar, finished second on the sun-soaked slopes of Mont-Ste-Anne, Quebec, at the World Cup finals. But the man ahead of him wasn’t named Nicolas Vouilloz, which meant the Global Racing rider had overtaken the Frenchman in the overall points standings. "I thought I had a chance today and it worked out," said an elated Minnaar, moments after seeking out his parents in the large crowd and

If every dual on the World Cup circuit came off like the one on Saturday at Mont-Ste-Anne, Quebec, there might actually be some hope for this much-maligned discipline. In front of a crowd that was three and four deep along both sides of the course, and included several hundred more fans sitting in the finish-line grandstands, fellow Southern Californians Leigh Donovan and Eric Carter came out on top of an event that featured plenty of exciting bar-banging action. In the woman’s bracket Donovan emerged to pick up her fourth win of the year, and put an exclamation point on a stellar season

Minnaar was fastest in qualifying.

Vouilloz on his way to third in the semis.

Minnaar and members of the Global Racing team celebrate his overall title.

Jonnier crosses the line for the win.

Donovan sails to another win.

Lopes would eventually lose to King, but that didn't stop him from taking the overall title.

Minnaar hoists his hardware while a stoic Vouilloz looks on.