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Vuelta Stage 7 plus Other News

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Raul Garcia de Mateo and Jesus Rosendo broke away from the peloton only 3 km from the start of today's stage, eventually building up a nine minute lead. Their breakaway was aided by a big crash in the peloton with about 30km to go, but they still ended up being caught about 7 km from the finish. 

The sprinter's teams worked to move their riders to the front, but another crash within 2km of the finish blocked many of the contendors from previous days, such as Pettachi, Bennati and Freire. Allan Davis, Eric Zabel and Paulo Bettini were lucky enough to be ahead of the pack in a bunch sprint and fought for the stage amongst themselves. Allan Davis looked to have it wrapped up, but Zabel came around on the left in the final seconds to take the stage. Davis took second and Bettini was in third. There was almost no change in the G.C. today, with Vladimir Efimkin still on top. 

See the full story at CyclingNews.com

Other news:
  • Alejandro Valverde is expected to sue the UCI for the false publicity over his missed drug test
  • Alexander Efimkin needs to buy his brother Vladimir a beer. Vladimir's mention that Alexander needed a ride for 2008 paid off. He'll be joining the Karpin-Galicia team next year.
  • Belgium police are talking to 8 young Russian riders from St. Petersburg's espoir Premier team. They were found to have amphetemines and other drugs in their possession. Not sure if this is the team that is participating in the Tour de Avenir I mentioned yesterday.
  • Michael Weiss of the Austrian squad and Marga Fullana of the Spanish squad have been deemed "unfit for racing" after failing hematocrit testing at the MTB World Championships
  • BBC Sport reports that Alberto Contador will not be riding in the World Road Race Championships.  His coach has stated that defending himself against Operation Puerto allegations has left him unprepared to race. 

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