Skip to main content

Vuelta Stage 6 plus Other News

By
Oscar Freire wins yet another final sprint today. He outran Spaniard Koldo Fernandez (who at least gave the locals something to cheer about), Angelo Furnan, Tom Boonen and Andre Koff for the win.  

Freire owns the points jersey, yet Vladimir Efimkin has stayed close enough to the lead to hang on to the golden jersey. Denis Menchov, Carlos Sastre, Maxime Monfort and Stijn Devolder round out the rest of the Top 5. Somehow, Freire is all the way down in 81st in the G.C. 

American Chris Horner moves up a little bit and is now in 28th place. 

Other news:
  • Johan Bruyneel confirms that he has been talking to team leadership at Astana about a position with their organization.  No firm date as to when he'll make a decision
  • The 44th Tour de Avenir starts today, with riders aged 19 to 22 organized in a national team format. 
  • In 2009, the Vuelta will start in the Netherlands, then through Belgium, and will not make its way to Spain until the 4th stage. 
  • Looks like the missed test situation with Alejandro Valverde is starting to resolve. The UCI admitted that they had made an error. 
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Vuelta Stages 8 to 10, plus other news

By
Today is a rest day at the Vuelta. I took my rest day yesterday, so here is all of the information from the last 3 stages.  Stage 8: Bert Grabsch of T-Mobile sets a blistering pace of 55 km/h to win Saturday's individual time trial. Laszlo Bodrogi took second and Stijn Devolder got third. Devolder made up enough time to cruise by Denis Menchov in the G.C. Devolder has a 30 second lead, with Menchov, Efimkin, Evans and Monfort rounding out the Top 5. Stage 9: Saunier-Duval's Leonardo Piepoli survived a number of attacks to take Sunday's stage. Denis Menchov was in there with him up until the end, but did not fight for the stage win, as he knew that he would still end up in the golden jersey at the end of the day. Stijn Devolder had a bad day, losing 5 minutes off of the leaders. For the stage, the leaders were Piepoli, Menchov, Miquez, Sastre and Zaugg. The G.C. is now led by Menchov. Previous leader Vladimir Efimkin in second, though a little over 2 minutes behind. Cadel Ev
Read more

Tour of America Coming in 2008?

By
Do you have some sea salt on hand? Okay, pop a grain into your hand. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, we can report that there is talk of a country-spanning Tour of America being planned for 2008. This web site has preliminary information about the race. The race is said to have 27 stages that will be contested over 30days. It would start in New York and finish up on the west coast, winding through as many as 22 states. They seem to be tying it into 9/11 as they are trying to start close to that date and the first stage is said to complete at Ground Zero.  They are offering $11 million in prize money, with $1 million going to the overall winner. They expect to invite the top teams in the world to come to the race.  I'm all for this. I'm ready to sign up and volunteer, as it looks like a stage will be passing right through my area.  Joe Lindsey, writer of the Boulder Report blog at Bicycling.com is thinking "What the... ?" There are some things that cas
Read more

Cycling Worlds Preview

By
The Road Cycling World Championships kick off tomorrow in Stuttgart , Germany with U23 and Women's Time Trials. The Elite Men will have their time trial on Thursday. Road races will start on Friday. The course for the race is 19.1km long with several challenging climbs. The Women will do 7 laps, the U23 riders will do 9. Elite Men will race on Sunday, covering 14 laps for a total of   267 km. Paolo Bettini is looking to keep his rainbow jersey, and will not sign the anti-doping pledge. He and the rest of the Italian team (Alessandro Ballan, Danilo Di Luca and Davide Rebellin ). Alejandro Valverde will be in there gunning if he gets to race, and the Schleck brothers can't be dismissed either. The US team, consisting of Hincapie, Vande Velde and Zabriskie , could pose a threat as well.
Read more