News

27th February 2007

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Riding on without Jan in the peloton

As we all know by now German star Jan Ullrich announced his retirement from professional cycling yesterday at a press conference in Hamburg. The ex-Tour de France champion will now take up a position acting as an advisor to the Austrian Pro-Continental team Volksbank.

Ullrich's former team-mate at the T-Mobile ProTour team Rolf Aldag, himself now a sporting director with the German team, speaking on t-mobile-team.com, "It's a great shame that such a great cycling career, with all its highs and lows, should end like this. But we wish Jan Ullrich all the best for the future."

No doubt Ullrich will be a valuable asset to the Volksbank team passing on his experience and knowledge of cycling onto the riders, especially the younger riders on the team.

Five wild-cards for the Ghent-Wevelgem

The organizers of the Ghent-Wevelgem have announced five wild-card invitations to ride their race on the 11th of April this year.

Unlike the races organized by the Grand Tour organizers the full complement of 20 ProTour teams will lineup for the classic race in Belgium. The other five teams who have received wildcard invitations for the event are the Chocolade Jacques-Topsport Vlaanderen and Landbouwkrediet-Tönissteiner teams from Belgium along with Skil-Shimano from Holland, Wiesenhof-Felt from Germany and the British team DFL-Cyclingnews-Litespeed.

That makes 25 teams entered for the Ghent-Wevelgem race, all looking for some success on the roads of Belgium. Last years event was won by Crédit Agricole's Thor Hushovd, a double stage winner at the 2006 Tour de France, while the 2005 edition was won by Belgium's Nico Mattan, then riding for the Davitamon-Lotto team, who now rides for the DFL team.

Lampre-Fondital's Daniele Bennati takes the opening stage of the Vuelta a la Comunidad Valenciana

Lampre-Fondital sprinter Daniele Bennati has won the opening stage of the Vuelta a la Comunidad Valenciana in Spain, beating Milram's Alessandro Petacchi.

Both Italian sprinters came head to head at the end of the 162.7 kilometer opening stage that started and finished in Alzira. Third across the line was Vicente Reynes from the Spanish Caisse d'Epargne team, all on the same time.

Lampre-Fondtial together with the Milram team of Petacchi hit the front 5 kilometers from the line controlling the race for their top sprinters. Together they pulled at the front keeping the pace high to deter any attacks in the closing stages. Then with 450 meters to the line Bennati latched onto the rear wheel of Petacchi, timing his effort to perfection and passing his to take the stage and the first leaders jersey of the race that came with it.

Commenting after the stage Bennati said on lampre-fondital.com, "The perfect sprint! The team was great and help me to obtain this victory, that I fell like a little revenge for the three second places obtained in Tour Mediterraneen. The second stage could be a good chance to try to repeat this good result."

Second placed Petacchi said, "I was a bit tired and waited too long to start the sprint."

Click here for the full results from stage one of the Vuelta a la Comunidad Valenciana...

Teams select their squads for the Het Volk & Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne

Predictor-Lotto, Cofidis, CSC and Jartazi-Promo Fashion have all named their squads for the Het Volk and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne races in Belgium over the weekend of the 3rd and the 4th of March.

Predictor-Lotto will be represented by Belgium's Leif Hoste and Aussie sprint king Robbie McEwen who will be joined by Tom Steels who will be back in action following his crash during stage one of the Tour of Qatar. The team will be completed by Wim Devocht, Nic Ingels, Bert Roesems and Roy Sentjens.

The French Cofidis team will field a strong team led by Nick Nuyens who will look for even more early season success. The ex-Quick Step-Innergetic rider will be supported by Kevin De Weert, Sébastien Minard, Michiel Elijzen, Geoffroy Lequatre, Staf Scheirlinckx. Mathieu Heijboer and American Tyler Farrar.

Danish team CSC will look towards Lars Bak, Allan Johansen, Kasper Klostergaard, Anders Lund, Stuart O'Grady, Martin Pedersen and Luke Roberts for a major result over the classic weekend in Belgium. Dutchman Karsten Kroon was also scheduled to participate with the Danish team but he has broken a rib following a crash on stage one of the Amgen Tour of California [see separate story below] and is now a doubt. It is unknown who his place will be taken by.

And finally the Jartazi-Promo Fashion team from Belgium who will be represented in the Het Volk by Mathieu Criquielion, Mario Ickx, Sven Nevens, Geert Omloop, Janek Tombak, Kenny Van Braeckel, Jarno Van Mingeroet and Jukka Vastaranta. Unlike the other teams the Belgian squad will change their lineup for Sunday's Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne race. On that occasion Jurgen François, Yohan Cauquil and Eddy Lembo will compete for the team in the place of Mathieu Criquielion, Mario Ickx and Kenny Van Braeckel.

CSC's Karsten Kroon rides in California with a broken rib

Anyone who has broken a rib will know the pain. But, how would you feel competing at the top level in a professional cycle race with that injury? Well, that's just what Dutchman Karsten Kroon did during the Amgen Tour of California!

The CSC rider crashed on the first stage hitting a pole with both the front and back on his body. After finishing the stage he went to the hospital where he was x-rayed but nothing showed up.

The race continued and so did Kroon, riding each stage and doing what was asked of him by his Danish team. Helping keep the race together and leading out his team-mate JJ Haedo, or softening up the opposition for team-mates Voigt, O'Grady and Julich, Kroon continued with his work for the week.

It was only when Karsten returned back home to Europe earlier today when he sat up in bed to sneeze almost passing out that he realized something wasn't quite the way it should be. "I went straight to the hospital this morning. As it turned out there was a gap of about one centimeter in the fracture," he explains on team-csc.com."

"I don't know how long it'll take, but I'm hoping to be able to race again in a couple of weeks, even though it'll probably hurt a lot longer than that. My rib was put back together this morning and I also had some massage and some tape put on, but there's not much else you can do about it. So now I'll just have to wait for it to heal."

ProCycleNews would like to wish Kartsen a rapid recovery and we all look forward to seeing you back in the thick of the action in the very near future!

Teams train on the course of the Het Volk

The Predictor-Lotto and Unibet.com ProTour teams are just two teams who have announced training on the course for the Het Volk race in Belgium this week prior to the race this coming Saturday.

For the Unibet.com team training on the course will not only be for the riders selected to represent the ProTour team this weekend in Belgium. They will be joined by their entire Continental team this Wednesday at about 10am when they will ride the entire parcours.

The Unibet.com ProTour riders that will ride the course are: Baden Cooke, Matthew Wilson, Jimmy Casper, Arnaud Coyot, Marco Zanotti, Jeremy Hunt, Sergey Kolesnikov, Erwin Thijs, Laurens ten Dam, Matthe Pronk, Niels Scheuneman, Gorik Gardeyn, Stijn Vandenbergh and Pieter Jacobs.

Markus Eichler was also due to take part in the training but he recently caught a cold and will instead stay at home where he is recovering. Australian rider Baden Cooke on the other hand is back following abandoning the Ruta del Sol with a cold. Speaking on unibetcycling.com team director Hilaire Van der Schueren said, "Baden Cooke has recovered from his illness and this training will be a small test for him."

For Predictor-Lotto they have also scheduled their reconnaissance of the parcours for tomorrow, Wednesday the 28th of February. Starting 100 kilometers from Oudenaarde, the selected riders and  the team's reserves will ride the second half of the course before their official team presentation in the afternoon.

Jartazi-Promo Fashion announce their team for the Beverbeek Classic

The Jartazi-Promo Fashion Continental team have also announced their riders who will represent them at Saturday's Beverbeek Classic in Belgium, a race categorized by the UCI as a 1.2 event.

The riders who will compete in this event will be: Mathieu Drouilly, Denis Flahaut, Gregory Habeaux, Eddy Lembo, Vytautas Kaupas and Mindaugas Striska. Sporting director for the event will be Hugo Dedier.