News for May 7, 2000

French doping affair: another imprisoned

An amateur cyclist has been put in jail in relation to the French doping affair, which started last month in Narbonne, Southern France. According to Associated Press, a 23 year-old was sent down yesterday by magistrate Francis Boyer for transfer, use, acquisition and possession of narcotics, infringement the 1999 doping law.

The rider was placed under investigation last Thursday in St Etienne as part of the examination conducted into a doping ring in South Eastern France. A total of 19 people have been questioned in relation to the affair, with 10 imprisonments.

45th Lincoln Grand Prix

This year's GP Lincoln reaches the grand old age of 45 but is only appearing on the UCI calendar for the second time. Last year's winner Saulius Ruskys and his French Saint Quentin team will be racing in Dunkirk, but the race line up features other strong teams, including Dutch squad Energiewacht-NWVG, Belgian Team Reygerlo and the Cidona Carrick team from Ireland. The British, Irish and Welsh National teams complete the international teams.

The home based riders include in form Jonny Clay who has ridden The Lincoln Grand Prix many times and after his Easter victory in Scotland's Girvan Stage Race will be looking to increase his lead in the British Cycling Federation's Premier Trophy Series. He faces strong home challenges from current National Champion John Tanner, National Criterium Champion Chris Walker and winner of two of the counting events earlier this year, Chris Newton. Lincolnshire supporters should be looking out for Rod Ellingworth who also achieved an outstanding 3rd place Easter performance in Scotland, leading the event until the final day. The other local favourite Richard Hobby is unfortunately side lined this year with a broken ankle.

The 163 kilometre race, starting at 11:30 am from theYarborough Sports Centre is a circuit of 13 laps. Each lap involves climbing up Lincoln's Michaelgate, a 1 in 6 cobbled hill that will present a challenge to the riders by the finish. Finish time is expected to be 3:15 pm in Castle Square.

More racing

Of course, the Lincoln Grand Prix is not the only race on today - The tours of Romandy of the Four Days of Dunkirk finish after some exciting racing in the Swiss Alps and the Northern French coast. Saeco's Paolo Savoldelli looks to have the Tour of Ramondy sewn up after losing the jersey just once during the course of the race. On the other hand, Sweden's Martin Rittsel is going to have his work cut out if he is to win the Four Days of Dunkirk for his Memorycard Jack & Jones team. The Danish team won the race last year with Michael Sanstød but Rittsel goes into the last two stages with just a two second lead on Ag2r's Arturas Kasputis which should see some very exciting racing.

The Giro d'Abruzzo and the GP Jornal de Noticas conclude as well, with Mercatone Uno's Daniele de Paoli holding a 33 second lead over Vladimir Duma of Panaria. He should have no problems on the last day though. Similarly, Mikel Artetxe of the Euskaltel-Euskadi team looks to have the GP Jornal in hand, although he only has a 12 second gap to Maia's José Azevedo. If the last stage ends in a bunch sprint like the others have, then he will have no problem, having already won two of the four stages.

The Peace Race and the Tour de l'Aude start to get into full swing and are into their third days today. Can Steffen Wesemann pull off another overall victory when the Peace Race reaches Prague? We'll see on May 13, or maybe Uwe Ampler can come into some remarkable form to beat him.

In the Tour de l'Aude, the Saturn women headed by Lyne Bessette, Anna Wilson, Petra Rossner and Clara Hughes face a tough split day today, climbing the Pic de Nore in the morning's 44 km stage, followed by a 66 km afternoon wind down. With Rossner in yellow, the Saturn team will have their work cut out to defend her, and will more likely see how the morning's stage pans out. Of course, most of the top women in the world are racing here, including the Lithuanians, headed by Diana Ziliute, the Dutch with Mirjam Melchers, and the Russians (Zoulfia Zabirova). No Jeannie Longo though, as she is racing in the US in the Tour of the Gila, along with most of the Timex team.

Other one day races include the category 1.4 Clasica de Alcobendas in Spain, two first category (1.7.1) espoir (U23) races: Trofeo Alcide Degasperi in Italy and the Circuit du Hainaut in Belgium. Let's not forget the Circuito del Porto in Italy, a category 1.6 race likely to have several thousand starters if reports are to be believed...

Round four of the MTB World Cup is on in St Wendel, Germany. Last week's men's winner, Filip Meirhaeghe (Belgium) won this race for the previous two years, and is certainly one of the favourites today. Italian Martino Fruet will be out to stop him, in an attempt to preserve his World Cup lead. In the women, Australia's Mary Grigson and the USA's Alison Dunlap share the World Cup lead, although Grigson has the jersey due to her win in round one. Round four will be an interesting battle between them, with Canada's Alison Sydor likely to play a strong role.

Stone nears the end

Canada's Perry Stone is nearing the end of his 14,500 kilometre circumnavigation of the Australian continent, in an attempt to break his own record of just under 42 days. He started the jounrey in Perth on April 7 and has now crossed back into Western Australia after 30 days of riding. Earlier today, he had reached Hall's Creek about 300 kilometres over the Northern Territory/Western Australian border. He expects to make it to Perth by May 12, approximately 35 days for the round trip clearly beating his record.

The problems presently plaguing Perry are a persistent howling head wind and a gnawing tooth ache. He expects the tooth ache to diminish with a few adjustments to his sugar intake but there isn't much he can do about the head wind. His Bianchi has been running like clockwork and the two remaining crew members are coping well in spite of the increased work load.

The crew have suffered a lot as well, according to independent reports. Whilst he started with seven crew members, Perry has lost five of them. Although health problems were reported as part of the cause, internal friction has been named as a big problem. It must be a little trying driving at 30 km/h basically non-stop for over a month.