News for February 1


Hodge Scores For Festina

Festina notched up its first victory of the new season when Australian Stephen Hodge took overall victory in the six-stage Summer Tour of Tasmania (Cat 2.4 -- January 23-28).

Mapei Takes Long-Term View of Worlds

Tony Rominger and other members of the Mapei team -- including Johan Museeuw, Franco Ballerini, Gianluca Bortolami, Franck Vandenbrouke, Stefano Della Santa, Danielle Nardello and Andrea Noe -- have in training tried out the circuit of the worlds road race in Lugano (some time away on October 13). After 130km on the circuit, Rominger declared it "a classic-style course, not one that's particularly suited to climbing specialists. It's the sort that would well suit Jalabert, Bugno, Fondriest, Gianetti, Richard, Indurain, Olano -- and why not me..."

One For The Fashion Victims (And That Will Probably Mean Me)

Native of Venice and former classics star and world champion Moreno Argentin, the manager of the Roslotto-ZG team, has taken an active part in the design of the team's jersey. Described by L'Equipe as "superb", it incorporates images of St Mark's cathedral in Venice and St Basil's cathedral in Moscow (in honour of the Russian Roslotto joint sponsor). The team's stars (such as Fondriest, Lino and Ugrumov) and water-carriers will also carry a Latin tag (Classical scholars reading this please shout if my translation is too crude!): "Age quod agis" roughly, "Do what you do well"