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The heavy back roads of the Var left no impression on the overall classification of Paris-Nice on Friday, which means that no less than 15 riders were poised within one minute of the race leader Peter Van Petegem (Mercury-Viatel) going into Saturday's vital time trial to the Col d'Eze. The stage into Saint Raphael did however provide a welcome respite for the new Belgian team Domo, under pressure since they failed to show at Het Volk two weeks ago. Their Pole Piotr Wadecki spent 115 of the 150 miles in front with Bonjour's Francois Simon and Matteo Tosatto of Fassa Bortolo, disposed of the

It was all according to the book for 19-year-old Canadian sensation Genevieve Jeanson as she simply rode the competition off her wheel on final climb to Oak Glen at the end of stage 4 at the Redlands Classic on Friday. But as Jeanson easily fulfilled expectations, the two biggest men’s teams found themselves scrambling after an early break that “accidentally” formed without any overall contenders from either the U.S. Postal or Mercury-Viatel squads. Saturn’s Trent Klasna, who began the day in seventh place, 1:10 behind overall race leader Roland Green, was the top GC rider in the break and he

On March 14, the race known as The Zinger Cycling Challenge officially changed its name to the Saturn Cycling Classic, reflecting the new title sponsorship of the epic road race through the mountains of Colorado. The 140-mile race from Boulder to Breckendridge over the Continental Divide was introduced last July, and instantly gained a reputation as the toughest single-day road race in the U.S. Saturn was the official vehicle of the race last year, and stepped up to title sponsor for 2001. “We developed this race in the spirit of the European classics and what we unveiled last year

Wadecki beats Tosatto

Van Petegem retains the white jersey

Behind the wheel. Andreu's got a new role.

Bruckner (l) and Jeanson waited to see how far Smith was

Klasna hit the climb with a big advantage.

Wohlberg and McCormack did the lion's share of the work in the break.

Scenes from Wednesday's Highlands Road Race

Alex Zulle scored his first sprint win since he was an amateur to give new Division I squad Team Coast its first win of the season, a first step toward building its case for a place in the Tour de France. Zulle outsprinted ONCE's Portuguese neo-pro Jose Azevedo with the main bunch close on their heels in Sisteron, after the pair broke away on the final descent with 10km to go. "It's a great win for us, which boosts morale, proves we are serious, and gives us more confidence about the Tour," said Zulle. Close behind in the peloton was race leader Peter Van Petegem, who held onto the leader's

Italian Endrio Leoni (Alessio) won the sprint finish of stage 2 of Tirreno-Adriatico, sending German Erik Zabel to defeat for the second day in a row. On Thursday, Leoni won his fifth race of the season, beating out Zabel and stage 1 winner Biagio Conte at the end of the 163km stage between Sorrento and Benevento, which finished on with an uphill sprint on a 3 to 4-percent grade. The sprint was the only notable action on a day when the peloton stayed intact and rolled along at a steady, even pace all day long. With his Alessio team still seeking selection for Milan-Remo on March 24, Leoni

Canadians Roland Green (U.S. Postal Service) and Genevieve Jeanson (RONA) extended their overall leads at the Redlands Bicycle Classic on Thursday with convincing wins in the Stage 3 time trial. Jeanson beat out Saturn's Kimberly Bruckner by 28 seconds, while Green beat U.S. Postal teammate Levi Leipheimer by 37 seconds. Click on "View Results" for complete results and stay tuned for Charles Pelkey's report from Redlands.

Roland Green seemed pleasantly surprised on Tuesday as he won the opening time trial at the Redlands Bicycle Classic. The Volkswagen-Trek mountain-bike racer slipped on the leader’s jersey and figured he would be working for the next few days to hand it off to one of his (temporary) U.S. Postal Service teammates. But Green may have taken a big step to keeping the jersey on Thursday as he finished the Sun Highland time trial stage a full 37 seconds ahead of his teammate Levi Leipheimer and 40 up on 2000 Redlands winner Chris Horner (Mercury-Viatel). Meanwhile 19-year-old Canadian sensation

Zulle leads up Mont Ventoux

Nicolas Vogondy on the attack

Tonkov and Julich climb Ventoux

Fabrizio Guidi leads the Mercury-Viatel chase

An unfortunate ending for Bessette

Jeanson in the leader's jersey

Freedman and Jeanson

The women's field enjoys a perfect SoCal day

Harm Jansen hard at work

Up close and personal

The men's peloton

Cooke, Fraser and Blijlevens

Jeanson

Green (L) added to his overall lead Thursday, besting Leipheimer and Horner by more than half-a-minute.

Baden Cooke

Eddy Gragus

Jeannie Longo

Horner, Green, Leipheimer

The Redlands Bicycle Classic kicked off with a brand-new hillclimb prologue on Tuesday, and photographer Casey Gibson was on hand to capture all the action.

Jans Koerts strengthened Mercury-Viatel’s case for a start in the Tour de France this year by giving the U.S. team its second consecutive stage win Wednesday in the high-speed run down the Rhone Valley to Villeneuve les Avignon. His teammate Peter Van Petegem conserved the leader's white jersey. Koerts received a fine leadout from his teammate Fabrizio Guidi to finish more than a length ahead of Jean-Patrick Nazon and Germany's Danilo Hondo, at the end of a stage run at close to a 30mph average thanks to a strong tailwind. This is Koerts' third win of the season after winning two stages of

Italian sprinter Biagio Conte (Saeco) took the early lead in the Tirreno-Adriatico stage race on Wednesday when he won the 132km opening stage in Sorrento, Italy. Conte beat out Telekom’s Erik Zabel and Fassa Bortolo’s Dmitri Konyshev in the final sprint. Conte was given some freedom in the finish after Saeco team leader Mario Cipollini suffered a little bit on the Sant’Angelo climb during the race. "I am here to help Cipollini, and Thursday, I will return to my role as teammate," Conte said after his win. Thursday’s second stage will be a completely flat, 163km course between Sorrento and

It was expected to be an easy day. A long flat circuit north of Redlands offers a chance for the fields of 198 men and 110 women to stay together and fight out the finish in a bunch sprint. That’s the way it ended for both. Gord Fraser rode the Mercury train into the finish and cruised to an easy win, even beating Lotto’s new Dutch sprinter Jeroen Blijlevens to the line. But in the women’s race Saturn’s Ina Teutenberg was well on her way to winning stage 2 of the Redlands Classic on Wednesday, charging ahead of the 110-rider women’s field after the 122km Highlands Road Race, but bad luck and

Dylan Casey

Roland Green passes another rider on his way to the win.

A scenic hillclimb replaced the street sprints prologue

Pam Schuster

David Zabriskie

Koerts notched another win for Mercury

The peloton sped along the Rhone

Van Petegem in white

Fraser and Freedman take Highlands road race at Redlands

Freedman and Jeanson, without third-placed Bessette.

Fraser (c) credits Cooke (l) for a winning leadout. Blijlevens had to settle for second.

Heading in to the Redlands Classic, both Mercury-Viatel and Saturn have four riders in the top-10 standings of U.S. Cycling Federations National Calendar point standings, with Mercury's Baden Cooke and Gord Fraser in the 1-2 slots. In the women's standings, Saturn has one of its riders in the top spot (Lyne Bessette) and two others in the top 10. Overall, that squad has a 120-point lead over second place 800.com. Keep reading for complete standings. 2001 NRC RANKINGS(as of March 12, 2001) Men's Individual Rankings Name Team Points1 Baden Cooke Mercury/Viatel 1042 Gord

Tuesday’s hilly windy stage to Saint Etienne turned the Paris-Nice classification upside down, with Peter Van Petegem outsprinting the gutsy but luckless Alexandre Vinokourov (Telekom) to give Mercury-Viatel its first taste of the leader's jersey in a major European stage race. Vinokourov was on the attack for the entire stage, early on in a 19-strong group which included Floyd Landis (Mercury-Viatel) and Jonathan Vaughters (Credit Agricole). He split the break together with Laurent Dufaux (Saeco) and escaped on the final climb to hold on until the final meter, when Van Petegem came flying

Dueling big-guns Saturn-Timex and Mercury-Viatel made for high octane and unpredictable racing at the annual Sequoia Cycling Classic in Exeter, California. Men’s and women’s competition was fierce both in the Rocky Hill Road Race and in the Visalia Criterium the following day but Saturn made its presence known, taking the top spots in three out of four races. Day one of competition found riders seeing rings with Saturn dominating both the men’s and women’s Rocky Hill Road Race, a nine-and-half-mile loop with two climbs on each lap, totaling 600 feet of climbing per lap. Saturn and Mercury

She may have been biding her time in Arizona, rather than defending her title at Australia’s Tour de Snowy, but the lack of travel certainly hasn’t hurt Genevieve Jeanson. The 19-year-old Canadian blasted her way to the top of Riverside’s Mt. Rubidoux to take the opening stage of the 2001 Redlands Bicycle Classic and, coincidentally setting the stage for a win by her countryman, mountain-bike racer Roland Green, in the elite men’s event of this Southern California season opener. Jeanson (Rona) took on a strong women’s field — including 2001 Tour de Snowy winner Kim Bruckner (Saturn) and 2000

Van Petegem

Landis and Vaughters lead the break

The race continues toward Nice

Jeanson says she is at Redlands 'to have fun.' Winning is fun.

Greenis wearing Postal colors for the week.

Crashes took their toll on a rainy Paris-Nice today, with Axel Merckx the principal victim of a 25-rider pile-up two-and-a-half kilometers from the line. Merckx finished the stage, but was taken to the hospital after the race. Earlier, Joseba Beloki, third finisher in the Tour last year, was put out by a broken rib after he collided with another rider while taking nature's call on the move. A reduced lead group fought out the stage finish in Clermont Ferrand, where Stuart O'Grady led out from 250 meters, but was overhauled just before the line by the Belgian Fabian De Waele. He took the

For the second-straight offseason Mary Grigson has dislocated her left shoulder, this time during the first stage of the Tour de Snowy. The injury has left the defending NORBA cross-country champion on the shelf for the opening portion of the 2001 campaign, and there’s a chance it could jeopardize her entire season. "I’m definitely out for Sea Otter and I’d say there’s only a 20 percent chance I’ll be ready for Napa," said the 30-year-old Australian. "Right now I can’t reach my arm over my head. If I go six weeks and the shoulder hasn’t healed, I’ll probably need to have a shoulder

De Waele

Mattan retains the overall lead

Belgian rider Nico Mattan (Cofidis) won the Paris-Nice cycling prologue over 6.2km through the streets of Nevers on March 11. The 29-year-old came in ahead of British teammate David Millar (at 0:08), with France’s Florent Brard in third, a further second behind during the stage made difficult by persistent rain. Mercury-Viatel's Peter van Petegem finished fifth and Floyd Landis 11th. Defending champion Andreas Kloden of Germany, who shot into the limelight with his surprise win last year, but who has had recent health problems, was 24 seconds behind the leader. Paris-Nice, under the

Spaniard Aitor Gonzalez (Kelme) won the Tour of Murcia on March 11 after winning the fifth and final stage, a 12.9km time-trial through the streets of Murcia on Sunday. Gonzalez was joined on the podium by compatriots Javier Pascual Llorente and Mikel Zarrabeitia, second and third respectively. The Spaniard, who turned professional 1998, was the only rider to finish the time-trial in under 15 minutes (in 14:57), with Italy's Marco Velo second in 15:07 and Spaniard Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano 15:18. U.S. Postal’s Lance Armstrong finished in fifth position in the TT (in 15:25), with former

Mattan on the sprint to victory

The 2000 champ, Kloden finished 24 seconds down

Spain's Francisco Cabello came from behind to take the overall lead in the Tour of Murcia cycling race after winning the 166.2km fourth stage between Alcantarilla and Aledo on March 10. "We've been looking for this victory since the beginning of the season and we dedicate it to the Ochoa brothers," Cabello said, visibly moved at the thought of his Kelme team-mates. Ricardo Ochoa was killed during an accident near Malaga on February 15. which left his twin Javier (13th overall in the 2000 Tour de France) in a deep coma. Cabello's time of 4:15:15 brought him in three seconds ahead of

Australian Anna Millward (Saturn-Timex) won the Canberra World Cup cycling race with a devastating sprint finish here on March 10. Millward, 29, beat Dutch champion Mirjam Melchers and fellow Australian Rochelle Gilmore in a mass sprint finish to the 20-lap 102- kilometer race. It was her third win in the race in as many years and earned her the first World Cup leader's jersey for 2001. "I was extremely nervous before the race today, trying to do it for the third time running. In bunch sprints, so many things can happen -- you might not get a clean run through and it might all come to

In an unsigned statement issued late Thursday, USA Cycling said it would request a review and consider an appeal of a recent Colorado appeals court decision upholding a legal challenge of the organization's attempt to "streamline" its bylaws two years ago. The court ruled that a lawsuit filed by former U.S. Cycling Federation trustee Les Earnest rightly pointed out that USA Cycling's board of directors had not fully justified their use of "emergency" provisions in its attempt to implement 24 pages of bylaw changes without submitting them for review by the membership of its affiliate

Argentina's Martin Garrido won both the stage and the leader's jersey of the Tour of Murcia on March 9, as he outsprinted Italians Enrio Leoni (yesterday's winner) and Giovanni Lombardi. The time bonus helped the Team Relax rider take over the yellow jersey from Nuremberg's Werner Riebenbaur, who now is third overall, at 7 seconds. The stage, on a 152.4km route between Cieza and Archena, was marked by a long break by Guido Trenti and Tony Bracke, but like previous days, the teammates of sprinters worked to chase down the break and position their power riders for the final

France's Tour VTT -- the granddaddy of mountain bike stage races -- may be reincarnated next season. The race, which first ran in 1994 and folded after the 1997 event, is organized by the Société du Tour de France; the company is looking at reviving the event in August of 2002, according to comments made on March 8. "There has been a kind of frustration on behalf of mountain bike enthusiasts," declared Jean-François Pescheux, sporting director of the Société. One option being studied is to open the event to the general public, rather than restricting it to elite riders, as was done in

Okay, okay we admit it; we've lusted after Campagnolo Record components about as long as we've been riding (which in our case means five-speed freewheels and friction shifting). Normally we wouldn't make a big deal about someone's promotional contest, but… hey, you can win a Campy 10-speed Record group and, oh yeah, wheels and clothes, too. Log on to win.campagnolo.com and give its "Win Your Record" contest a shot. If you win because you went through this site, you owe us a set of pedals, okay?

Once again the Tour of Murcia ended in a field sprint, but today's fastest rider was Team Alessio's Endrio Leoni, while Jeroen Blijlevens and Bjorn Leukemans finished second and third, respectively. Yesterday's sprint king, Werner Riebenbaure (Nuremberg), held on to the leader's jersey after rolling in sixth for the day. The stage was marked by the long break by Italian Fabio Roscioli and Belgian Sven Njis, who rode clear at the 24km mark. But the pair was reeled in after 120km, and the sprinters worked to position themselves in the closing 17km. Lotto's Tayeb Braikia (Lotto) was expected

For Alain Gallopin, Mercury-Viatel’s new French assistant directeur sportif, the team’s 10-day training camp in Southern California was a chance to get acquainted with many of his new riders. In particular, Gallopin got the chance to meet the American riders who weren’t too familiar to the European-based Gallopin. But with at least one American, Gallopin already had a bond that was rock solid. “Horner, he is my friend for life,” Gallopin said of Chris Horner, who was with Gallopin for three years in the Française des Jeux program. “I am his spiritual father.” Horner had an up-and-down time

Kim Bruckner and the Saturn team fended off final-day challenges from world road champion Zinaida Stahurskaia (GAS Sport) to win Tour de Snowy, the Australian stage race that marks the unofficial start to the women's road season. In another of the race's many two-stage days, most of the attention was focused on the climbs in the morning's 69.3km stage from Tumbarumba to Tumut, especially a long 12km climb near the start. That climb represented the last real chance for Stahurskaia to knock Bruckner out of the lead. But Saturn would have none of that and the team successfully shadowed every

Nearly two months after the cancellation of the World Cup stop in Whistler, Canada, the UCI has announced that Grouse Mountain will replace the famed ski area as host site for the year’s first mountain-biking "triple." Downhill/dual Round 3 and cross country Round 4 of the World Cup series will take place July 4-8 at the small ski resort, which is just 15 minutes from downtown Vancouver. The event will be put on by Gestev Inc., the organization behind the numerous World Cup races at Mont-Ste-Anne, Quebec, and last year’s cross country in Mazatlan, Mexico. Grouse Mountain was one of two

Team Nuremberg's Werner Riebenbauer won the 147km first stage of the Tour of Murcia on March 7, while American Antonio Cruz (US Postal) grabbed third, and Argentina's Martin Garridoa (Realx-Fuenlabrada) finished second in the mass sprint. Lance Armstrong, Jan Ullrich and Marco Pantini, had an easy ride, finishing in the main bunch on the route between Murcia and Aguilas, in the southeast of Spain.. The sprint finish brought about a huge fall of riders, with Lotto's Tayeb Braikia the main victim. Breikia, 27, and winner of Saturday's Classique d'Almeria, suffered facial injuries and

Cruz had the legs to hang on in today's mass sprint in Spain.

Nice View: Grouse Mountain overlooks Vancouver

Italy's 1998 Tour de France champion Marco Pantani extended a warm welcome to two-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong on March 6, when he declared he'd like to teach the Texan a lesson in this week's Tour of Murcia. The race in Spain runs March 7-11. Pantani, who's currently enmeshed in a series of judicial investigations in Italy over doping offences, pits his wits against Armstrong and the 1997 Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich in this week's 640km race. While both Armstrong and Ullrich are making their seasonal debuts, 31-year-old Pantani will be seeking to put the disappointment

It was supposed to be another match up between Tour de Snowy race leader Anna Millward and reigning world road champion Zinaidaia Stahurskaia … and it was, to a point. As the season-opening Australian stage race moved into serious climbing, Stahurskaia challenged Millward and forced her out of the leader's jersey. But Millward's Saturn team was ready and just as she faltered, her teammate Kim Bruckner was ready to take up the challenge winning the stage and keeping the jersey in the family. Saturn has clearly dominated the race from the start, with Millward winning the first three stages and

Pantani about Armstrong: 'I really don't like that American way of his.'