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USA Cycling awarded the final ten stars and stripes jerseys over the weekend as the 2008 USA Cycling Elite Track National Championships concluded at the ADT Event Center velodrome at the Home Depot Center on Sunday.
It’s official; “comeback” is the word of the year in professional cycling. Following in the wake of Mario Cipollini (un-retired and then retired again), Lance Armstrong (un-retired and already making waves) and Alexander Vinokourov (trying to beat a doping rap and un-retire), Mexican great Raúl Alcalá is now getting back in the game.
Spaniard Juan-Antonio Flecha claimed his first notable victory this season when he won the Circuit Franco-Belge Sunday after a final stage won by Belgian Sebastien Rosseler of Quick Step. Rosseler's victory on the fourth and final stage put smiles back on the worried faces of Quick Step after their leader, former world champion Tom Boonen, crashed 75km into the ride. Boonen got back up slowly and feeling the pain, but was apparently uninjured and looks likely to bounce back for a victory bid at the Paris-Tours classic next week.
Taylor Phinney (Garmin-Chipotle) set a new track record in the men’s 4000-meter individual pursuit and won his third national title of the week on Friday at the 2008 U.S. elite track national championships at the ADT Event Center velorome in Carson City, California, on Friday.
Greetings from seat 15B of Continental flight 34, Denver to Houston. It’s leg No. 1 of a two-flight journey that will deposit me in Chihuahua, Mexico, a few days ahead of next week’s seven-stage Vuelta a Chihuahua. I can’t tell you a whole lot about the race at this point, except that it has a lot of climbing (the north-central Mexican state of Chihuahua is roughly along the same latitude line as Colorado and the Rocky Mountains), Garmin-Chipotle is sending a team, and I think I’ll get to see Copper Canyon, a gap in the earth so grand it apparently dwarfs Arizona’s Grand Canyon.
Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Chipotle) is putting his strong end-of-season form to good use at this week’s Circuit Franco-Belge. After finishing second to Tom Boonen (Quick Step) in Thursday’s opener, Farrar slipped into the race leader’s jersey in Friday’s 184km stage from Bray Dunes to Poperinge in west Belgium. Mark Renshaw (Credit Agricole) won the sprint with Farrar clawing his way to his second-straight second place, good enough to put him into the lead by two seconds ahead of Boonen.
Garmin-Chipotle and Metro VW Cycling earned national titles in the team pursuit, as at the U.S. elite track national championships at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California, Thursday. Meanwhile Proman’s Cari Higgins narrowly edged Liz Reap-Carlson to take the national jersey in the women’s 500-meter time trial.
He’s been a fixture in the pro peloton for 15 years, having won six Tour de France points jerseys, three at the Vuelta and four editions of Milan-San Remo, but Erik Zabel is now ready to hang up his cleats. Zabel is winding down his career and will ride in hs final German event when he rides this Friday’s Sparkassen Münsterland Giro in Münster.
Dee Dee Winfield (Velo Bella/Kona) and Wes Schempf (C3-Sollay.com) scored impressive wins in Sunday’s Ed Sander Memorial Cyclocross in Buckeystown, Maryland.
Steven Cozza had never raced anything longer than 230km and he had never raced against the big boys in a world championships. Now the 23-year-old can tick both of those off his list. Cozza led the five-man U.S. worlds squad with a very solid 23rd at 1:40 back of winner Alessandro Ballan as part of the first chase group in a very successful men’s elite world’s debut.
Alessandro Ballan started Sunday’s men’s elite road race as a helper for the team’s biggest stars but ended the day world champion. Ballan attacked in each of the last three laps, but it was his move with about three kilometers to go to drop a leading group of about a dozen riders that included two Italian teammates that sealed Italy’s third straight rainbow jersey. It was a drag race to the finish, but the 2007 Tour of Flanders champion held on to win the world title on home roads.
Two of Australia's champion cyclists Oenone Wood and Natalie Bates raced their final event today at the World Championships in Italy bringing to an end careers both can be proud of. "I feel pretty good actually," said Wood after stepping off the bike after today's elite women's road race in Varese. "It was probably hard to make the decision initially but I think it's the right decision to make."
If cycling team coaches were like their brethren in American football they would be studying tapes of all the races that have been held on the 17.35km Varese road race circuit this year. What they would find is a pattern that has flowed through the world under-23 men’s and elite women’s championships the past two days, along with last month’s Three Varesine Valleys race and the finale of stage 18 of this year’ s Giro d’Italia.
Nicole Cooke’s perfect season just got better. Just six weeks after winning the Olympic gold medal in Beijing, the 24-year-old Welshwoman executed seamless tactics Saturday in a thrilling final lap to win her first world title. Cooke followed her instinct to make a final-stage attack by arch-rival Marianne Vos and then pipped her at the line to relegate the Dutch rider to silver with Judith Arndt collected her second bronze medal in the Varese world championships.
After writing two columns about Lance Armstrong’s decision to return to elite-level racing — first looking at questions about his age and long lay-off, and last week examining his possible schedule to find top shape by next July’s Tour de France — I’ll devote this “Inside Cycling” column to the reactions his audacious plan has generated both within and outside the cycling community.
With three Italians in the eight-up sprint at the end of Friday’s heated 173km Under-23 world championship race, odds were stacked against Fabio Duarte. So the pint-sized Colombian uncorked a daring attack with 400m to go to leave the remnants of the winning breakaway choking on his fumes and deliver a huge upset against the heavily favored Italians racing on home roads.
German sprint great Erik Zabel, a six-time winner of the Tour de France green jersey, will retire in early October, his professional road team Milram announced on Friday. "I've had a lot of fun this season and managed to keep my main rivals on their toes. But I don't know if I can do it for another season, so I think it's the right time to stop," Zabel was quoted as saying in the team statement. Zabel will compete for the last time in Munster, Germany on October 3.
The front hub on Cane Creek’s Sprint 85.
Cane Creek employee Josh Reddoch had his bike from masters nationals on hand to show off the company’s new Sprint 85 wheels.
Las Vegas is a good place to put on a show. Jen McRae and Hilton Clarke — each of whom are looking for new teams next year — produced brilliant late season performances with wins at the USA CRITS Finals, held during the Interbike trade show in Las Vegas Thursday night. Clarke said the win under the lights at the Mandalay Bay Resort on the Vegas Strip will not be the end of his season. His Toyota-United team is expected to fold at the end of this season, or perhaps return with a much more modest program next year.
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When the world road championships last came to Varese, Italy, in 1951, an estimated 1.5 million fans thronged the hilly course north of the city and Swiss rider Ferdi Kubler pulled off a stunning victory. The tifosi came to see their national heroes Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali, but a fever prevented Coppi from starting and Bartali had to play the team game when three of his teammates got into the winning eight-man break.
After a season of oh-so-close calls, Tyler Farrar finally broke into the winner’s circle Wednesday. The 24-year-old Garmin-Chipotle sprinter blasted his way to his first victory on the 2008 season after a year littered with seconds and thirds, outkicking Anthony Ravard (Ag2r-La Mondiale) in the 166km opening stage from Celles-sur-Belles to Saint-Jean d’Angely of the Tour Poitou-Charentes in France. Farrar also took the leader’s jersey in the five-stage, four-day race.
The chance of making history by winning a third consecutive road race crown at cycling's world championships this week has been keeping Paolo Bettini dreaming all summer. But at the men's road race on Sunday, September 28, the energetic little rider known as the 'Cricket' will need to outmuscle, and outfox, at least three potential rival teams aiming to bring home the coveted rainbow jersey. And one rider in particular, Tour de France points winner Oscar Freire, who has arguably more reason than the Italian to push his legs that extra mile.
Tim Johnson and Jeremy Powers of Cannondale-cyclocrossworld.com played the numbers on Kona's Ryan Trebon at Sunday's Rad Racing GP in Tacoma, Washington, with Johnson coming away with the win in a two-up sprint. Wendy Simms (Kona) won the women's race after dropping Sue Butler (Monavie-Cannondale.com) in the final lap. The cyclocross race followed Saturday's nearby Star Crossed event in which Powers was able to get the better of Trebon after the Kona rider crashed in the last lap.
to VeloNews.com's Live Coverage of the 21st - and Final! - stage of the 2008 Vuelta a España, a largely ceremonial cruise from San Sebastian de los Reyes to the traditional finish in Madrid.
Against the impressive backdrop of the Lehigh Valley’s South Mountain, the best of the MAC Cyclocross Series opened their 2008 season with the UCI Nittany Lion Cyclocross at Penn State University’s satellite campus in Fogelsville Pennsylvania on Saturday.
It was a weekend of great contrast here in the land of the coached. The latest adventure started in Crested Butte last Friday when I got a call from the VeloNews edit desk. Turned out one Lance Armstrong was going to be racing near Aspen the following Sunday, and they wanted to know if I could pop by and grab an interview. The recently un-retired Tour champ would be contesting the 12 Hours of Snowmass cross-country race, and hopefully talking more about why he’s decided to turn in his AARP membership card.
David Arroyo won the second stage in a row for Caisse d’Epargne while Alberto Contador fended off last-gasp attempts to blow apart the race in Friday’s two-climb, 145.5km stage across the rugged sierra north of Madrid to safely retain the overall lead Vuelta a España. Arroyo, 28, is one of the worker bees who occasionally gets to taste the honey themselves. The veteran gregario was fulfilling his obligations to follow the breakaways over two first category climbs to set up team captain Alejandro Valverde when fate turned his way.
to VeloNews.com's Live Coverage of thr 18th Stage of the 2008 Vuelta a Espana, a 167.4-kilometer ride from Valladolid to Las Rozas. This stage rolls south across the central plateau, starting in Valladolid and climbs over the Sierra de Guardarrama north of Madrid before ending in Las Rozas. The first 122km gradually takes the peloton from an altitude of 700 meters to the start of the day's only rated climb.
Spanish rider Imanol Erviti out-kicked Nicholas Roche from an 18-man breakaway that lit up Thursday’s 18th stage to pump some fresh excitement into the Vuelta a España. With the favorites cooling their jets ahead of this weekend’s final showdown in the mountains north of Madrid, two-time world champion Paolo Bettini (Quick Step) snuck away in the big, dangerous breakaway that the Vuelta was waiting for.
To VeloNews.com's Live Coverage of the 17th stage of the 2008 Vuelta a Espana, a generally flat race from Zamora to Valladolid.
The MAC Cyclocross Series opens its 2008 campaign this weekend with a pair of established races that are new to the MAC. The season kicks-off in the cycling hotbed of Lehigh Valley Pennsylvania with the Nittany Lion Cyclocross at Penn State University’s Fogelsville Campus on Saturday September 20. The UCI C-2 event features over $4,000 in prize money. Even though two other UCI races are being held in America that day, the Nittany Lion Cyclocross, by virtue of its earlier Eastern Time Zone, is laying claim as the first American UCI cyclocross race of the 2008-2009 season.
Tom Boonen and Paolo Bettini have each won two stages in this year’s Vuelta a España and had already planned to pull out after Wednesday’s stage into Valladolid, so the Quick Step superstars decided to sit up in their final sprint and leave it the second-tier sprinters to take a shot. Budding Belgian talent Wouter Weylandt stepped boldly into the void, holding off a wild sprint ahead of Matti Breschel (CSC-Saxo Bank) to win by a half-tire length to give Quick Step victory its fifth win at the Vuelta.
to VeloNews.com's Live Coverage of the 16th stage of the 2008 Vuelta a Espana, a 186.3km race from Ponferrada to Zamora.
It was a fast and exciting conclusion Tuesday into Zamora to one of the slowest and most tedious stages any grand tour has endured in years. Tom Boonen (Quick Step) pipped Filippo Pozzato (Liquigas) to win his second stage of this year’s Vuelta a España, but the 186.3km stage was marked by its sluggish speed and lackadaisical attitude of the peloton.
to VeloNews.com's Live Coverage of the 15th stage of the 2008 Vuelta a Espana, a 202-kilometer ride from Cudillero to Ponferrada.
David García gave Xacobeo-Galicia the stage victory Monday that the team missed when Ezequiel Mosquera didn’t receive much charity from Astana in Sunday’s summit finish high in the Catabrian mountains. García charged out of a busted-up 17-man breakaway with 3km to go, but the real story was Alberto Contador, who brushed off a spill in Monday’s 202km 15th stage from Cudillero to Ponferreda to retain his lead at the 63rd Vuelta a España. [nid:83282]The Vuelta leader fell with about 50km to go, but suffered little more than scrapes to his left knee and elbow.
In a blustery, weather-shortened final stage of the Tour of Missouri, Italian Francesco Chicchi (Liquigas) surprised Columbia's Mark Cavendish and Garmin-Chipotle's Tyler Farrar to win in St. Louis, as Garmin's Christian Vande Velde secured the overall win in a hotly contested GC battle. Chicchi's stage win, in sight of the city's iconic Gateway Arch, concluded a week-long rivalry between America's biggest pro teams — indeed it was one of only two stages of this year's edition of the "Toura Missoura" that was not won by either Garmin or Columbia.
In many ways, Sunday's cross-country World Cup Final in Schladming, Austria was anti-climactic, since Julien Absalon (Orbea) and Marie-Helene Premont (Rocky Mountain) had already sewn up the overall titles. Despite the lack of a battle for the overall titles, there were still plenty of riders looking for a final good result before the end of the season.
for live coverage of stage 6
To VeloNews.com's live coverage of stage 6, a 96-mile stage from Hermann to St. Charles. We join the race at mile 39, on the run-in to the first KOM of the day. We have an 11-man breakaway up the road with a 4:10 gap.
to VeloNews.com's Live Coverage of the 13th stage of the 2008 Vuelta a Espana, a 209.5-kilometer race from San Vicente de la Barquera to the top of the Alto de L´Angliru.
This is a stage that everyone has either been waiting for or dreading. We suspect that the majority of the remaining 154 riders in the Vuelta fall into that latter category.
Team Columbia and Garmin-Chipotle continued to pound one another — and the rest of the field — at the Tour of Missouri, with Mark Cavendish taking stage 6 in a sprint and Christian Vande Velde retaining the jersey after his Garmin teammates patrolled the front on an aggressive, windy day. Toyota-United’s Ivan Dominguez took second, followed by Jelly Belly’s Brad Huff, a Missourian native hoping for a home-state win.
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Check out CyclingTips's author page.
for live coverage of stage 5
To VeloNews.com's live coverage of stage 5 of the Tour of Missouri, a 109-mile stage from St. James to Jefferson City. We join the race at mile 60. A 12-man break is up the rode with about a 3-minute lead on the peloton.
Call it situational amnesia, call it intense athletic focus, call it an innate (perhaps genetic) animal instinct for winning bicycle races. Just don't expect a lot of details when you ask Rabobank's 20-year-old Boy Van Poppel how he won Friday's fifth stage of the Tour of Missouri. “People always ask how you do it and ... I forget. I always forget what I am doing because it goes very fast and I don't think. You don't think, you do it. If you think, maybe you don't win.”[nid:83124]
Alessandro Petacchi (LPR Brakes) grabbed his second stage win of the Tour of Britain in Gateshead, England, on Friday while France's Geoffroy Lequatre retained the leader's yellow jersey. Rob Hayles (British National) just missed out on catching Petacchi on the line after a sprint finish to the sixth stage while stage four and five winner Edvald Boasson Hagen of Team Columbia was a place further back. Lequatre, who rides for Agritubel, retained the yellow jersey for the third successive day with home hope Steve Cummings second in the overall standings.
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for live coverage of stage 4
We join today’s 95-mile stage from Lebanon to Rolla in progress.
for live coverage of stage 11
to VeloNews.com's Live Coverage of the 12th stage of the Vuelta a España, a 186.4-kilometer race from Burgos to Suances.
Today's stage a potential leg-breaker ideal for head-bangers looking to finally hold off the sprinters.
Anyone thinking Christian Vande Velde had the overall win locked up at the Tour of Missouri was reminded Thursday that nothing is over in stage racing until the last finish line. The Garmin-Chipotle rider's 21-second lead over Columbia’s Michael Rogers looked to be in serious jeopardy on stage 4, an undulating 95-mile route from Lebanon to Rolla with three KOM points — a trio of rollers arbitrarily chosen by the race organization out of dozens that unfolded before the peloton.
Columbia’s Edvald Boasson Hagen took his second consecutive stage win of this year’s Tour of Britain with a late surge 700 meters before the finish line in Dalby Forest, holding off breakaway companions Matt Goss (CSC-Saxo Bank) and Danilo Di Luca (LPR Brakes-Ballan) as the field closed in. The Norwegian had earlier showed his excellent time-trialing skills by bridging a 12-second gap from the peloton to join three other breakaway riders as the race paced through Beverley.
for VeloNews live coverage of stage 3
To VeloNews.com's live coverage of the Tour of Missouri time trial
He posted 40:24 on the 18-mile course.
to VeloNews.comcom's Live Coverage of the 11th stage of the 2008 Vuelta a España, a 178-kilometer race from Calahorra to Burgos.
The world championships are still more than two weeks away, but the big dogs are starting to hit their fighting form. Wednesday’s hot and windy 11th stage at the Vuelta a España across the meseta looks nothing like the undulating roads around Varese the pros will square off on Sept. 28, but a thrilling finish-line duel between Tom Boonen and Oscar Freire gave a titillating preview of what’s waiting.
Racing just a few hundred miles from his team sponsor’s headquarters, Garmin-Chipotle rider Christian Vande Velde won the Tour of Missouri’s difficult stage 3 time trial and is poised to take overall victory when the race finishes in St. Louis on Sunday.
for live coverage of stage 2
Today's 126-mile stage is the longest of the tour. It is also the stage where last year the critical, race-shaping breakaway went clear. George Hincapie won the stage, then held the lead until the race finish.
A challenging uphill final stretch made for an exciting stage finish to day four of the Tour of Britain, as Norwegian Edvald Boasson Hagen (Team Columbia) came from behind to beat breakaway companion Giairo Ermeti (LPR Brakes - Ballan) on the line in Stoke-on-Trent. Race leader Emilien Berges punctured with around 7k to go, losing over a minute and dropping to ninth place overall. Teammate Geoffroy Lequatre inherited the yellow jersey going into Thursday's stage in Yorkshire. Ben Swift won all of the day’s three E.ON King of the Mountains climbs to overtake Kristian
to VeloNews.com's Live Coverage of the 10th stage of the 2008 Vuelta a España, 151.3-kilometer ride from Sabiñánigo to the high plains of Zaragoza.
Crédit Agricole couldn’t imagine a better going away present than a stage victory Tuesday in the 63rd Vuelta a España in what’s its swansong grand tour. The long-standing French team — set to fold at the end of the 2008 season after a new sponsor couldn’t be found to replace the departing French bank — earned a rare bunch sprint victory with French veteran Sébastien Hinault.
There were no surprises in Springfield. With his second consecutive field-sprint victory at the Tour of Missouri, a mad dash to the finish line in the university town of Springfield, Columbia phenom Mark Cavendish extended his 2008 win streak to 16 road victories as well as a world Madison championship on the track. Additionally, the 23-year-old from the Isle of Man — also known as a Manxman, or, in street slang, a “Manxsta” — has now won multiple stages at this year’s Giro d’Italia, Three Days of De Panne, Tour de France, Tour of Ireland and the Tour of Missouri.
Emilien Berges (Agritubel) won the third stage of the Tour of Britain on Tuesday, taking the overall leader's yellow jersey from Alessandro Petacchi (LPR Brakes-Ballan). Berges broke away from eight other escapees on the flat run into Burnham, crossing the line just ahead of his teammate Geoffroy Lequarte. Italian Gabriele Bosisio (LPR Brakes-Ballan) finished third.
Peter Stetina stormed into the leader’s jersey Tuesday at the Tour de l’Avenir and took such a formidable lead that he could become the first American to win the race since Greg LeMond in 1982. Stetina, 21, joined a five-man breakaway that surged away in the opening kilometers of a hilly stage across the Massif Central in the 181.5km fourth stage from Saint-Symphorien-sur-Coise to Saint-Flour. Holland’s Ricardo Van der Velde won the stage out of the breakaway, but Stetina takes a 2:27 lead over Frenchman Jerome Coppel.
for live coverage of the 2008 Tour of Missouri
Good day and welcome to VeloNews.com's Live Coverage of the Tour of Missouri.
Today's first stage from St. Joseph to Kansas City is a rolling 90-mile adventure.
to VeloNews.com's Live Coverage of the ninth stage of the 2008 Vuelta a España, a 200.8-kilometer ride from Vielha to Sabiñánigo.
Mark Cavendish (Columbia) won the first stage of the 2008 Tour of Missouri on Monday, outkicking Garmin-Chipotle's Tyler Farrar in a chaotic field sprint at the end of a 90-mile stage that started in St. Joseph. On a rainy, cool day, Cavendish's teammates reeled in a three-man breakaway in the final miles, then drilled the pace on the final three technical circuits, reducing the size of the front group to only 25 riders at one point.
Australia's Matthew Goss (CSC-Saxo Bank) won the second stage of the Tour of Britain after outsprinting the field on Monday. Goss avoided the chaos caused by a collision towards the end of the stage in Newbury, south-west of London, and finished just ahead of the Garmin-Chipotle duo of Julian Dean and Chris Sutton. Alessandro Petacchi (LPR Brakes), who won the first stage in London, retained the overall leader's yellow jersey after a sixth-place finish.
Call it the hot potato leader’s jersey. Egoi Martínez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) became the seventh rider in nine days of racing to hold the golden jersey at the 63rd Vuelta a España. Astana might have had the jersey when it started Monday’s 200.8km ninth stage across the southern flanks of the Pyrénées, but it sure didn’t want to have it when the race arrived in Sabiñánigo some five hours later.
Lance Armstrong will come out of retirement next year to compete in five road races with the Astana team, according to sources familiar with the developing situation. Armstrong, who turns 37 this month, will compete in the Amgen Tour of California, Paris-Nice, the Tour de Georgia, the Dauphiné Libéré and the Tour de France — and will race for neither salary nor bonuses, the sources, who asked to remain anonymous, told VeloNews. Armstrong's manager, Mark Higgins, did not respond to questions. And an Astana spokesman denied the report to The Associated Press.
Italian sprinter Alessandro Petacchi (LPR Brakes-Ballan) opened The Tour of Britain on Sunday with an exciting sprint finish in the shadow of Big Ben, holding off Rob Hayles (Great Britain) and Magnus Backstedt (Garmin-Chipotle) to take victory in London. The rain relented long enough to allow the peloton to attack the 10-lap, 86km circuit in relatively dry conditions in front of an estimated crowd of more than 100,000.
Ukrainian Yuri Metlushenko (Amore e Vita-McDonalds) won his second North American sprint finish of 2008 on Sunday, pulling away from the field in the final 200 meters to take the Univest Criterium of Doylestown in Pennsylvania. Jake Keough (Kelly Benefits Strategies-Medifast) took second with Yosvany Falcon (Toshiba-Santo) third, and Swede Frederik Ericcson (Cykelcity.se.-Klehr Harrison) claimed the overall omnium championship to provide a truly international finish to the 11th annual Univest Grand Prix.
Silence-Lotto’s Robbie McEwen advanced Australia fair by winning the 213.7km Cyclassics ProTour event ahead of compatriots Mark Renshaw and Allan Davis as the green and gold ruled in Hamburg, Germany, on Sunday. The day after Germany's Linus Gerdemann (Gerolsteiner) won the Tour of Germany, Silence Lotto's McEwen stole the show from the local professional riders as Australian riders did a 1-2-3 in Hamburg to win the 13th edition of the Cyclassics event.
Alessandro Ballan (Lampre) was close all season in races he was expected to win: third in Paris-Roubaix and second in Monte Paschi Eroica and GP Ouest France-Plouay. With the 63rd Vuelta a España’s tackling its first summit finish, everyone expected the Spanish mountain goats to take over -- and no one expected Ballan. But it was the classics head-banger who delivered the surprise victory through pouring rain and cold and snuck away with the leader’s jersey as an added bonus.