News for January 12, 2000

Pantani announces his goals

Italian cyclist Marco Pantani is aiming to repeat his successes of 1998 when he starts racing again this year. In that year, he won both the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia. However, his 1999 season was prematurely ended when he was thrown out of the Giro on the second last day for having too high a hematocrit. He has since denied it having anything to do with doping, and was cleared of any charges by CONI, the Italian Olympic committee.

He is training in the Canary Islands at the moment, and revealed his plans to the newspaper, AS on Tuesday.

"My priorities this year are the Giro and the Tour, and all my preparation is focused on those two events," he said. "The Tour de France is the most prestigious international race and I'm hoping to win it again this year."

He is not sure about the Olympics, but is looking forward to getting back into racing. "It'll be nice to see Pantani racing again this year after so much time, I hope to be in better form than ever before, but then we'll have to see who else is riding well."

"Jan Ullrich is very strong but there are others as well. Each year there are more outstanding cyclists."

Pantani will start his campaign with the Tour of Mallorca, followed by the Tour of Andalucia and some other early Spanish races.

Mapei news

Spanish World Champion, Oscar Freire makes his debut with Mapei in the 9th Tour of Majorca, starting on February 6. His Spanish teammates, Manuel Beltran and Fernandez Gines will accompany him, alongside Italians Michele Bartoli, Paolo Bettini, Nicola Chesini and Andrea Noe, and Belgians, Johan Museeuw, Wilfried Peeters and Leif Hoste.

The rest of the Mapei team are scattered far and wide at the moment: the Belgians, including Tom Steels and Axel Merckx are in Javea, Spain, along with Van Heeswijk, Bramati, Fornaciari, Nardello, Tafi and Zanini. Most of the rest are training in Tuscany: Italians Chesini, Cioni, D'Amore, Nocentini, Noe, Paolini, Pozzato, Ratti, and Rizzi, Koehler (Fra), Hulsmans (Bel), Bodrogi (Hun) and Wegelius (GBr).

Several are remaining at home, to meet up with the team later on. These include Bettini, Faresin, Figueras, Lanfranchi, McRae, Rodriguez, Scinto and Tonkov. Bartoli and Tani are training in Monaco.

On January 21, the entire Mapei-Quick Step team will attend their official presentation in Milan, followed by a team camp in San Vincenzo from the 22nd to the 28th. Finally, on January 31 they will head to Tielt, Belgium for the traditional meeting with the Northern European press.

Dunlap wins athlete of the month

The United States Olympic Committee has named racquetball junior Jack Huczek (Rochester Hills, Mich.) and cyclist Alison Dunlap (Colorado Springs, Colo.) as its Male and Female Athletes of the Month of December.

This is Dunlap's second Female Athlete of the Month award after earning a spot on the World Championship team and winning her third consecutive national cyclo-cross championship. She will be the first U.S. woman to compete in the inaugural Women's World Cyclocross Championships. This marks her third world championship event (mountain bike, road, cyclocross) in her career. Dunlap acquired another win at the Super Cup finals in San Francisco, Calif. She also won USOC Athlete of the Month in May 1997.

Results

Men

1. Jack Huczek, Racquetball 		35 pts
2. Dell Hendricks, Equestrian 		12
3. Oscar Chaplin, III, Weightlifting	10
4. Marc Gullickson, Cycling	 	5

Women

1. Alison Dunlap, Cycling 		19
2. Brooke Crawford, Racquetball 	16
3. Cara Heads-Lane, Weightlifting	9
3. Dara Torres, Swimming 		9
4. Kay Poe, Taekwondo			7 
5. Elise Haas, Equestrian		3

UCI doping policy: French reaction

As reported in cyclingnews yesterday, the UCI's anti-drugs policy closely follows the French model that was implemented two years ago. Although at the time, the UCI were reluctant to go along with the wide range of controls that the French were carrying out, it appears now that the differences between the French federation (FFC) and the UCI have been resolved somewhat.

Before implementing the policy, the UCI wished to first consult national federations as well as the cyclists to gain their assessment of it. The response was positive, leading to the presentation last Monday.

President of the FFC, Daniel Baal commented to AFP that "there does not appear to be any great difference compared to the French controls". This means that French riders will not have to undergo the additional FFC tests that were required before this time.

Could we see Laurent Jalabert competing again for France? The cyclist refused to take the FFC's tests last year and was subsequently excluded from racing in, and for France. However, the new "global" testing regime will mean that he will have to submit, or be prohibited to race. Daniel Baal commented that now Jalabert "could be considered" to represent France.

The UCI's new policy is designed to keep the riders in good health rather than disqualify them for drugs. This is to be achieved through careful monitoring of a wide variety of markers within the cyclists' blood and urine. Cyclists may be disqualified on the grounds of being unhealthy, rather than because they took drugs.

It remains to be seen whether the UCI's screening will incorporate the new "indirect marker" based tests (when developed), which are designed to reveal the presence of several previously "undetectable" illegal substances in the athlete's bodies. At the moment tests for EPO and Human Growth Hormone are being developed. If they are successful, then similar methods may be used to detect other "new" drugs, using the same (or slightly different) indirect markers.

Virenque to Med

French Polti rider, Richard Virenque is aiming to start his season with the Tour of the Mediterranean, running from February 9 - 15. The cyclist will join the rest of his Polti team in a training camp in the South of Italy, at Terme Luigiane de Calabria on January 20.

Vuelta a Tachira

The Venezuelan category 2.5 tour, La Vuelta a Tachira starts in just a few days time on January 15. Spanish team Colchones Relax Fuenlabrada, spearheaded by Colombian climber Hernán Darío are one of the 11 foreign teams down to start the tour. Teams from Russia and Cuba are amongst the list as well, subject to clearance of their visas.