Milan-San Remo

World champion Alessandro Ballan said he would be focusing on the Milan-San Remo and northern classics in the early part of this season. The Italian also said he was looking forward to competing in May's Giro d'Italia wearing the rainbow jersey. The 29-year-old Lampre rider has never won the prestigious Milan-San Remo race but came eighth in 2006. "I feel good, it's been a tough winter but I've worked hard with my team," he said.

Oscar Freire (Rabobank) has pulled out of Milan-San Remo, citing injuries sustained when he fell during the Amgen Tour of California, his team announced on Monday. The 33-year-old Spaniard, who broke two ribs in the stage-4 crash, has also withdrawn from the Tirreno-Adriatico stage race, which precedes the spring classic.

After a rough year that saw him making headlines for all the wrong reasons, Tom Boonen just wants to hit the news when he wins a bike race. Last year saw Belgium’s prince of the cobblestones fall back to earth after failing an out-of-competition control for cocaine in late May and then being forced out of the Tour de France. Boonen never faced a racing sanction because cocaine is only considered a banned stimulant if detected during competition. Because he still faces possible charges in a Belgian court, Boonen doesn’t want to talk about anything except bike racing.

Tour de France icon Lance Armstrong has caused a surprise by including the Milan SanRemo one-day classic in his racing plans this season. As the 37-year-old gears up for a tilt at a possible Giro d'Italia/Tour de France double this summer, he also intends competing in some races to which, during his yellow jersey reign in 1999-2005, he paid scant attention. Milan-San Remo is Italy's biggest one-day classic and one of the five "monuments" of one-day racing alongside Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Paris-Roubaix, the Tour of Flanders and the Tour of Lombardy.

It wasn’t a sprint or an attack over the Poggio that won the 99th Milan-San Remo. It was Fabian Cancellara's instinct for big drama in cycling’s biggest days.

La Classicissimia, La Primavera – whatever you call it, Milan-San Remo is one of cycling’s most electrifying and prestigious races, one of the sport’s treasured “monuments.” Whoever wins San Remo is king of Italy for a day. Twenty-five eight-man teams line up Saturday in front of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan for the 298km run past the picturesque headlands jutting out of the Italian Riviera toward the finish in San Remo.

Milan-San Remo is the season’s first big fish and cycling’s most important one-day race for sprinters never fails to deliver one of the most exciting battles of the year. Changes in both the finish area due to work on the Via Roma and the addition of a new climb called Le Manie with about 100km to go are sure to add new drama to one of the year’s most important contests.

Milan-San Remo will have an extra team after all, but it won’t be Rock Racing. Just a day after Mario Cipollini cut ties with the American team, race organizers of Saturday’s “La Primavera” announced that Miche-Silver Cross would fill the final slot for the classics season opener. Rock Racing and Cipollini were hoping for a last-minute bid to start Milan-San Remo, a race Cipollini won in 2002, but race organizers opted to go with the San Marino-based continental team instead.

Current and former world road champions Paolo Bettini, Tom Boonen, Igor Astarloa and Oscar Freire will be among those toeing the start line at the opening of Tirenno-Adriatico Wednesday. Aside from the rainbow stripes, these men share another trait in common: a desire to win the season’s first big one-day classic, Milan-San Remo. Other world-class sprinters slated to race T-A include CSC’s Stuart O'Grady, Milram teammates Alessandro Petacchi and Erik Zabel, and Silence-Lotto’s Robbie McEwen. The seven-day, 1122km race opens in Mar Tirreno and heads east to Mar Adriatico.

For a guy who would rather be somewhere else, Thor Hushovd is making the most of a bad situation. The Crédit Agricole fast man surged to an impressive victory in Sunday’s prologue and then sprinted to third in Monday’s first stage to retain his grip on the race leader’s yellow jersey. Not bad for a guy who’d rather be in Italy.

A closed tunnel will force route changes for the 99th edition of Milan-San Remo on March 22 and make the season’s longest classic four kilometers longer than usual. Race officials announced Tuesday that the additional climb, called Mànie, comes about 100km from the finish just before the arrival of three headlands at Capo Mele, Capo Cervo and Capo Berta as the route dips down to the Mediterranean Sea. The climb will have a technical descent and could play a factor in the decisive part of the race when the peloton typically begins in earnest to reel in dangerous breakaways.

The beleaguered Astana team – already excluded from the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France – received more bad news Tuesday after race organizers said the squad would not be invited at upcoming Italian races Tirreno-Adriatico and Milan-San Remo. That means Andreas Klöden, one of Astana’s top riders, won’t be able to defend his victory from last year at Tirreno-Adriatico. Both High Road and Slipstream-Chipotle earned bids to the important Italian races organized by RCS Sport, which also operates the Giro as well as other Italian events.

This time there won’t be an asterisk next to his victory. Oscar Freire (Rabobank) unleashed a masterful sprint to win Saturday’s centenary celebration of Milan-San Remo ahead of Allan Davis to claim victory in emphatic style to erase the memories of 2004 when he won by a whisker ahead of the celebrating Erik Zabel.

Some of cycling’s brightest stars will be absent or battling injury on Saturday as Milan-San Remo celebrates its centenary. While defending champion Filippo Pozzato (Liquigas) will be on hand, absent from the 2007 edition of “La Primavera” will be last year's Giro d’Italia winner, Ivan Basso (Discovery Channel), and former ProTour series winner Danilo Di Luca (Liquigas). Basso, 29, has struggled to recover from spraining a wrist at Tirreno-Adriatico last Friday, while Di Luca is still experiencing the after-effects of flu. Meanwhile, world champion Paolo Bettini (Quick Step-Innergetic)

Still suffering from the after effects of the flu, former ProTour champion Danilo Di Luca has been ruled out of Saturday's 100th anniversary edition of Milan-San Remo. The illness forced the 31-year-old Italian to miss Tirreno-Adriatico one-week stage race, which ended on Tuesday. Di Luca, who rides for the Liquigas team, won the Milano-Turin one-day semi-classic earlier this month. His best season was in 2005 when he was crowned ProTour champion. That year he won the Tour of the Basque country stage race and the Amstel Gold and Fleche Wallonne one-day classics, before finishing

Alessandro Petacchi and Tom Boonen lined up as the five-star favorites for Saturday’s 97th running of Milan-San Remo, but it was Boonen’s Quick Step-Innergetic teammate Filippo Pozzato sneaking away as the surprise winner. Pozzato marked an attack by Alessandro Ballan (Lampre-Fondital) near the top of the decisive Poggio climb with about 7km to go and then rode the coattails of a six-man lead group to hold off the fast-charging peloton.

The season’s first UCI ProTour classic, Milan-San Remo, which takes place this Saturday for the 97th time, is nowadays regarded as a sprinters’ race. That’s because in the past nine years a mass sprint finish has been avoided only twice. In 1999, an inspired Andreï Tchmil made a solo, final-kilometer attack to hold off a 68-strong pack by less than a second. And in 2003, Paolo Bettini held tough with breakaway partners Mirko Celestino and Luca Paolini to win, 11 seconds ahead of a chasing 68-man peloton. The past two years, Oscar Freire and Alessandro Petacchi scored their sprint victories

[nid:30483]There is no longer an asterisk next to Alessandro Petacchi’s palmares. For the sprinter who’s dominated the speed game since his breakthrough 2000 season, Petacchi was being pegged as a man who couldn’t win a mass gallop in long-distance races. The naysayers only pointed to the 2004 Milan-San Remo and the 2003 Paris-Tours, two occasions when the “gentleman sprinter” died – or some say choked – at the line.

Tom Boonen says Quick Step teammate Paolo Bettini enters Saturday’s Milan-San Remo as the leader, but didn’t discount his chances if it comes down to a sprint on the Via Roma. “The past two times I’ve raced here I lost a lot on the Poggio, losing my position. The key will be at the front,” Boonen said in an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport on the eve of the classic kickoff. “I’m sure I will be able to hang on going over the Cipressa and the Poggio.” Boonen downplayed the hint of rivalry between himself and Olympic champion Bettini, who enters La Primavera after struggling with an

I am going to try to make it to Milan. After talking with the team and knowing the importance of this race to us and to our sponsors, I am going to do my best to make it through the mountains these next few days and ride to Milan. Pulling out would not be too good for the team, so I need to do my best… I just need to save my legs as much as possible. That last stage into Milan is very important to the team and, at the same time, making it to Philadelphia for the USPRO is very important to me, so I need to balance that. As part of the discussion that we had on the subject this morning, I did

Erik Zabel’s world went from bright to very black in a split second on the Via Roma at the end of the 95th Milan-San Remo on Saturday. The German sprinter thought he’d come around Alessandro Petacchi (Fassa Bortolo) to win Milan-San Remo for the fifth time. But just as he was lifting his hands in celebration, Spanish sprinter Oscar Freire (Rabobank) shoved his bike across the line to snatch the win by inches.

Australian Baden Cooke has played down his chance of fulfilling one of his childhood dreams when he saddles up for Milan-San Remo on Saturday. The first race of the World Cup season - a 294km ride from Italy's fashion capital to the Mediterranean coast resort - would in normal circumstances be well within the Victoria rider's grasp; he has emerged as one of the most feared sprinters in the peloton since making his European debut two years ago. However, a virus that has laid low more than one member of the peloton last week has compromised 25-year-old Cooke's chances of victory in what will

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Paolo Bettini could become only the 12th rider to win the World Cup opening Milan-San Remo for the second year in a row when the one-day classic kicks off this Saturday. The 29-year-old Italian, who rides for Quick Step, got his season off to the perfect start last year when he won the La Primavera for the first time before lifting the ten-race World Cup title for the second year in a row. This year the energetic rider known as the “little cricket” has already laid some solid foundations, winning Tirreno-Adriatico on Tuesday after claiming two stage wins to show his sprinting form. Bettini

Paolo Bettini (Quick Step-Davitamon) won Saturday's World Cup opener, the 297km classic, Milan San-Remo. Stay tuned for a complete race wrap-up from Andrew Hood, more photos from Graham Watson and complete results. Meanwhile, to see how today's race unfolded just clickhere, to pull up our Live Update window. The defending World Cup champion of the Quick.Step-Davitamon team won an exciting sprint finish ahead of Mirko Celestino and Luca Paolini.

The place to be about 4 p.m. Saturday afternoon will be right behind the wheel of Mario Cipollini. The world champion enters the 94th Milan-San Remo race as the favorite to repeat and the only way to beat the Domina Vacanze rider will be to be on his wheel and come around him. Of course, that's assuming the 297km World Cup opener comes down to a sprint... and that most of Cipollini's powerful train makes it with him over the Poggio climb just 5.5 kilometers from the finish on the famed Via Roma in San Remo. And, that's assuming, Cipollini's threat not to start Milan-San Remo

After 14 seasons as a professional, 35-year-old Mario Cipollini finally won the race he wanted to win more than any other. Cipollini, riding in the zebra-esque colors of his new team, Acqua & Sapone, survived a long day that saw many pre-race favorites succumb to crashes and injuries to win the 93rd Milan-San Remo. [nid:21955]Cipollini and the lead sprinters reeled in a two-man breakaway of Mapei’s Paolo Bettini and Panaria’s Giuliano Figueras with less than a kilometer to go after the pair had pulled away on the Poggio climb just seven kilometers from the finish.

Herr San-Remo, aka Erik Zabel, says he's ready for the race he's won four times since 1997. Zabel, 31, told La Gazzetta dello Sport he thinks he can win again despite winning just the opening stage at Tirreno-Adriatico. "I've already ridden 5000 kilometers this season and I feel strong. I felt strong in the climbs at Tirreno, and although I didn't win a stage [after the first day], I just lost to Bettini and Cipollini in sprints, but I was close." Zabel is one of 200 riders from 25 teams lining up for the 93rd Milan-San Remo. Zabel called Milan-San Remo the "the world’s of the

Saturday's World Cup opener Milan-San Remo promises to be one of the most competitive in years. A baker's dozen of cycling's biggest Classics riders are roaring into the traditional kick off to the European racing season. Topping the list of favorites is Mario Cipollini, hot off his impressive victory in the final stage of Tirreno-Adriatico on Wednesday. The 35-year-old Tuscan has new colors (check that zebra-striped kit), a new bike (Specialized) and a new lease on life (Acqua e Sapone). Cipo is desperate for a victory at Milan-San Remo. Erik Zabel has owned Milan-San Remo,

It looked like a magical finish in the making for the Italian throngs lined up along Via Roma in San Remo. Super Mario, the guy whose face was on half of the T-shirts being hawked in the crowd, had caught back onto the front group on the descent of the Poggio, and he had a four-man Saeco train pulling him to the front. [nid:20289]But Erik Zabel’s Deutsche Telekom train was also working well, and despite Cipollini closing the gap rapidly, he was still a half bike-length behind at the line after charging past world road champion Romans Vainsteins with 25 meters to go.