First Edition Cycling News, Thursday, January 7, 2010

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Date published:

January 7, 2010, 09:00

• Axelsson positive for EPO, faces lifetime ban

  

  Article published:

  January 6, 2010, 14:37

  By:

  Susan Westemeyer

  Swedish rider yet to request B-sample

  Swedish rider Niklas Axelsson has tested positive for EPO for the second time in his career. The 36-year-old returned the positive control from a doping control conducted in September. He now faces a lifetime ban if the B-sample confirms the result.

  He rode for the Polish Continental team Utensilnord Corratec in 2009.

  Axelsson had previously tested positive in 2001 at the World Championships in Portugal. He was originally given a four-year suspension, but it was later reduced to two years and eight months.

  The International Cycling Union (UCI) confirmed the most recent positive test, according to Swedish newspaper Sportsbladet. “According to the information I have, this is EPO. The reason we have not publicised it is that we are awaiting a decision on the B-sample," a UCI spokesperson said.

  The Secretary General of the Swedish Cycling Federation, Anders Karlsson, also confirmed the report. “There is a positive A-sample from September,” he said. “It is a tragedy.”

  Axelsson finished sixth overall in the Giro d'Italia in 1999. In 2000 he finished second overall in the Giro del Trentino and third in the Giro di Lombardia, while riding for Team Panaria-Gaerne.

  He returned to riding in 2004 after his suspension, and rode for Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni from 2006 to 2008. In late 2006 he was diagnosed with testicular cancer, from which he recovered after surgery.

  Karlsson was particularly surprised to hear of the new positive control in light of the rider's prior positive, “he has been suspended before, and really suffered from it,” he said

  Axelsson has not yet decided whether to have the B-sample tested. “It's up to the cyclist. But it's incredibly rare for a B-sample to show something different from the A-sample,” Karlsson noted.

  After the rider decides whether to have the B-sample tested or waive that right, the federation's disciplinary committee will rule on the matter, with a lifetime ban a likely outcome.

• 2009 Reader Poll: Electronica dominates new category

  

  Article published:

  January 6, 2010, 17:00

  By:

  James Huang

  Electronic shifting judged tech innovation of 2009

  Your votes in the new 'Best Tech Innovation' category signal loud and clear that the future of bicycle technology lies not in improved structure but rather the increased use of advanced electronics. Whether designed to enhance functionality of mechanical function, optimize our training efforts, or simply provide more information to satiate our ever-increasing hunger for data, these systems have surged to become the technology du jour.

  In first place is electronic shifting, which, for the time being, is also synonymous with Shimano's Dura-Ace Di2 group (Campagnolo's system is still in development). Skeptics have loudly proclaimed the concept as a 'solution to a problem that didn't exist', yet interestingly enough, many of those voices have quieted down now that more people have had an opportunity to use it in person.

  The benefits are subtle but substantial nonetheless: shifts are more precise and consistent over time, there is less maintenance required, less user effort is needed to initiate a shift (not an issue with the vast majority of us but notable for riders that spend as much time on a bike as we do behind a desk), and a generally more precise and accurate feeling across the board. Though not yet the case right now, electronic systems also have the potential to be lighter than mechanical ones, too.

  To be fair, Shimano's Dura-Ace Di2 system isn't quite perfect and is still incredibly expensive but all things considered, it's a major leap forward and a sign of things to come.

  Once exclusive to sponsored pro athletes and trustafarians everywhere, power meters occupy the second rung of this year's Reader Poll. Technological advances, increased competition and economies of scale have brought prices down to somewhat more reasonable levels for the top direct-measurement models while other approaches such as the iBike have proven to be sufficiently accurate for many users at a cost of just a few hundred dollars. Not surprisingly, there are still more models coming to consumers in the future, most notably the intriguing pedal-based Vector from MetriGear.

  With the proliferation of online training analysis software such as TrainingPeaks and the emergence of remote power-based coaches added into the mix, too, it's no wonder why power meters are the new must-have item for any cyclist who's even moderately serious about improving their performance.

  Coming in a close third are GPS-enabled computers. No longer content with tiny – but simple – boxes that relay speed and distance information via wheel-mounted magnets and short-range transmitters, your votes indicate that cyclists are continuing to migrate to more advanced GPS models that not only log more information about our rides, but also have the potential to help guide us along the way.

  Industry giant Garmin still leads the way in many markets. However, as the segment continues to grow in popularity, expect to see more competition from not only other established GPS players but also mobile phone and third-party app developers.

  Here's a New Year's resolution for 2010: stock up on batteries.

  Cyclingnews reader poll results - Best tech innovation

  Electronic shifting: 3517
  Power meters: 1822
  GPS-enabled computers: 1667
  BB86/BB90/BB30 oversized bottom brackets: 1193
  Aero road bikes: 1074
  Carbon clincher road wheels: 1060
  Ceramic bearings: 900
  Tubeless clincher road tires: 839
  Ergonomic saddles: 462
  Heat-moldable footwear: 442
  Sub-900g carbon fiber road frames: 425
  Tapered steerer tubes: 296
  Sub-200g helmets: 201
  Boa lacing systems: 172
   

• Haselbacher re-ups with Vorarlberg for a year

  

  Article published:

  January 6, 2010, 18:39

  By:

  Susan Westemeyer

  Austrian not ready to stop after troubled 2009 season

  René Haselbacher has finally decided to ride with Team Vorarlberg-Corratec for another year, the Austrian Professional Continental team announced on Wednesday .

  Haselbacher, 32, admitted that it took him a long time to make up his mind. “For a long time I was not sure what I wanted to do with my life.” He finally decided he wasn't ready to end his career after a frustrating 2009 season plagued by injury and illness.

  A crash in the Ronde van Vlaanderen left him with a broken elbow and multiple fractured bones in his face. He struggled the rest of the season before being diagnosed with a severe case of mononucleosis in September.

  Haselbacher had another reason for continuing on another year, his 17-month-old son, René junior. ”I absolutely want to present him with a victory. Until then I can't stop riding.”

  “Rene is athletically and personally an important part of the team,” said Vorarlberg manager Thomas Kofler. “He brings us 12 years of professional experience, has ridden all the important races from the Tour de France to Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and has made his name in the peloton.”

  The Austrian is training at his winter home in South Africa. “The conditions here are perfect and I can gather strength for the coming season in the best of weather,” he said.

  Haselbacher's first race is expected to be the Tour de Langkawi in March.

  He rode for Team Gerolsteiner from 1999 to 2006, and for Astana from 2007 to 2008, before joining Vorarlberg last season. He was Austrian national road champion in 2002 and won the Rhineland-Pfalz Rundfahrt in 2006.

• 2009 Reader Poll: Wiggins tops most improved

  

  Article published:

  January 6, 2010, 20:54

  By:

  Cycling News

  Garmin 1-2's category for up and comers

  For the second year in a row, the Tour de France performance of a Garmin-Slipstream team rider has topped the most improved category, and with good reason. Bradley Wiggins's remarkable fourth overall in the Tour this year earned him the most votes by our readers. In 2008, it was Christian Vande Velde who defied all predictions to finish fourth overall (after Bernhard Kohl's disqualification for doping) and win the prize for most improved.

  Wiggins was well-known as a strong time trialist, but with a focus on trimming off almost every ounce of fat from his body, the nearly skeletal remains of the two-time Olympic pursuit champion turned into a tenacious climber able to hang tough with all except Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck.

  Second place in the category went to Wiggins's teammate Tyler Farrar, who finally claimed the first Grand Tour stage win of his career in the Vuelta a España's 11th stage.

  Farrar took his first win of the year in the Delta Tour Zeeland in the Netherlands by claiming the prologue and hanging on for the overall win. His Tour de France was an exercise in frustration as he was never able to get the better of Mark Cavendish.

  However, the 25-year-old American bounced back to win the Vattenfall Cyclassics and three stages of the Eneco Tour. Farrar's success continued at the Vuelta where he claimed one stage followed by the overall win at the Circuit Franco-Belge.

  Third place went to Heinrich Haussler, the sensation of the Spring Classics who not only gave Milano-Sanremo a nearly successful go, but also placed second in the Ronde van Vlaanderen. The Cervélo TestTeam rider finally got his big win of the year with an emotional victory in the 13th stage of the Tour de France at Colmar.

  Cyclingnews reader poll results - Most improved rider

  1. Bradley Wiggins: 6312
  2. Tyler Farrar: 2526
  3. Heinrich Haussler: 2068
  4. Edvald Boasson Hagen: 1511
  5. Philippe Gilbert: 572
  6. Tony Martin: 302
  7. Robert Gesink: 278
  8. Andre Greipel: 215
  9. Emma Pooley: 150
  10. Nino Schurter: 136

• 2009 Reader Poll: The grandest of them all

  

  Article published:

  January 7, 2010, 03:48

  By:

  Cycling News

  Le Tour the pinnacle according to Cyclingnews readers

  Ahhh, the Tour de France - picturesque, thrilling, the essence of summer in France... Cyclingnews readers took these into account by voting it the year's best stage race in our annual poll.

  La Grande Boucle was a clear winner, with 8,329 votes, a massive 59 percent of the ballot.

  It's clear to see why this year's edition of the world's biggest annual sporting event captured the imagination of our readers; the return of Lance Armstrong and subsequent spat with Alberto Contador, the continued rise of Andy and Frank Schleck, encapsulated in their performance on stage 17 (pictured below), Bradley Wiggins' brilliant fourth place overall - the equal highest ever for a British rider - and the dominance of a resurgent Astana squad.

  

  Over 4,000 votes behind was the Giro d'Italia, the centenary edition of the race and a blistering three weeks of competition enthralling readers from the start in Venice to the final day and all its drama in Rome. The likes of Carlos Sastre, Armstrong, Danilo Di Luca and overall champion Denis Menchov provided a fantastic event, befitting the amazing parcours, weather and atmosphere served up in cycling's sentimental homeland.

  A fairly distant third was the Vuelta a España, and although it garnered only 480 votes, it was by no means a poor cousin in terms of entertainment and drama. The heartbreak of Cadel Evans' stage 12 mechanical, Alejandro's triumphant statement in his homeland and Samuel Sanchez's gutsy fightback to finish second overall made it an entertaining spectacle.

  Races such as the Tour of California, which last year suffered from bad weather blues that forced a date change to May for this year's edition, plus Paris-Nice and Criterium du Dauphiné Libéré all enjoyed good patronage from Cyclingnews readers, but it was the passion that the Tour evokes that saw it again voted the year's best multi-day event.

  Cyclingnews 2009 Reader Poll results - Best stage race

  Tour de France: 8329
  Giro d'Italia: 4137
  Vuelta a España: 480
  Tour of California: 433
  Paris-Nice: 326
  Criterium du Dauphiné Libéré: 211
  Tour de Suisse: 154
   

• Bani says team doped him without his knowledge

  

  Article published:

  January 7, 2010, 09:02

  By:

  Cycling News

  Prosecutors investigating team for doping practices

  Eugenio Bani has said that his former team Ambra Cavallini Vangi “forced” him to take medications and that he did not know what they were. The 18-year-old, who tested positive for the pregnancy hormone HcG (Human chorionic gonadotrophin), has signed for this year with Amore & Vita despite a 21-month ban within Italy.

  “I never took substances myself,” Bani told the Gazzetta dello Sport. Team representatives “forced me constantly to take the substances. I was frequently injected with liquids. I was told they were important for my recovery from races.”

  Bani has filed suit against the team and public prosecutors are investigating. According to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the investigation has uncovered everything from intravenous and intramuscular ampoules, folic acid, vitamins, painkillers, and stimulants, as well as syringes stored in the refrigerator.

  He said he was surprised by the positive control last summer, saying he never took any medication on his own. “The only people who were giving me things were from the team,” Bani said.

  "The fact is you have to trust the team,” Bani noted. “That is the system. Otherwise there is no place for you, either there or in any other team. I am convinced that this is the case in many if not all youth teams.”

  Once a week he was given injections. "They said they were vitamins, were taken out of the refrigerator, already packaged in syringes. I have asked many times what was inside and always reassured me: tonics to regain strength. In the end what should you do? You trust them.”

  Despite everything, the youngster did not see the situation as hopeless. “We must start from here to review everything. What has happened to me can happen to anyone. I am convinced that I was not the only one who took the substance unwittingly. Only I have tested positive."

  Bani is looking forward to returning to racing with Ivan Fanini's Amore & Vita team. “I know I have the right qualities. I will show that you can ride clean even at the highest level. And I will succeed.”

• Fleeman volunteers to publish blood values online

  

  Article published:

  January 7, 2010, 09:50

  By:

  Shane Stokes

  Team Raleigh rider's results will appear on Bike Pure website

  British hill climb champion Dan Fleeman has undertaken to provide regular blood samples in 2010, despite being under no obligation to do so as part of a Continental squad.

  The Team Raleigh rider announced today that he has decided to personally pay for the screening in order to show that he is committed to the anti-doping cause. The test results began in October and will be taken at intervals of approximately a month and a half to every two months. They will be displayed on the www.bikepure.org website, with the first data to be published in the next few days.

  Fleeman was part of the biological passport in 2009 when he raced for the Cervélo Test Team. ProTour and Wildcard teams are obliged to undergo regular testing but this requirement is not in place for Continental squads. However he wants to continue providing samples in the interests of transparency.

  "I had a difficult season at Cervélo. My results weren't as good as I would have liked but I'm training hard for 2010 and very motivated to prove myself in Team Raleigh,” he said. “With the unfortunate distrust there is within the sport, if I have a great season, some small minded people will point the finger saying that as I'm no longer part of the bio-passport, the temptation to dope may be there.

  “I wish to show that, as I have done throughout my career, an athlete can be competitive in top level cycling without doping."

  The testing will be carried out by UK doctor Michael Stokes. Fleeman said that he will be providing samples more frequently than if he was part of the UCI’s monitoring system. "Under the bio-passport, riders have to be tested at least four times in any one year, whereas I will be testing every six to eight weeks. I would have liked to have been tested more often but Dr Michael Stokes, who will be carrying out the tests, advised against this as the volume of blood taken can have a detrimental effect on performance and iron levels."

  He has also committed to emailing his data to the UCI.

  Aside from collecting the data for those purposes, he said that there is also a benefit from an athletic point of view. “Doing regular blood tests also enables you to track your health and to watch out for early signs of overtraining,” he explained.

  The 27 year old was one of the first riders to become part of Bike Pure's anti-doping organization. It has over 15,000 amateur members plus a growing number of professionals. These include riders such as Jack Bobridge (Garmin Slipstream), Marco Pinotti (Columbia HTC), John Lee Augustyn, Chris Froome, Russell Downing (Team Sky), Dan Martin, Cameron Meyer, Robbie Hunter and Peter Stetina (Garmin-Slipstream), Nicolas Roche (Ag2r La Mondiale), Philip Deignan (Cervélo Test Team) and Daryl Impey (RadioShack).

  Bike Pure said in a statement that it is fully behind his initiative. "To have a rider of Dan's ability, go out of his way to provide the public with open and transparent analysis of his own blood levels on our website goes a long way. He'll have a busy season ahead anyway and to show his strong anti-doping stance says a lot about him as a person. Clearly the health aspects are a pivotal source of information for Dan and if this helps him gain the success he so deserves, then that can only be a good thing for the sport of cycling.”

  Racing with Raleigh

  Fleeman signed with the new Raleigh team in December and said that he wants to help the team grow. “The aim is that the team will ride the Tour de France in five years time,” he said, explaining that Raleigh has committed to increasing the budget as the years pass.

  The frame manufacturer has a strong history in the sport, previously backing a Dutch team which included riders of the calibre of1980 Tour winner Joop Zoetemelk, Hennie Keiper, Jan Raas, Gerrie Knetemann, Hennie Kuiper, Urs Freuler, Henk Lubberding and Johan van der Velde.

  The new incarnation will start small and grow each season. Fleeman’s first races are likely to be in Britain in March, although the team is still hoping to secure invites to some early European races. “The announcement of the project came about too late in the year [2009] to get into some events, but hopefully we’ll find some more races on the Continent that we can do,” he said.

  For more details, see www.bikepure.org.

• Hushovd lays out season goals

  

  Article published:

  January 7, 2010, 10:25

  By:

  Shane Stokes

  Norwegian pleased with form as season approaches

  This time last year, the big Norwegian sprinter and Classic rider Thor Hushovd was getting to know his new Cervélo Test Team companions, settling into the new squad and hoping a good season was in store.

  Things ultimately worked out very well, with the rider taking a number of wins including a stage of the Tour de France, the maillot vert of best sprinter plus the Het Nieuwsblad semi-Classic. The victory list was supplemented by stage triumphs in the Tours of California, Catalunya and Missouri, while third in both Paris-Roubaix and Milan-San Remo showed that his ambition of winning a one-day Monument is getting ever-closer.

  “The sensations are good,” Hushovd told Cyclingnews. “I think that is because I didn’t go too deep at the end of last year, so I could recover a bit, have a long break and then start back in training. I am feeling quite good.”

  In recent weeks, Hushovd did some road training from his base in Monaco, then at Christmas he switched locations and did some cross-country skiing for a change.

  Preparations now begin gaining pace, starting with a team training camp in Portugal that will put the final touches on his form prior to the start of the season.

  “After the camp, I’ll do Etoile de Bessèges, then the Tour of the Algarve,” he said of his schedule. “I think the next races are Het Nieuwsblad, Tirreno [Tirreno-Adriatico] and Milan-Sanremo. I will also do Flanders and Roubaix; in fact, the three main goals in the spring are Sanremo, Flanders and Roubaix.”

  After taking third behind Mark Cavendish (Columbia HTC) and Cervélo team-mate Heinrich Haussler in the first of those races last season, he had another near miss in Roubaix. He was away with eventual winner Tom Boonen coming towards the finish, but hit the deck and lost his chance.

  “Paris-Roubaix was good, although of course it was disappointing when I had the crash,” he said. “But the biggest [personal] success was certainly taking the green jersey in the Tour de France. That was the main highlight. It was good for the team to perform well and take two stages.”

  The Tour will once again provide a major focal point in 2010. There are two possible paths towards the race; after riding Gent-Wevelgem or the E3 Prijs, he’ll then compete in either the Bayern Rundfahrt and the Tour de Suisse, or the Tour of California and the Swiss Tour.

  “Then once in the Tour, the green jersey is the big target again,” he added.

  Last year, the Cervélo Test Team was determined to perform strongly early on in order to ensure an invite to the Tour de France. The squad is once again depending on a wildcard to the race and with a large number of teams fighting for a place, including the new Sky and RadioShack setups, it is not guaranteed that the surprise packet of 2009 will get the nod.

  Hushovd knows that the team has to produce the goods again this spring, but doesn’t appear too worried that they could be passed over.

  “You never know what could happen, but I am quite confident,” he said, when asked if he envisaged any possible disappointment. “We have Carlos Sastre on the team, who won the Tour de France two years ago, and I won the green jersey last year. The team also won two stages [Hushovd and Haussler], so I can’t understand why they should not invite us. I think it should be okay.”

  Providing they are there, the race is likely to be a showdown between the 31-year-old Norwegian and Mark Cavendish. The Briton took six stages last year but lost out on the chance to win his first green jersey after being declassified during the 14th stage, running from Colmar to Besancon. Hushovd ended the Tour ten points clear.

  They should go shoulder to shoulder in July, and once again later in the season. Both are expected to ride the Vuelta a España in preparation for the world road race championships in Geelong, Australia. Hushovd describes the latter as ‘very important’ and said that he’d try to take the rainbow jersey, 12 years after highlighting his talent with victory in the under 23 time trial world championship.