Itzulia Basque Country

In a thrilling preview of what awaits in the Tour de France later this summer, some of cycling’s top climbers went mano-a-mano up the precipitous green hills of Spain’s Basque Country in Wednesday’s third stage at the Vuelta al País Vasco. Alberto Contador (Astana) attacked with 5km to go on the short but steep Cat. 1 Alto de Ixua to drop rivals he’ll be facing off against in July and ride into the overall leader’s jersey.

Yury Trofimov (Bouygues Telecom) upset the chasing peloton to win Tuesday’s second stage at the Vuelta al País Vasco in Spain after slipping away in a four-man breakaway in the six-climb, 160km route. Trofimov dropped fellow escapee Rein Taarame (Cofidis) with 2.5km to go and crossed the line five seconds clear to celebrate a hard-fought victory. Ben Swift (Katusha) led the main pack across the line with third at 1:10 back.

Luís León Sánchez continues on his spring rampage, winning the opening stage and donning the leader’s jersey of the Vuelta al País Vasco in Spain. But it almost didn’t happen. The 25-year-old Caisse d’Epargne rider was gapped on a fierce second-category climb with 8km remaining in the 142.5km opening stage and only regained contact with 3km to go.

Óscar Freire is expected to return to competition in time for the Vuelta al País Vasco next week in Spain. The three-time world champion is still recovering from a crash at the Tour of California that left him with two broken ribs and difficulty with breathing. The injuries forced Freire to skip his first major goal of 2009 at Milan-San Remo. Rabobank officials are hopeful the Spanish sprinter’s condition continues to improve.

Alberto Contador wrapped up another 2008 stage race win Saturday when he dominated the final time trial of the Vuelta al Pais Vasco, the tour of the Basque country. Contador grabbed the lead on the first stage with a blistering attack on the final climb. Throughout the six-stage race, sprinters like High Road's Kim Kirchen were able to grab stage wins while Contador's Astana team kept tight reins on the peloton to protect Contador's narrow lead.

Spain's Alberto Contador overcame toothache to add the Tour of the Basque Country to his triumph in last year's Tour de France after success in the sixth and final stage here Saturday. The Astana ace, who has dominated the week since taking the first stage, beat Australian Cadel Evans by 20 seconds in the 20km individual time trial to wrap up the ProTour event. Evans (Silence-Lotto) finished second too in the overall standings, 30sec adrift.

Quick Step rider Paolo Bettini fractured a rib when he fell in Thursday's fourth stage of the Tour of the Basque country, histeam said Saturday after he had hospital tests in Cecina, Italy. "I have suffered a lot this past couple of days. I hurt all over but today I am a little more optimistic. Last year I rode more than two weeks at the Giro with a cracked rib," said Bettini in a statement, promising to get back in the saddle as soon as possible.

Italy's Damiano Cunego, riding for Lampre, won Friday's penultimate fifth stage of the Vuelta al Pais Vasco (the Tour of the Basque Country), a 162km run between Vitoria and Orio. Spain's Alberto Contador crossed the line in second in the same time as Cunego to retain the overall lead he's held since the first stage. Cunego lies second, eight seconds adrift. The day's ride was held in hostile weather and was marked by numerous falls just before the finish triggered by a near-the-line collision between Ricardo Ricco and David Herrero.

Team High Road's Kim Kirchen won Thursday's fourth stage of the Pais Vasco in a sprint finish, while Astana's Alberto Contador retained the overall lead. It was Kirchen's second stage victory in this year's event, and left him in fifth place in the overall standings. Contador came in 20th with the same time as the stage winner to retain his overall lead, three seconds ahead of compatriot Ezequiel Mosquera. Kirchen covered the 171 kilometers between Viana and Vitoria-Gasteiz in four hours, 17 minutes and 33 seconds to edge his teammate Morris Possoni of Italy at the line.

Spain's David Herrero of the Karpin team won the 195km third stage of the Tour of the Basque Country on Wednesday between Erandio and Viana while Astana's Alberto Contador retained the overall lead. Herrero had finished third in the first two stages of the race, and now lies third overall, eight seconds behind Contador. The 28-year-old Herrero beat out compatriot Luis Leon Sanchez and Italy's Olympic champion Paolo Bettini in a sprint finish for a time of 4:54:24.

Quick Step rider Carlos Barredo might have been a little bit groggy before Monday’s start of the Tour of the Basque Country; he certainly had reason to be. Barredo raced Sunday’s Tour of Flanders and barely had time to wipe down before he was being hustled away to the airport in Brussels for a flight to Spain, where a team car was waiting for him to shuttle him to the team hotel above San Sebástian. The Spanish rider didn’t get to bed until 1:30 a.m. after what was a very long day.

Kim Kirchen (High Road) drove a fierce sprint up a rising finish to upset two-time world champion Paolo Bettini (Quick Step) in Tuesday’s attack-riddled second stage at the Vuelta al País Vasco. Riders went down in the middle of the pack in the final surge to the line as teammate Michael Barry gave Kirchen a perfect lead-out to spring the Luxembourg all-rounder to a morale-boosting victory ahead of the Ardennes classics later this month.

Alberto Contador’s “Revenge Tour 2008” continued Monday as the Astana rider uncorked a blistering acceleration on the last of seven climbs to bolt away from a soggy and cold peloton in the 137km opener at the Vuelta al País Vasco. Contador won the stage three seconds ahead of Ezequiel Mosquera (Karpin-Galicia) and takes an unexpected eight-second lead on his main adversaries in an exciting opening day of the six-day Basque Country tour.

They won’t be facing off against each other in the Tour de France this summer, so this week’s Tour of the Basque Country in Spain will provide a glimpse of what should have been the season’s biggest showdown.

The carnage from crashes Wednesday on the Kemmelberg descent during Ghent-Wevelgem has triggered calls for the treacherous cobblestoned section to be removed from the spring classic. Opinions were split. Some felt the harrowing pavé descent was just too steep for today’s high-speed peloton. A seeming majority felt that such hazardous, yet historic landmarks should remain in the northern classics despite the danger. Regardless of the opinions, the facts remained harsh. Dozens of riders fell and nearly all earned a trip to local hospitals, most with broken bones. Here’s an official list of

Juan José Haedo was the center of attention Wednesday at the start of Ghent-Wevelgem as journalists scrambled to get word with the “man who beat Petacchi” in Monday’s Rund um Köln. The Argentine ace made easy work of Alessandro Petacchi (Milram) and Graeme Brown (Rabobank) to win for the first time on European roads. The victory boosted his profile as he makes the leap from domestic racing in the United States to a largely European schedule with Team CSC. “It was an important victory in front of people like Petacchi and Brown, I can only be happy with the win,” Haedo told VeloNews before

Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) made a late break for the line to win Wednesday's third stage of the Vuelta a Pais Vasco and maintain his overall lead. It was his second win in a row and maintained his slender lead over compatriot Alberto Contador (Liberty Seguros) by less than a second. The 170km stage, from Segura to Lerin, featured six climbs, with the peloton climbing over a Cat. 2 and a Cat. 1 climb in the opening 40km. Three punchy Cat. 3s marked the final half of the course before the short but steep climbing finish into Lerin. The final 700 meters featured ramps as steep as

Alejandro Valverde has been uncharacteristically quiet so far this season, winning just one stage at the Vuelta a Murcia back in March. Instead, the usually prolific Illes Balears rider has been diligently preparing for the Ardennes classics and the Tour de France, his two major goals for the first half of the 2006 season. Monday’s opening stage of the Vuelta al País Vasco presented a nice testing ground for both challenges. With a bumpy 130km four-climb stage to open hostilities in the six-day race across northern Spain’s Basque Country, including the Cat. 1 Alto de Jaizkibel – an old

Ivan Basso’s emphatic victory in this weekend’s Criterium International left no doubt that the Italian is right on target for more important goals later in the season. With the win, Basso joins a growing list of contenders fighting for bragging rights with impressive early season victories. For Basso, his real challenges come in May’s Giro d’Italia and July’s Tour de France, but his win at Criterium International gives clear notice to his rivals that he’ll be ready. “I know that I’m in good shape and it’s very important for my preparation before the Giro and the Tour de France,” Basso said.

Rudy Pevenage, the veteran Belgian director who helped steer Bjarne Riis and Jan Ullrich to back-to-back Tour de France victories in the 1990s, is back in the good graces of T-Mobile and will officially rejoin the team as one of four sport directors for the 2006 season. Pevenage had a falling out with former T-Mobile manager Walter Godefroot three years ago and left to lead Team Coast, which dissolved in the midst of the 2003 season. He continued to work with Ullrich upon his return to T-Mobile in 2004, but only as an advisor and wasn’t allowed to officially travel with team staff during

Petacchi retains ProTour leadDespite Tom Boonen’s stylish victory in Sunday’s Tour of Flanders, Italian sprint ace Alessandro Petacchi retains the overall lead in the ProTour series. Boonen moved into fourth on the point’s scale with 62 points, but Petacchi remains comfortably in the lead with 93 points thanks to his Milan-San Remo victory and success at Tirreno-Adriatico. T-A winner Oscar Freire, who did not start Flanders, remains in second in 78 points. Bobby Julich, winner of the first ProTour event at Paris-Nice, sits fifth at 50 points. UCI ProTour Standings, after four events1.

Last Friday we finished up racing in the Tour of the Basque country. Nice terrain, green hills, and cold wet weather. The race is a five-day Hors Categorie UCI race which many teams have as an objective for the early season or use as a trampoline to gain fitness before the Ardennes classics. The race offers up undulating and mountainous terrain, with several climbs each day - 25 over the five days - with much of the distance of the race being covered on narrow farm roads. Our team went to Pays Basque with loose objectives. Floyd knew he would be able to race for the overall but the rest of

Normally, Tyler Hamilton would love to race flat out down a descent like the one included in the final-stage time trial at Spain’s Tour of the Basque Country on Friday evening. After all, the New Englander on the Danish team CSC was one of the country’s best alpine skiers, specializing in the slalom, before he became a pro cyclist. Those downhill skills, plus his low center of gravity, make him one of the best descenders in the European peloton, particularly on a narrow, twisting course like the one he encountered in this time trial. Starting the 13km test, Hamilton was equal on time with

Another stage at the Vuelta al Pais Vasco and another bunch sprint? Yes, and another photo finish in a race in what's usually a shoot-out between the mountain goats. This time it was Kelme's Alejandro Valverde who had the thicker tires to snatch the win away from Gerolsteiner's Davide Rebellin in Wednesday's 191km stage from Plentzia to Vitoria. Gerolsteiner's Fabian Wegmann was already pumping his arm in celebration, thinking that Rebellin had won when Valverde came from six riders back to score his second win this season. "We went all day thinking it would come down to a sprint, so I was

Aitor Osa was about the only guy smiling at the finish line of Wednesday's brutally cold third stage of the Vuelta Ciclista a Pais Vasco. After all, he won the stage and took the overall lead. But even the iBanesto.com rider was shivering as he slipped across the line ahead of Cofidis' Bingen Fernandez. "I've never been so cold on the bike," said a disappointed Fernandez, shivering from the front seat of the team car after Osa held him off for the stage-win and the leader's jersey. "I had no strength at the end to fight Aitor. I simply wanted the stage to be over." Don't believe those

Stefano Zanini (Mapei) narrowly defeated Lotto´s Peter Van Petegemin the opening stage of Threes Days of De Panne in Belgium on Tuesday.With the victory, Zanini joins a growing list of favorites for Sunday´sTour of Flanders. Van Petegem attacked hard with 10 kilometers to go in the 181-km stage between Moeskroen to Zottegem and only Zanini could follow, dropping a break that also included Andrei Tchmil (Lotto), Christophe Mengin (Française des Jeux) et du Slovène Andrej Hauptman (Tacconi),who crossed the line third. Van Petegem and Zanini worked together to holdoff the riders coming into the

Stage Winner: Roberto Laiseka (Euskaltel-Euskadi) – 4:24:30 ---------------------------------- Overall Lead: Lance Armstrong (USA) U.S. Postal Service Sprinter: Stuart O’Grady (Aus) Credit Agricole Climber: Laurent Jalabert (F) CSC Under 25: Oscar Sevilla (Sp), Kelme