News for February 3, 2000

Heeb considers her options

The recent retirement of former Swiss World Champion, Barbara Heeb from competitive cycling may give way to a new career in cross-country skiing. Heeb recently finished fourth in the Surselva Marathon in Sedrun (26 km, 1h08 min), despite not being in top form.

The 31-year old had also considered mountain biking as a career, but she admitted that "she is not so good technically" and "wanted to make a new start," according to an interview with Swiss paper "Die Sudostschweiz". She had thought of the Olympic Games this year, however she could not find enough sponsorship to support her. She is looking instead to the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, USA.

She has always been competitive, and has been skiing since 1987, so the move is not a great surprise. She took up cycling "because I had the feeling that it would bring more," she said. However, her 10 years of endurance training from cycling will definitely help in her "new" endeavour.

No Andalucia for Beltrán

New Mapei rider, Manuel Beltrán will not participate in the Vuelta a Andalucia, scheduled to start on February 13. The team announced that they have other plans for him, despite Beltrán's readiness to race. "I must accept that the goals of this season are different than past ones," he said.

To fulfill the objectives of his team for the season, he needs to be in optimum condition by May or June to confront with the Tour of France. At his current stage of training, Beltrán considers that he is at the same level of the cyclists of his team who are aspiring towards the bigger stage races, like the Russian Pavel Tonkov.

Polti's stars to the Med

The three top riders in the Italian Polti team, Mirko Celestino, Jeroen Blijlevens and Richard Virenque, are ready for their European debut in the Tour of the Mediterranean. Team manager, Gianluigi Stanga has reported that they are in good condition already, along with Calabrian, Eddy Mazzoleni. The aim for the squad is to ride into some form before Milan-San Remo, where they hope Celestino will continue his winning ways in World Cup events, after his two victories last year.

The rest of the team will be made up of Rossano Brasi, Pascal Hervé, Fabio Sacchi and Bart Voskamp.

RCS Sport and RAI to broadcast Giro

A new four-year contract between Rcs Sport and RAI has been struck for the television and radio rights the Giro d'Italia, Milan-Sanremo, Tirrenio-Adriatico, Giro d'Lombardia, and all other races organized by "la Gazzetta dello Sport," it was announced today. RAI will pay 73 billion lira ($US 36 million) for the agreement that also encompasses the rights via satellite, pay TV and pay for view.

Colchones Relax-Fuenlabrada Presentation

One of the three second division Spanish teams, Colchones Relax-Fuenlabrada had their official presentation in their home town of Fuenlabrada. The presentation was attended by town mayor, Jose Quintana Viar. They aim to improve on last year's results starting with the Challenge Mallorca on February 6.

Team roster

Imanol Ayestarán
Nacor Burgos
Andrés Bermejo
Pedro Díaz
David Fernández
Juan Antonio Flecha
Martín Gerardo Garrido 
César García
Eduardo Hérnandez
Pedro Jiménez
Oscar Lugana
Saúl Morales
Hernan Dario Muñoz
Germán Nieto
David Vazquez
Jose Manuel Vazquez 

Jeremiasse dies in car accident

The well known cycling-jury member, Wim Jeremiasse has died in a car-accident on the Weissensee, a mountain lake in Austria on Wednesday.

He was driving the lead car in an ice-skating tour event, and he had as a passenger one of the controllers of the race in his car. He drove off the official track onto the ice and in the middle of the lake the ice broke. The car sunk with Jeremiasse and the controller, Miss Rommy van der Wal. She couldn't help Jeremiasse and within one minute the car sunk. The lake is 35 meters deep, and he was found one and a half hours later by divers.

Jeremiasse (60) was for many years a jury member in the international cycling world (including the Tour de France, Giro and Vuelta), as well as being a supervisor of blood controls. As a UCI-jury member he was also involved during the World Championships Cyclocross in St Michielsgestel last weekend.

Attention race organisers

As part of cyclingnews increasing service to its readers, we have recently added a means whereby race organisers (of non-UCI races) can enter the full details of their race online, which will then be available as a listings indexed by country, followed by a brief and more detailed description. This is intended to allow our readers to keep in touch with races that are on in their area.

The basic listing service will be free, and we are now asking potential race organisers to submit their details via our event form, and to provide us with any feedback before we go "live" with it. We anticipate this will be by the end of the first week in February.