* Ivan Gotti (Saeco) will ride for Polti next year
* Pascal Richard, Marco Saligari and Rodolfo Massi will leave Casino but to unknown destinations as yet. Also leaving are Rolf Jaermann (to Post Swiss Team), Alberto Elli (to Telekom-ARD), and Marc Streel (to Home Jack and Jones). Laurent Roux (from TVM) and Stéphane Pétilleau (ex Credit Agricole) will join Casino.
* Arnaud Pretot comes from Credit Agricole
* Andy De Smet, Bart Heirewegh and Jan Poppe will remain at the Belgian Ipso-Euroclean team. The Englishman (?) Pauly Burke and Dariusz Strole (Ltu-Elite) are joining the team.
* Scott Sunderland has resigned with Palmans-Ideal. Dave Bruylandts and Jurgen Vandewallen, 2 young Belgians have also signed. Australian Brett Aitken had already indicated his intention to ride with Scott next year.
* Tonissteiner will have Bert Roesems (ex Vlaanderen 2002) and Michel VanHaecke (ex Ipso) next year. Contracts extended include Franky De Buyst (Bel), Davy Delmé (Bel), Kees Hopmans (Ned), Nicolas Coudray (Swi) and Masahiko Mifune (Jap) have been prolonged.
* Vlaanderen 2002's manager Roger Swerts is interested in Wesley Huvaere (Bel-Elite) and Matthew Gilmore (Bel-Spar). Wim Vansevenant will leave the team.
Meanwhile, Italian police have searched the house of Orlando Maini, one of the team managers of Mercatone Uno. He has been suspended for selling dangerous medicine. The search was instigated following an investigation into a doping scandal which goes back to 1996. The police discovered that a chemist shop had been selling a lot of banned substances. The police established that Maini was one of the chemist's main clients. They also implicated his uncle Primo Franchini, manager of Mercatone.
Further, police also raided the home of Casino doctor Tarsi.
For the Neo-amateurs, Marcel Duijn and Coen Boerman will ride the time trial and the road squad is Stefan van Dijk, Addy Engels, Jurgen de Jong, Karsten Kroon,Thorwald Veneberg.
Ray: Last night we had an interview with world champion cyclist Lucy Tyler-Sharman in which she accussed Australian cycling team officials of sabotage, intimidation and psychological warfare against her. That's how she explains the blow-up that led to her being kicked out of the Commonwealth Games. Well, today we asked to speak to Charlie Walsh, the cycling team's head coach and the main target of Lucy's attack. He was "not available", but former gold medalist and assistant coach, Dean Woods did want to respond. Dean, thanks for your time, you know Charlie well. Is Charlie Walsh an old fashioned bully of a coach?
Dean: I think "bully" is a bit overstated there, Ray. Yeah, sure he is a little bit overstated there, Ray. Yeah, sure he is a little bit dogmatic the way he goes about things, and his techniques. But, let's face it, cycling is a very, very hard sport. And to succeed in sport you have to, you know, give the tough decisions and the tough tasks, which he does, and he expects it out of his riders.
Ray: Does he intimidate and undermine these cyclists? Does he swear and abuse them?
Dean: No, no, no that's not part, that's not Charlie's make-up. If anybody out there knows Charlie, you know he's not the one... he doesn't get upset, he doesn't swear at people, he doesn't start stamping the ground like you might see a lot of AFL football coaches doing. It's just not in his nature to do that.
Ray: Well, you heard Lucy say last night that that was absolutely the opposite of the case. was she justified in any of her criticism?
Dean: No. I really can not see where Lucy is coming from. I really don't. After the Atlanta Olympics with all that went through with Kathy Watt. Charlie stood by her, pushed her case, right to the end, til he couldn't do anymore. Then, all of a sudden, there is this sudden turn around...I'm just speechless. I just cannot understand what she is on about.
Ray: Was she sabotaged? Were her pedals tampered with?
Dean: I know that for a fact, they weren't. I've just been speaking with Jock Bullen, the mechanic. It's his job to prepare the bikes to make sure that they are working 100%. The pedals she wanted to use were team pedals anyway. She happened to, as Jock said, "pick up the wrong ones from Buttgen" so the thing was, how Jock alleviated that - and this was 35 minutes before her event, not right before the start as she stated. She actually used the pedals off the bike of Luke Roberts, who was riding the teams pursuit and was riding other events. So,
Ray: So, it was her mistake, you're saying?
Dean: I, I....Yes, yes.
Ray: Dean you have been part of the Australian cycling camp as a rider, and now as a coach for 14 or 15 years haven't you?
Dean: I have. I've been involved with Charlie since 1983.
Ray: So, is the Australian cycling camp, as people tell me, a rat's nest, a festering rat's nest?
Dean: It's not a ....no.
Ray: Of infighting and division?
Dean: Yes. There has been. And this is the result of it. All the ...ever since I've been involved in cycling - in 1984 it was Kenrick Tucker. He didn't like the accommodation. He didn't like this and he didn't like that. And it's been all the way through. Martin Vinnacombe. What I'm saying is that if people aren't there for the benefit of the whole teram, and aren't working as a unit with other team members, well they shouldn't be there !
Ray: What about the suggestion, Dean you're the last Australian cyclist to have won a gold medal at the Olympic games, apart from Kathy Watt who rode outside of Charlie's control.
Dean: Yes.
Ray: That's 1984, we haven't won a gold medal since 1984 - you were it.
Dean: That's what ... it depends what you define as success. If you define (success as) winning every time you put your backside on the seat or your spikes on your feet. If success means every time you compete is winning, well yeah, we've been a failure. But, in 1984 we won a gold medal. In 1988 in the teams pursuit we won a bronze medal, I won a silver medal in the individual pursuit, Martin Vinnacombe at the time also won a silver medal in the kilometre. In 1992, in Barcelona the teams pursuit was second.
Ray: But all of those occassions you mention, it just seems every time that we go to a major athletics carnival the major controversy is about Australian cycling, why is that?
Dean: It just makes me sick. It really does. I'm one of those trying to put something back into the sport and I'm totally turned off by it.
Ray: Would you agree though Dean that if there is $2 million dollars of taxpayers money going into cycling that someone should sort out the problem?
Dean: For sure. I think it's really got beyond cyclings own control - this is the ACF - and I really think that the Sports Commission should show a little bit more leadership because these problems aren't new. They have been going on for many, many years and as I said if Charlie had enough power these problems would not happen. They would be cut early in the year. You would have one or two weeks of bad publicity. When it comes to the Commonwealth Games, like it was disheartening for me, Susie O'Neill won six gold medals on the same night as Lucy carried on with all this garbage. But, the next day she doesn't get the full exposure of what she's supposed to get for being such a great champion.
Ray: So, I'm being told that, in fact, Charlie is a power freak. You're saying that he should have more power.
Dean: I reckon he should.
Ray: If Charlie Walsh quit cycling tomorrow what would happen to Australian cycling?
Dean: Without a doubt Ray, you've got shoes that are too big to fill between now and Sydney, it's only two years away. If Charlie Walsh went today it would be like the fall of Rome.
Ray: Alright, Dean. Thanks for your time, I appreciate it.
Dean: Thanks very much Ray.
Ray: Dean Woods there.