First Edition Cycling News for February 26, 2005Edited by Jeff Jones & Hedwig Kröner 40th Tirreno-Adriatico presentedThe 40th edition of Tirreno-Adriatico, a one-week stage race preceding Milano-Sanremo, was presented in San Benedetto del Tronto in Italy on Friday. Taking place from March 9-15, the competition was proudly called "the World's of spring stages", the ideal prelude to Milano-Sanremo (March 19) for some riders. Taking part will be the twenty ProTeams, as well as Italian squads Acqua & Sapone-Adria Mobil, Ceramiche Panaria-Navigare and Naturino-Sapore Di Mare. The stages are as follows: Stage 1 - March 9: Civitavecchia-Civitavecchia - 160 km Gerolsteiner struggling with 'fluGerman team Gerolsteiner has been juggling the team line-ups for the Swiss races of Chiasso and Lugano this week-end. Fabian Wegmann, who placed fourth in Chiasso last year, cannot participate due to the 'flu, as well as Georg Totschnig and Thomas Ziegler. Fortunately, team leader Davide Rebellin is in good health and may be up to a first victory this season at the GP Chiasso. "The race will be very hard," said Directeur sportif Christian Henn. "Good climbing is what you need here, so it could be a course for Davide." Rebellin has won the race once already, in 2001, and will have the aid of Markus Zberg, who finished eighth last year. "One week before the first ProTour race, Paris-Nice, it's important to strain the body once more," Henn added. Gerolsteiner for GP Chiasso (Saturday, February 26): Markus Fothen, Andrea Moletta, Volker Ordowski, Davide Rebellin, Ronny Scholz, Marco Serpellini, Marcel Strauss, Markus Zberg. On the next day, the following riders will start at GP Lugano: Markus Fothen, Andrea Moletta, Volker Ordowski, Michael Rich, Ronny Scholz, Marco Serpellini, Marcel Strauss. LPR for GP Chiasso and GP Lugano: Alberto Tiberio, Andrea Del Biaggio, Luca Nardello, Mauro Santambrogio, Aitor Hernandez, Elio Aggiano, Ivan Fanelli, Giuseppe Muraglia, Ivan De Gasperi. Different views on Clasica AlmeriaOn the hilly parcours of the Clasica Almeria, a one day-race totaling 173,4 km with start and finish in the Southern Spanish city of Almeria, the peloton will face three Cat. 3 climbs next Sunday. While T-Mobile's directeurs sportifs figure that the conditions are ideal for a breakaway's victory - just like last year, when French Jerome Pineau took the sprint of an escape group - team Gerolsteiner takes the view that the race should end in a bunch sprint. "It's a terrain that suits Danilo Hondo," said Gerolsteiner's DS Raimund Dietzen. "We have to see to it that the race finishes in a sprint, if our riders can't manage to breakaway in the right group." A team of eight will start for Gerolsteiner in Almeria, but T-Mobile will only have five riders taking part. "Initially, we had considered Tobias Steinhauser and Paco Lara," said T-Mobile Team spokesman Luuc Eisenga. "However, Tobias hasn't recovered from his flu and Paco crashed at the Tour of Valencia. His injuries aren't too bad, but a start at Almeria isn't an option yet." Giuseppe Guerini, one of the team's climbers, will lead the reduced T-Mobile squad, completed by young guns Bernhard Kohl, Marcus Burghardt and Bas Giling, as well as Sergey Yakovlev. "It won't be easy for our riders. But our new riders are hot, and together with the experienced pros Guerini and Yakovlev they might spring a little surprise," says Eisenga. Gerolsteiner at Clasica Almeria: Robert Förster, Danilo Hondo, Frank Høj, Sven Krauss, Sebastian Lang, Sven Montgomery, Matthias Russ, Peter Wrolich. T-Mobile: Giuseppe Guerini, Bernhard Kohl, Marcus Burghardt, Bas Giling, Sergey Yakovlev. Illes Balears: David Arroyo, José Luis Carrasco, Sergi Escobar, Isaac Gálvez, Chente García, Iván Gutiérrez, Cayetano Julià, Vladimir Karpets. Fiedler hangs it up at Revolution 8Revolution 8 has announced the participation of sprint legend Jens Fiedler on February 26 at the Manchester Velodrome. Fiedler has been a hero of track sprinting since his first Olympic gold medal in 1992, and since then has gone on to achieve five world titles and another two Olympic golds. Fiedler will quit track cycling after Revolution 8, although he already said Goodbye at the Berlin Sixday. "It is definitely my last appearance," he said in Manchester before the race. "I officially retired at the Berlin Sixday but I had agreed to ride Revolution so I am looking forward to my last race there." In the future, Fiedler will be supporting and managing young riders in Germany. For his last race, he will be teaming up with Germans Daniel Giese and Robert Eichfeld in the feature sprint event, a Germany versus Great Britain head to head Team Sprint. In the endurance field, Sixday stars Bruno Risi and Franco Marvulli will make their first Revolution appearance, challenging Matt Gilmore and Iljo Keisse, Alexander Aeschbach and Jimmi Madsen, Andreas Beikirch and Gerd Dorich as well as Rob Hayles and Chris Newton. These riders will fight it out in a Team Elimination Race, one-km Madison Time Trial and 20 km Madison. Other features for the season finale include the Kilometre record attempt by Victoria Pendleton and the Revolution Future Stars competition, where current leader Steven Burke will try to hold off Andy Tennant and Adam Blythe for the crown of the first ever Revolution Future Stars Champion. Irish season launchesBy Tommy Campbell, Irish Independent, Evening Herald, Sunday Independent With musical chairs being played out in the Board Room of Cycling Ireland by the administrators, and the imminent departure of the CEO, Stuart Hallam, whose contract is not being renewed, at least the racing in Ireland will go ahead thanks to the professionalism of the clubs in the four provinces. Launching the season in Bray on Saturday, the local club will cater for all categories from the clubhouse on the Upper Dargle Road at 11 o'clock sharp. On Sunday the action switches to Tralee in Co. Kerry, for a midday start where the Earl of Desmond/Tralee Bicycle Club promotes the 52nd edition of the Matt Lacey Trophy. The event commemorates a cyclist who contributed a great deal to the sport in the town. Normally, Tralee got the wheels in motion first, but Bray Wheelers have certainly taken the plunge by coming off the blocks so early in the season. From the calendar of listed events, they will be busy up to September. Fortunately the club has expanded in the last few years and with one of the biggest memberships in the entire country and the expertise of the organisation, they are well capable of any task that comes their way. With the exception of the cyclo-cross events and the recent outing by a seven man team to the Telekom Malaysia Le Tour de Langkawi last month, it will be difficult to pigeonhole the fancied candidates. Of course with 10 days racing for the team in Asia, they will have a distinct advantage, but with the weather here at home turning sour in the last few days they may find the going difficult. Unfortunately, the Irish team also suffered in the Southern Hemisphere with bouts of illness which resulted in only three of the team surviving to the finish in Kuala Lumpur. Of the three who got to the finishing line after days of competition in temperatures which even the locals found hard to endure, Stephen Gallagher and Paul Griffin are away in foreign fields engaging in new contracts for the season. Roger Aiken, the current national cyclo-cross champion who settled in well in the hurly burly of pro racing in Malaysia, may well come to Bray, where he would be regarded as one to note. If so, he'll meet up with Paul Healion who inexplicably missed the cut on day one of Langkawi, citing illness. Paul has the pedigree, but he was robbed of showing his expertise in the sprints which were all the rage in Langkawi this year. His chief mentor, Michael Lawless was absolutely gutted when he failed to complete day one. "Paul went to Malaysia all fired up after a very strong stint in Australia. He was devastated. He had prepared well and I have a feeling he'll do the business in Bray. Rather than pack his bags and return to Ireland, he stayed on and got valuable training miles, starting off each day at least three hours before the stage started. As far I am concerned this was just a bleep on the horizon and hopefully in Bray, we should see what he is made of," said Michael. Another one to suffer the ill effects of a bad start in Malaysia was Sean Lacey, a nephew of the organiser of Sunday's 'Lacey Trophy.' It went horribly wrong for Sean when he punctured on the first day and from then on it was catch-up for the Limerick University student in mathematics. He got over the initial hiccup but the fact that he languished in the bottom half of the General Classification for the remainder of the event did not help his confidence and on the penultimate day, he along with 23 other competitors succumbed to one of the hottest days in the region for many a long day. Sean no doubt wants to lay that ghost to rest on Sunday when he not only carries favouritism, but he'll be the main man for the promoting club in the absence of last year's winner Paul Griffin, who smashed the record for the race. He got well inside the two hour marker which organiser Matt Lacey said, "Paul was on fire last year as he had just returned from Malaysia and literally did a blinder on the course which in my opinion is not an easy one, considering on the day the winds were not conducive to combating the elements." Croatian MTB race changesBecause of financial and technical reasons, the organiser of Croatian E1 MTB race Grand Prix Istria has announced the change of the race's name, date and venue. The event will now be called Istria Terra Magica Bike and take place on April 24 instead of April 17, in the venue of Vrsar instead of Kanegra. Istria Terra Magica will be part of an International MTB Challenge called Off Road Cup Grand Prix Windtex 2005 (www.offroadcup.it). More information: www.istra.hr/terramagica.
DogFish Indy cycling teamThe Indianapolis, USA based DogFish Indy cycling team has announced its team roster for the 2005 racing season. While Dogfish racing has been around for many years in St. Louis, this will be a new chapter for the team. The squad is made up of former elite collegiate riders at Indiana and Purdue University. Most importantly, DogFish Indy will race to benefit IU Riley Children's Hospital. The squad will primarily compete in races throughout the midwest and will team up with the St. Louis squad to compete in various NRC races throughout the country. DogFish Indy's top riders include Matt Moore, Jason Woods, and Michael Kehrberg. Along with a strong and experienced supporting cast, the team looks forward to a successful spring and summer. Click here for the full team roster (All rights reserved/Copyright Knapp Communications Pty Limited 2005) |
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