News

20th February 2007

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Mikhail Ignatiev takes his second win in five days at the 44th Trofeo Laigueglia

Following on from his win at the Tour Méditerranéen when he bagged stage three, 21 year-old Russian Mikhail Ignatiev has done it again... He has won the 44th edition of the Trofeo Laigueglia. Ignatiev showed impressive form once again in taking the win and is quickly making a name for himself and his new Pro-Continental outfit, Tinkoff Credit Systems.

So, how did he win? The powerful Russian jumped clear with about 4000 meters remaining following the final 690-meter climb of the Passo Balestrino holding a 10 second gap all the way to the line and showing exactly why he is the Olympic points race gold medallist!

Behind him impressive Milram rider Mirco Lorenzetto, who won the final stage of the Tour Méditerranéen, led in the charge for second place 0'04" behind with Liquigas rider and pre-race-favorite Filippo Pozzato taking third on the same time.

[Images from the race are at the side of the page].

Click here to read the full results from the Trofeo Laigueglia...

Flash News from the Tour of California by Brian C. Grenier

In a day of racing where ProTour teams dominated and the European riders shined, the race all came down to the final 3 x 5 kilometer circuits in the city of Santa Rosa.

The Discovery and T-Mobile squads ran down a late break swallowing up the escapees near the city limits. Once in the city the pace skyrocketed. In the end it was a sprint finish with the bunch charging to the line. It all came down to a photo finish with Graeme Brown taking the win for his Rabobank team.

Good day and weather - See everyone tomorrow!

[See report below and link to the full results].

Leipheimer remains in control as Rabobank's Brown takes the stage

American Levi Leipheimer kept control of his overall lead during stage 1 of the Tour of California even despite a crash during the stage.

Despite a breakaway group that had formed at the head of the race the race was controlled coming by the Discovery Channel team of leader Leipheimer and the T-Mobile squad looking to set the stage up for their sprinter Greg Henderson.

Once onto the three finishing circuits of 5 kilometers each a crash in the peloton took about 30 riders out of the race. The pace continued high to deter any last minute breakaway's looking for solo victories.

In the end though it was Rabobank's Aussie sprinter Graeme Brown who took spoils as stage winner ahead of T-Mobile's Henderson in second and Discovery Channel's Allan Davis in third. One other man to take note of was Norwegian Thor Hushovd (Crédit Agricole) who finished fourth on the stage in his first race of the season... Maybe we'll have the chance to see Hushovd, the double stage winner in last years Tour de France, win a stage at the Californian tour.

The race continues today with a 187,2 kilometer stage from Santa Rosa to Sacramento another stage that looks likely to come down to a sprint finish.

Click here to read the full results from stage 1 of the Tour of California...

Oscar Friere takes wins stage two of the Ruta del Sol for Rabobank

Ex-world champion Oscar Freire proved strongest at the end of the 156,6 kilometer stage from Vegas del Genil to Cazorla. The Spanish Rabobank rider outsprinted Francisco José Ventoso (Saunier Duval-Prodir) and Tadej Valavec (Lampre-Fondital).

Overall though Dario Cioni (Predictor-Lotto) defended his lead albeit by the slimmest of margins over Oscar Freire who is now only 0'01" behind. Third place is now Francisco José Ventoso (Saunier Duval-Prodir).

The race continues later today with a 170,6 kilometer stage from La Guardia de Jaén to Jaén.

Click here for the complete results from stage 2 of the Ruta del Sol...

Cofidis & Astana name their team's for the Tour of Algarve

The French Cofidis team and the Swiss registered Astana teams have both named their squads for the Volta ao Algarve from the 21st to the 25th of February.

The Cofidis team will be led by Nick Nuyens, winner of the recent Etoile de Bessèges, who will be joined by Kevin De Weert, Sébastien Minard, Geoffroy Lequatre, Staf Scheirlinckx, Mathieu Heijboer, Michiel Elijzen and Tyler Farrar. They will be guided throughout the race by their sporting director Alain Deloeuil.

Astana will see Andreas Klöden make his debut for the team. Klöden, twice a podium finisher at the Tour de France, has already said that he is aiming his season completely towards a crack at the Tour de France. Matthias Kessler is also making his debut for the team in Portugal with both himself and Klöden moving to Astana from the German T-Mobile team over the winter.

Klöden and Kessler will be joined at the five day stage race by: Antonio Colom, René Haselbacher, Sergeï Ivanov, Benoît Joachim, Gennady Mikhailov and Gregory Rast, all of whom have raced already this season at the Challenge Mallorca or the Tour of Qatar.

Talks between the UCI and the ASO break down

Once again talks between the UCI and the ASO have failed. It's now less than three weeks before the Paris-Nice race, an event which is organized by the ASO who also run the Tour de France. The Paris-Nice is to be the first ProTour race of the season but yet they are not willing to invite all the ProTour team's.

What happen's next now remains to be seen. The ASO are standing firm and the UCI have threatened to pull out all their support including teams and organizations support unless the Grand Tour organizer backs down. Clearly though that will not be the case - the ASO will not back down!

Only last week the organizers of the Giro d'Italia, RCS Sport made it clear that they would not be inviting the Unibet.com team to their races either even though they are a ProTour squad.

A statement by the UCI reads, "The UCI will soon decide what action to take due to the deadlock created by ASO's attitude, which has decided to put itself in an illegal position vis-à-vis the sports movement as a whole, and can only regret the irresponsible behavior of its partners, which will seriously harm the general interests of all those involved in cycling."

Austrian Peter Luttenberger announces his retirement

Austrian rider Peter Luttenberger has announced his retirement from the sport of professional cycling. Luttenberger, who has previously rode for many of the world's top teams including Danish team CSC, failed to secure a contract for the current season because of finance.

The current Austrian national time trial champion finished 5th at the Tour de France in only his second year as a professional when riding for the Italian Carrera team. In that same year he won the Tour de Suisse but since then he has failed to make any serious challenge in the world's major Tours.

Luttenberger will therefore not defend his national time trial championship later this year leaving the way open for a new champion.

Euskaltel-Euskadi work hard on improving time trial riding

According to the Euskaltel-Euskadi team website, the Basque team is working hard to improve the team's time trial riding. In January three riders from the team traveled to America where they underwent wind tunnel testing in San Diego. The three riders, Samuel Sánchez, Haimar Zubeldia and Igor Antón had the chance to be tested to see what improvements could be made in the aim of saving as much time as possible in the stage races throughout the season.

Now work is being done by the team at the velodrome in San Sebastián with the test's being overseen by the team's sporting director Igor González de Galdeano, coach Josu Larrazabal and bio-mechanic Juan García López.

The team is not the first to use the wind tunnel facilities in America or elsewhere. Over the winter riders from the Lampre-Fondital team including their leader Damiano Cunego traveled to San Diego to use the wind tunnel facility there. American team Toyota-United also had some of their riders using the wind tunnel including Chris Baldwin [in picture] while last year the Saunier Duval-Prodir team also done some work with some of their riders including David Millar and Gilberto Simoni.