First Edition Cycling News for August 21, 2005

Edited by Jeff Jones and Hedwig Kröner

Deutschland Tour stage 6 wrap

Iglinskiy tricks the sprint favourites

Oh yeah.
Photo ©: AFP

Young Maxim Iglinskiy (Domina Vacanze) jumped off the right wheels in today's breakaway sprint finish of the Deutschland Tour's sixth stage from Friedrichshafen to Singen. The 24 year-old Kazakhstani beat Belgian Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Discovery Channel) and Italian Alessandro Ballan (Lampre-Caffita) on the line.

A breakaway of nine riders got into the finish together: Cristian Moreni (Quick.Step), David Etxebarria (Liberty), Alessandro Ballan (Lampre), Chris Horner (Saunier), Guido Trentin (Cofidis), Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Discovery), Iker Camano (Euskaltel), Maxim Iglinskiy (Domina) and Bobby Julich (CSC). With such a well-balanced group, the Gerolsteiner-controlled bunch wasn't interested in chasing them down and arrived 2'10 later.

The overall classification is unchanged: Gerolsteiner's Levi Leipheimer still leads, with teammate Georg Totschnig in second and Jan Ullrich (T-Mobile) in third position. Tomorrow's 177.7 km-long stage to the Feldberg mountain will see the second summit finish in the Deutschland Tour on the Cat. 1 climb, where the yellow jersey will surely be attacked.

One rider to go for it will be pre-race favourite Jan Ullrich, who has been struggling with a light cold in the past few days. "It was still a hard race today," he said, looking drained in the finish. "It took so long until the break was finally gone, and the racing was very fast. It took some power out of me, too! The weather was bad again in the middle so it's really starting to hurt."

Nevertheless, Ullrich knows that he shouldn't lose more time on Leipheimer before the time trial on Sunday, as the American is also not too bad in the discipline and already has an advantage of 56 seconds. "Tomorrow's finish on the Feldberg is going to be very hard too. It's my old training route [Ullrich used to live near before moving to Switzerland - ed.] so I know every metre of it. I hope I'll get up there good, that's certainly my goal."

Full results, report & photos
Main, Stages & results, Map, Start List, Photos

GP of Wales World Cup wrap

Arndt takes points for Wood

By Kristy Scrymgeour

Judith Arndt (Nürnberger)
Photo ©: John Pierce/Photosport International

Judith Arndt (Nürnberger), donning the rainbow jersey of World Champion, led her team to victory in Wales today, the first World Cup series race to hit British shores. Riding primarily to help her teammate Oenone Wood maintain the series lead, Arndt's win took possible points away from Suzanne Ljungskog (Buitenpoort - Flexpoint), preventing her from taking back the lead.

On a course obviously designed for hometown hero Nicole Cooke, who prefers tough steep climbs, it was ironic that Cooke couldn't start today due to an ongoing knee injury. Organizers did a good job in making the course tough however, described by Olivia Gollan of Nürnberger as "bloody hard." The 114km incorporated three laps of 38 km each. Within each lap was a very hard 4.5km climb at Wentwood followed b a steep, fast descent, and another climb to the finish of over 1km. The final climb was extremely steep, climbing 500m to start with before dropping slightly and climbing again before flattening out with 300m to the finish.

Click here for the full results, report and photos

Hamilton racing again

By Shane Stokes

Tyler Hamilton took his first win in roughly a year when he won the Volkswagen M t Washington Auto Road Hillclimb in New Hampshire, USA on Saturday. The 2003 Tour de France stage winner and Athens Olympic time trial champion is currently banned from UCI events for two years for blood doping, but was able to take part in the race due to its independent, unsanctioned status.

Hamilton previously set an event record when he won the race in 1999, but this was improved upon in 2002 when Tom Danielson set a time of 49'24.

Hamilton was up on record at the halfway point but ran into strong head and cross-winds near the top. He finished the 7.6 mile race in 51'11, 1'47 off Danielson’s pace.

Second-placed rider Anthony Colby was 4'01 second back, while MTB legend Ned Overend marked his 50th birthday with an impressive fourth place. His time of 55'21 seconds was several minutes ahead of previous records for those over 40.

Aimee Vasse took the women’s race for the second year running, despite being blown off her bike by strong winds. She crossed the line over four minutes clear of runner-up Kerry Litka.

Hamilton is currently appealing his ban to CAS. The hearing is expected to start on September 6th, with his future career prospects hinging on the outcome of the case. Current rules dictate that if CAS upholds the ban, Hamilton will be prevented from riding with a ProTour team for a total of four years.

Erik Dekker breaks collarbone

Rabobank's Erik Dekker has broken his right collarbone during the Tour de Rijke in The Netherlands, which was run in fairly wet conditions. There was no sign of any damage to his neck area, after examination in the Meander MC hospital in Amersfoort. Dekker will have surgery, most likely on Sunday. His recovery will mean at least several weeks of inactivity.

Quick.Step's Tom Boonen also crashed in the race and pulled out after only 20 km. "It was more a panic reaction," he told Sporza TV. "There was a crash just in front of me and I couldn't avoid it." Boonen injured his knee and grazed his hip. He expects to recover fairly quickly and said that he will be ready for the Vuelta.

Vaitkus in training crash

Lithuanian born Belgian-based powerhouse Tomas Vaitkus (Ag2r) has had to spend some time in hospital this week after a training accident near Bergamo on Thursday, reports Gazet van Antwerpen. Vaitkus was hit by a car, and required seven stitches to his left elbow. He was released and examined in Grenoble on Friday by team doctor Eric Bouvat.

More Vuelta teams

Liberty Seguros has announced its lineup for Vuelta a España, which starts next Saturday in Granada. Led by defending champ and three-time winner Roberto Heras, Liberty will be relying on Dariusz Baranowski (Pol), Joseba Beloki (Spa), Giampaolo Caruso (Ita), Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano (Spa), Isidro Nozal (Spa), Michele Scarponi (Ita), Marcos Serrano (Spa) and Ángel Vicioso (Spa) to support him. Heras aims to become the first rider to win the Vuelta four times.

Energizer bunny Thomas Voeckler will lead the Bouygues Telecom team in the Vuelta. The rest of the team will include Anthony Charteau, Sébastien Chavanel, Pierrick Fédrigo, Anthony Geslin, Yohann Gène, Christophe Kern, Franck Rénier, and Unai Yus.

Cofidis will be taking three Spanish riders to the Vuelta: Luis Pérez, Bingen Fernández and Daniel Atienza. They will accompany Australian sprinter Stuart O'Grady, who will start in his third Grand Tour of the season, French sprinter Jimmy Casper, Italian Leonardo Bertagnolli, Frenchmen Arnaud Coyot and Christophe Edaleine, and Belgian Staf Scheirlinckx.

The Saunier Duval-Prodir team will have to do without its young talent José Angel Gómez Marchante, who broke his collarbone during the Tour de France and hasn't recovered. The team for the Vuelta will instead feature the in-form Joaquín Rodríguez, Constantino Zaballa, and Leonardo Piepoli, as well as Rafael Casero Angel Gómez, David Cañada, Iñigo Cuesta, David de La Fuente and sprinter Francisco Ventoso.

An interview with Ina-Yoko Teutenberg

Still schooling 'em

All smiles before the Manhattan Beach GP
Photo ©: Mitch Friedman

Ina-Yoko Teutenberg returned to professional racing in 2005 after a year off to recover from surgery. Her return to racing this year has been fruitful to say the least, and Cyclingnews' Mark Zalewski sat down with Teutenberg in between wins for a conversation and some, as she says, 'bee-ahrs.'

A three-time junior world champion, Teutenberg excelled at racing in North America with the Saturn juggernaut and has raced in the Olympics as well as winning six stages of the Tour de France Féminine.

Her time off from racing renewed her love of cycling, returning the fun and excitement to the sport. Subsequently, she and her T-Mobile team have lit the 2005 season ablaze, with Teutenberg winning stages of the Tour de Toona, Cascade Classic, Nature Valley Grand Prix, and Redlands. Her biggest wins so far have been the infamous Liberty Classic and the first women's edition of the Bank of America Invitational.

Cyclingnews: Let's start with the obvious...has this year been the best year for you, winning the Liberty Classic as well as many other victories?

Ina-Yoko Teutenberg: Well, it's probably the most number of victories. But we do a lot of crits. With Saturn when we used to ride a lot of international races and I had ten to twelve victories every year. But the overall feeling is good - I haven't been feeling that good before. The Liberty Classic was big. I've always been part of winning it, but it's different winning it yourself. It was cool!

Click here for the full interview

Transfer news

Italian website Tuttobiciweb.com reports that Luca Paolini has signed for Liquigas-Bianchi. The 28 year-old rider has ridden for Quick.Step for the last three seasons, mainly in the service of Bettini and Pozzato.

In other Italian news, Domina Vacanze's Gianluigi Stanga has confirmed the signings of Alberto Ongarato, Fabio Sacchi and soon, Marco Velo, to support Alessandro Petacchi in his quest for sprint victories next year. Erik Zabel is also reported to be very close to Domina Vacanze, but that could be dependent on the confirmation of a major German sponsor.

MrBookmaker.com becomes Unibet

Belgian Continental Professional team MrBookmaker.com-Sportstech will be known next year as Unibet.com, after MrBookmaker was bought by the Swedish internet betting firm Unibet. Spokesman Koen Terryn confirmed that the cycling team will keep going, at least until the end of next season. "At the moment, we are discussing when we want to make the step to the ProTour: in 2006 or in 2007?" said Terryn. "One thing is certain, the team will have bigger ambitions from now on and wants to go further in 2006 in the grass-green colours of Unibet. At the start of September, it will be decided whether the team will go alone or with a co-sponsor. This week we'll decide whether the riders have to start learning Swedish or not," Terryn joked.

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