News for January 2, 2001

Cyclingnews reader poll Rider of the Year: Lance Armstrong

Here is the final vote tally. To illustrate the gap between numerical success as measured by the UCI and ability to inspire cyclingnews readers, the UCI ranking of riders is shown in brackets. Clicking on the links will take you to the collected readers' comments about that particular rider.

                               Votes (UCI ranking)
1 Lance Armstrong              48.42% (4)
2 Johan Museeuw                16.41 (59)
3 Jan Ullrich                   5.41 (6)
4 Andrei Tchmil                 5.33 (9)
5 Erik Dekker                   4.64 (17)
6 Vjatceslav Ekimov             4.42 (67)
7 Leontien Zijlaard-Van Moorsel 3.88 (4)
8 Axel Merckx                   3.24 (20)
9 Erik Zabel                    2.28 (2)
10 Oscar Freire                 1.52 (11)
11 Andrea Tafi                  1.45 (130)
12 David Millar                 1.33 (120)
13 Francesco Casagrande         0.99 (1)
14 Marco Pantani                0.69 (177)

Cyclingnews.com's picks for 2000

Male road rider
Erik Zabel. The most victories (17), two classic wins (Milan-San Remo for the third time, and the Amstel Gold race), as well as fourth in Ronde van Vlaanderen, third in Paris-Roubaix, fourth in the HEW Cyclassics. Zabel also took the Tour de France green points jersey for a record 5th time, and won the Dortmund Six. Damned consistent and extremely versatile!

Female road rider
Leontien Zijlaard-Van Moorsel. 42 wins. Double gold in the Olympics is a good start, but she also won numerous stage races and rose to number four on the UCI rankings. Joane Somarriba deserves a mention for winning the women's Giro and Tour, while Diana Ziliute won the overall classification of the World Cup and finished World Number One. However, Leontien gets my vote again because of her consistency.

Male track rider
The Olympics is the pinnacle of track cycling, so the nod goes to Robert Bartko who has been at the top of pursuiting for a couple of years and was part of the sub 4 minute German pursuit team. Scott McGrory deserves a mention as well, considering the trauma of losing a child. All the sprinters shared the glory around throughout the year, hence it was hard to pick a standout.

Female track rider
Felicia Ballanger was unstoppable in any race that she did and capped a brilliant career with double gold in the Olympic Games. Van Moorsel also rode well at the Games, but did not race on the track for the rest of the year.

Male MTB rider
Miguel Martinez. World Champion, World Cup Champion and Olympic Champion. Enough said.

Female MTB rider
Margarita Fullana. World Champ, third in the Olympics behind Blatter and Pezzo, plus three World Cup wins. Blatter was good too: three World Cup wins and the World Cup overall, second in the Olympics, fourth in the World's. Pezzo's single-mindedness in taking a second consecutive Olympic gold also deserves a mention, though the rest of her season suffered for it. A close call...

Male cyclo-cross rider
Richard Groenendaal: World Champ, World number one, and likely winner of the SuperPrestige and World Cup for 2000/2001. Mr Consistency.

Female cyclocross rider
Hanka Kupfernagel. Women's world champ. She almost never gets beaten in a women's 'cross race.

Male team
Kelme-Costa Blanca. Winners of the team classifications in the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France. They were ranked as high as three (behind Telekom and Mapei) in the UCI rankings, and Roberto Heras won the Vuelta - a first for the team. Kelme demonstrated some very exciting and attacking riding in the Tour in potentially "slow" stages. They weren't going to let Lance Armstrong walk away with it. All this on a budget approximately half that of normal division one teams...

Female team
Acca Due O. The dream team of Diana Ziliute, the Polikeviciute twins, Marion Clignet, Zulfia Zabirova, and Tatiana Stiajkina. Some races they utterly dominated like the Women's Tour de Suisse, and they finished on top of the UCI team rankings by a long shot. Farm Frites-Hartol did quite well too, but they had less versatility than Acca Due O.

Best ride of 2000
I confess a little bias here, but: Jan Ullrich in the Olympics because of the pressure and the way in which he did it. Everyone was peaking for that race, and Jan was clearly the strongest on the day. Lance Armstrong in stage 10 of the Tour was pretty awesome as well, but he didn't win the stage (Javier Oxtoa did). Museeuw in Paris-Roubaix gets third in my vote.

Most significant non-race event
Nicole Reinhart's death. A terrible loss. Other noteworthy events also had a negative air: the Festina and Pantani trials. On the upside, the development of a test for EPO, even though it has yet to be fully accepted, brings hopes of eradicating this form of doping.

Tomas Nilsson, our European correspondent for much of the year, adds his thoughts:

Greatest moment of the year
It might not have been the ride of the year but I had the pleasure of reporting live on www.cyclingnews.com from a number of great events during the season of 2000, and the moment to remember came on the 19th stage of the Giro d'Italia, on the penultimate climb of the day up the Col d'Agnello. Not just any climb, this was the highest passage of the whole race and thus designated "Cima Coppi" as the most prestigious mountain prime.

Marco Pantani's Giro had been a training ride from Rome for two weeks and more in his first serious race since he was taken out of last year's Giro with a high haematocrit level. (His early season attempts in Spain might as well be forgotten.) On all previous mountain stages he had been left behind early. And also so today. But then, on the Cima Coppi, he returned and caught the group with the top overall riders, including team mate Stefano Garzelli who had a very good chance to win the Giro.

We all wondered what he was up to but Pantani's answer was immediate: He rode up to Garzelli and handed over a water bottle.

That, ladies and gentlemen, was the greatest moment in 2000. A fallen star rose and paid respect to all the unwritten rules of cycling. Subsequently Pantani aided Garzelli for the rest of the stage and then went off to take second spot in Briancon and showed that he was back in top level racing. What ever you might say about Marco Pantani he has always paid respect to cycling as a unique sport with all its myths, legends and traditions. The handing of a water bottle is a gesture that means for more than just being nice to a thirsty team-mate.

Cipollini out of Tour Down Under

The Jacob's Creek Tour Down Under that starts on January 16, 2001 will once again be without Saeco's Mario Cipollini after the team notified the organisers today of his withdrawal. An official letter from Saeco director, Claudio Corti stated that "As you know, Mario had a UCI suspension in February and for this reason his training program for the early season has needed to be revised."

"You have to consider also that due to the uncertainty of the UCI enquiry and the extended wait until mid December, Mario's morale and physical form are not in top condition," added Corti.

Race director Mike Turtur was understandably disappointed at the news, as it is the third time that it has happened. "It is very disappointing for us as race organisers and also for Cipollini's Australian fans, but even without Cipollini we still have the strongest field that this race has ever enjoyed," he said.

However, Cipollini's replacement is none other than Tour de France stage winner, Salvatore "Toto" Commesso, who also participated in the race last year.

Pevenage takes sole charge of Telekom

There will be a change in the management structure of team Telekom for the new year. Rudy Pevenage will be sole directeur-sportif, as Walter Godefroot moves into a management role. Pevenage said he didn't intend to change much: "I've worked very closely with Walter Godefroot for the last seven years."

Pevenage rode professionally from 1972 to 1984, and wore the yellow jersey in the Tour de France for 10 days in 1980, before eventually finishing with the green points jersey.

Women's sprint World Champ to race for Russia in '01

Women's World Sprint champion, Natalia Markovchenko, currently rides for Belorussia but will train and race with the Russian women's team in 2001. She is trained by Galina Enukina's husband, Enukina being a former Women's World Champion and top ten at this years World's.