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18 teams of nine riders will participate in the 63rd edition of the Volta a Portugal, from August 2-15. Defending champion Victor Gamito (Porta Da Ravessa) will ride as number 1, but he will have stiff competition this year to retain his title. ONCE-Eroski with Jose Azevedo, Abraham Olano, Jan Hruska, and Mikel Zarrabeitia will surely feature in the GC, as will Kelme (Isaac Galvez), Milaneza-MSS (Melchior Mauri, Angel Edo), and Fassa Bortolo (Raimondas Rumsas).
The 14 stage race is 2,108.6 kilometres, beginning with a 183.1 kilometre stage from Torres Vedras to Odivelas (Lisbon), and finishing with a 26.4 kilometre time trial in Maia on August 15. The most difficult stage is the eighth, which finishes on the category one climb of Torre. This is followed by a 22.5 kilometre mountain time trial to Piornos, also a category one climb. The longest stage is the fifth, from Tavira to Évora (220.7 km).
Maia-Milaneza-MSS, L.A. Pecol-Águias de Alpiarça, Porta da Ravessa, Carvalhelhos-Boavista, Barbot-Torrié, Paredes-Rota dos Móveis, Jodofer-Abóboda, Gresco-Tavira, Cantanhede-Marquês de Marialva, ONCE, iBanesto.com, Kelme, Euskaltel-Euskadi, Jazztel, Saeco, Fassa Bortolo, Lampre, Festina.
Thanks to Rui Silva for the information
There was a great wailing and gnashing of teeth when British terrestrial Channel 4 chose not to broadcast this year's Tour de France, despite owning the rights to it until the end of 2003. With the Ashes Cricket Tests taking priority, Channel 4 decided not to show the Tour at all, and was unable to pull off a last minute deal with ITV to take it over. This meant that Channel 4 still had to pay the considerable broadcasting rights fee to the European Broadcasting Union with no coverage provided.
However, there is better news for the future in Britain, as ITV have secured a three year contract to screen the Tour on both ITV and ITV Sport digital channel. The deal is said to be worth £5 million, and will feature highlights and live coverage of the event. Independent British producer VTV will assist in the coverage.
Colpack's Renzo Mazzoleni has been asked by the anti-doping branch of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) to face the Italian Cycling Federation's disciplinary commission. CONI requested that the rider be suspended for a period of between two and six months, after being found in possession of illegal medical products during the Giro d'Italia.
The anti-doping commission has also recommended a six months suspension for the Colpack doctor, Claudio Sprenger on the same grounds.
The only other rider to be recommended for a suspension to date is Dario Frigo (ex-Fassa Bortolo), who may also receive a six month ban.
30 year old Giro d'Italia winner and Tour de Suisse runner up, Gilberto Simoni (Lampre), will make his return to racing this Saturday in the paired time trial in Karlsruhe, Germany. Simoni has spent most of July resting, including a 12 day holiday in Porto Rotondo on the beach. He says that he is "ready to return now."
Simoni will ride the time trial with Swiss Oscar Camenzind, and will follow that with the Luk Cup in Buhl on Sunday, before returning to Italy for the GP di Camaiore on August 8, which is an Italian national selection race.
"My objective at the end of the season is the World's road race in Portugal, therefore all the preparation I do will be aimed at that race."
Simoni will not ride in any World Cup events, and will probably miss the Vuelta España, despite having it on his program before.
Recently elected Italian national technical director, Franco Ballerini, will make his 'debut' in the 52nd GP Camaiore on August 8, a race that he won in 1989. He is using the race as a selection race for the World's in Lisbon, Portugal, is sure that it will help in constructing his first national squad.
He will be present at the race along with former Italian CT, Alfredo Martini, and will hold a press conference in the City of Camaiore on August 7 at 15:30.
The 197.7 kilometre event is almost identical to last year's, concluding with four laps of a circuit that climbs Monte Pitoro. Fassa Bortolo's Wladimir Belli and Francesco Casagrande will pit themselves against Mapei's Michele Bartoli, Paolo Bettini and Italian Champion Daniele Nardello, amongst the other competition. There will be 16 teams enrolled in the race, which starts at 11:00 on viale Oberdan.
There is a possibility that the three Belgian Mercury riders, Peter Van Petegem, Geert Van Bondt and Wim Vansevenant will finish their seasons with Lotto-Adecco, according to De Standaard newspaper. After co-sponsor Viatel pulled out two months ago, the three have asked the UCI for freedom to ride the rest of the season with another team.
Lotto manager Christophe Sercu told the paper that "Via an agent, we had just one telephone conversation to see if we were prepared to accept them. But nothing concrete was formulated."
Rik Verbrugghe will (finally) extend his contract with the Lotto-Adecco team, which will have 22 riders next season. The winner of the Criterium Internationale, Fleche Wallonne, and a Tour stage, reached an agreement with the team in regard to his deal. He will be one of 14 riders who are staying with Lotto, viz.: Serge Baguet, Christophe Brandt, Glenn d'Hollander, Hans de Clercq, Niko Eeckhout, Gorik Gardeyn, Guennadi Mikhailov, Andrei Tchmil, Fulco van Gulik, Kurt van Lancker, Wesley Van Speybroeck, Ief and Rik Verbrugghe and Stive Vermaut.
In addition to Australian Trent Wilson, two other stagiaires will ride for Danish team Fakta in the next few months. The first is 22 year old Swedish talent, Kristoffer Ingeby, a former Nordic Champion as a junior, and Swedish time trial champion when he was 20. Ingeby rode the Post Girot Tour of Sweden as part of the national team, where he finished 12th overall. He is currently racing for CC Etupes in France, where he has won a few races in the national league this year.
The second is Lars Ytting Bak (Lars Bak), a 21 year old currently riding for the Fakta amateur team (Hammel CK). He won a lot of races as a junior, including the Danish and Nordic championships. He started this year in Differdange in Luxembourg where he won 3 races in Belgium and Luxembourg. He continued with the national team to participate in Triptyque in Belgium where he finished 5th overall. Currently he is cycling for the Mapei U23 team in Italy where he is also riding well.
He has been selected for the Danish "Post DK team" for the tour of Denmark. He finished 10th in the Danish national time trial championships, and he is currently 6th overall in the Danish Post-cup competition. He is a good time trialist and reasonably fast in sprints.
Courtesy of Peter Sejr Nielsen
The BigMat-Aubervilliers 93 team announced its three stagiaires for the rest of the 2001 season: Yannick Talabardon, Nicolas Liboreau and Niels Brouzes.
Last year's dual women's Giro and TdF winner, Joane Somarriba, has told a Spanish newspaper that she finds the sacrifices she makes for the sport to be perhaps too difficult, despite her successes. She told women's newspaper, Andra, that "I desire to enjoy things that, because of my profession, I have not been able to do."
Somarriba recently finished 5th in the women's Giro, which she was using as preparation for the upcoming Grande Boucle feminin, which begins this Sunday in Bilbao. "I trained for the last few days in the mountains, but until I begin to race I don't know how I am," she said.
She admitted that the Spanish start will put "added pressure" on her to ride well, but she certainly has the motivation.
By Tomas Nilsson, cyclingnews.com correspondent
With only a fortnight left to August 15, Denmark has lost its top ten position in the UCI rankings to Kazakhstan thanks to Kivilev's and Vinokuorov's fine performances in the Tour. This means that there could be twelve Kazakhs in the World's road race, while the Danes probably will have to settle with eight, as with all nations ranked between 11 to 15 by August 15.
The gap of 700 points will be hard for the Danes to bridge, especially as Claus Michael Møller gained 100 points as second overall and leader for several days last year in the Tour of Portugal that finishes August 15. The gap will grow unless he can repeat his performance.
Lithuania has, thanks to Raimondas Rumsas' seventh on the individual ranking, risen to 14th and will have an eight man team for the first time. Rumsas ought to be undisputed captain since no one else is ranked higher than 197 (Gerolsteiner's Ruskys) but Lithuania have a number of trusted domestiques spread all over the second division.
Slovenia in sixteenth place trails Poland by less than 200 points but that will be hard to gain before the August 15 deadline, but last year they had only two riders for the worlds so it's an improvement anyway. Portugal is also in the four men category at 20th in the rankings. But last year's Tour of Portugal gave them 319 points so a good performance on home ground again is essential as the Ukraine (ranked 21st) is less than 100 points behind.
The big loser is Sweden that has plummeted from 15th last year to 25th this time, giving only two riders instead of eight for the world's, along with all nations ranked from 21 to 30.
No less than six nations outside of top 30 might also qualify for a spot each since they have riders among the individual top 400 ranking. They are Croatia (Miholjevic), New Zealand (Dean), Argentina (Garrido), Mexico (Perez), Bulgaria (Gabrowski) and Kirghyzstan (Wacker). Knocking on the door are Egypt (el Nady) and Japan (Hashikawa) both lacking 16 points for a top 400 spot.
1 Italy 12,907.67 pts 2 Spain 9,244.00 3 Germany 7,454.00 4 Belgium 7,347.00 5 France 6,870.00 6 Netherlands 6,171.00 7 U.S.A. 5,214.00 8 Switzerland 5,104.50 9 Russia 3,997.50 10 Kazakhstan 3,522.60 11 Denmark 3,212.00 12 Australia 2,931.00 13 Latvia 2,812.50 14 Lithuania 2,804.00 15 Poland 2,439.00 16 Slovenia 2,251.50 17 Colombia 1,996.00 18 Austria 1,892.00 19 Great Britain 1,748.00 20 Portugal 1,725.00 21 Ukraine 1,628.50 22 Czech Republic 1,568.00 23 Estonia 1,423.00 24 Norway 1,089.00 25 Sweden 1,050.00 26 Moldavia 704.00 27 Hungary 694.50 28 South Africa 678.50 29 Canada 562.00 30 Venezuela 515.00 31 Croatia 416.00 32 New Zealand 410.00 33 Japan 372.00 34 Argentina 366.00 35 Egypt 333.00 36 Mexico 310.00 37 Bulgaria 271.00 38 Algeria 264.00 39 Luxembourg 250.00 40 Ireland 228.00 41 Cuba 213.00 42 Finland 201.00 43 Kirghyzstan 196.50 44 Slovakia 193.00 45 Greece 155.00 46 Yugoslavia 154.00 47 Belarus 150.00 48 Hong Kong, China 131.00 49 Uzbekistan 112.00 50 Chile 98.00 51 Korea 93.00 52 Uruguay 91.00 53 Islamic Republic Iran 90.00 54 Peru 80.00 55 Morocco 74.00 56 Brazil 72.00 57 Zimbabwe 60.00 58 Israel 59.00 59 Costa Rica 52.00 60 Tunisia 38.00 61 Syrian Arab Republic 29.00 62 Guatemala 24.00 63 Burkina Faso 21.00 64 Dominican Republic 16.00 65 People's Republic Of China 8.00 66 Kenya 5.00 67 Ecuador 4.00
The Girvan Stage Race rescheduled for September 8-10 has been cancelled. The event was postponed from its original Easter date due to foot and mouth restrictions in south-west Scotland and the major funding partner of the event, South Ayrshire Council, has been unable to transfer the funding originally allocated for the event into the current financial year.
In addition, the Leek United Grand Prix Scheduled for September 23 has also been cancelled. However, a replacement Premier Calendar race, the Tour of the Reservoir, based around Edmundbyers, County Durham, is to be run on that date.
Entries for this new race should be directed to Mike Hodgson, Briarwood, Edmundbyers, County Durham DH8 9NN. Entry Fee is £15 and entries close on 2nd September. Please send an SAE with each entry. Race Distance will be 155 km.
Major Races and Events
September 7-29, 2002: Vuelta
a España (GT) - Preview, stage list
May 11-June 2, 2002: Giro
d'Italia (GT) - Preview, stage list, photos
July 6-28, 2002: Tour
de France (GT) - Full preview & official route details
December 8: Superprestige
Rd 5 (Cat. 1) - Erwin Vervecken
November 29-December 4: Six
Days of Noumea (6D) - Sassone/Neuville victorious
November 26-December 1: Six
Days of Zurich (6D) - Day
6 - McGrory/Gilmore/Schnider win
December 1: Melbourne
Cup on Wheels (IM) - Scott Moller, Keirin,
Sprint, Support
races
December 2: Cyclo-cross
World Cup #2 (CDM) - Sven Nijs again
November 24-December 3: Juegos
Deportivos Centroamericanos (JR) - Final results
December 8-9: Frankfurter
Rad-Cross (Cat. 2) - Alex Mudroch, UK
National Trophy Series #4 (Cat. 3) - Roger Hammond, Grote
Prijs Industrie Bosduin - Kalmthout (Cat. 1) - Bart Wellens, Int.
Radquer Obergösgen (Cat. 2) - Björn Rondelez, Trofeo
Mamma e Papa Guerciotti (Cat. 3) - Enrico Franzoi, Premio
Egondo (Cat 3) - David Seco, Irish
cyclo-cross championships - Robin Seymour
Results: local racing
Australia - CycleWest
Promotions Omnium Series #2, Eastern
Suburbs Summer Criterium Series, Carnegie
Caulfield Tuesday criterium, Southern
Cross Junior Track Open & Madison Cup, Manly
Warringah CC, George
Town Track Carnival, Carnegie
Caulfield CC, Randwick
Botany CC, Gold
Coast CATS CC, Caesar's
Illawarra CC, Caesar's
Illawarra (track)
Denmark - Danish
cyclo-cross Post Cup #3
Italy - Gran
Premio Città di Bassano
Luxembourg - GP
De Kopstal
New Zealand - Cyco
Criterium series
Spain - Elorrio
cyclo-cross
USA - Georgia
Cross Series Championship, Chimborazo
Grand Prix cyclo-cross, Boulder
Cross Rd 6, New
Mexico State Cyclo-x Champs, Sorrento
Cyclo-x & California State Champ's, Boulder
Cross Rd 5, Verge
New England series, Northampton
CC Cyclo-cross Championships, Chris
Cross International CycloCross
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