Organizers of the proposed 2,200-mile Tour of America have postponed their inaugural event until fall 2009.
“Everyone we have spoken with wants to see a ‘Tour de France-style’ race here in the United States,” said Frank Arokiasamy, the race director and president of Aqu, Inc., the race’s organizing company.
Arokiasamy proposed the coast-to-coast race last fall, scheduling it for September 2008.
“We want to work with USA Cycling and UCI to establish this event as a compliment to the …
Cyclists in the now defunct Team T-Mobile “probably” took doping products under the supervision of Freiburg university doctors, according to an independent report published on Thursday.
And the 23-page interim report, published by the commissioned inquiry into the doping scandal at Freiburg’s University Medical Clinic, has also named two more doctors involved in the scandal.
The report sheds light on the doping practices of Team T-Mobile — who changed their name from Team Telekom in …
CSC’s Fabian Cancellara held on to win the 43rd edition of the Tirreno-Adriatico following Tuesday’s seventh and final stage.
Italian Francesco Chicchi of Liquigas won the 176km run around San Benedetto del Tronto.
But the 26-year-old Swiss, the current double world time-trial champion, kept hold of the leader’s blue jersey and set himself up as one of the hot favorites for Saturday’s Milan-San Remo.
Riders in the Paris-Nice stage race protested Sunday against a doping test control for Belgian colleague Kevin Van Impe, who was asked for a urine sample just as he was grieving at a
crematorium following the death of his new-born son.
The protest delayed the start of the final stage of the race as Van Impe’s compatriot Philippe Gilbert, a member of the international riders association CPA, took to the rostrum to say that while the riders were not against doping tests they wanted more respect shown.
UCI chief pat McQuaid on Friday promised to back reigning Tour de France champion Alberto Contador should he decide to take legal action over his exclusion from this year’s race.
The tour’s organisers, Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), ruled on February 13 that Contador’s Astana team would be barred from competing in this year’s race as a result of doping scandals over the past two years.
But International Cycling Union (UCI) president McQuaid said the decision is unfair.
Grieving cyclists, friends and family in California’s Bay Area are planning memorial services for two road racers struck and killed by a sheriff’s deputy’s patrol car on Sunday.
Matt Peterson was a driven 30-year-old Cat 4 who competed in 24-hour mountain bike races and Ironman triathlons but who achieved one of his proudest victories — first place in the Merced criterium — just a week ago.
The next day he sacrificed his chances to help a teammate win another race, said friend Larry Rosa.
“He said, ‘I wish everyone could feel this experience just once,’ ” Rosa told VeloNews.
Kristy Gough, 31, was a talented triathlete and a generous competitor, who took up road racing this season and won the first seven races she entered.[nid:73140]
At one race, while off the front by herself, she slowed down to keep from demoralizing her fellow competitors, said Jon Orban, the president of her racing club. She still won by an “absurd margin,” Orban said.
“She was probably a cross between a female Lance Armstrong and the Dalai Lama,” Orban told VeloNews. “She was the nicest person I’ve ever met.”
Gough and Peterson were on a training ride with about 8 other riders in Cupertino. A third cyclist hit by the patrol car, 20-year-old Christopher Knapp of Germany, was in stable condition Monday at Stanford University Medical Center, according to the San Francisco Chronicle Web site.
The California Highway Patrol is investigating why Santa Clara County Deputy James Council, 27, crossed the centerline on a right turn and hit the cyclists head on at about 10:30 a.m. Council, who had been with the department for 18 months, was put on administrative leave. He had started his 12 1/2-hour shift at 6 a.m.
Two witnesses said Council told them he had fallen asleep at the wheel, the Chronicle reported.
Gough won the 25-29 age group at the 2004 Ironman triathlon in Hawaii, and was Inside Triathlon’s Female Amateur Triathlete of the Year that year. She joined the Third Pillar cycling team this year to try her hand at road racing.
Orban, who is CEO of the Third Pillar software company that sponsors the team, said the team may hold a memorial ride this weekend.
Peterson was a member of the Roaring Mouse Cycles team, sponsored by a San Francisco bike shop. Rosa said teammates held an informal vigil at a beach Sunday night. They have tentatively planned a memorial service for Thursday and are considering raising money in his name for cycling safety programs.
Peterson was a bike buyer for Wal-Mart, and was eager to bring new people into the sport and onto his team, said Rosa.
“If you were at a race alone in a plain jersey, he would come up to you and say,’why don’t you join our team.’ He was very into the team aspect of the sport.”
Rosa said Peterson was a “Jens Voigt kind of rider” — not much of a sprinter, but he could hammer all day.
“Matt was always at the front. He wanted to crush everybody. But in a good way,” Rosa said.
When the accident happened Sunday, Gough, Peterson and Knapp had separated themselves from the rest of their group on a hill. Rosa likes to think that Peterson initiated the break, and that if he hadn’t, the entire group would have been hit by the patrol car.
“Maybe he saved people by pulling away like he always did,” Rosa said.
