Cycling News round-up for July 29, 2009

The UCI ProTour resumes with the Clasica Ciclista San Sebastian in Spain this Saturday, and then continues with the Tour of Poland which runs from August 2-8. Teams are beginning to submit their final rosters for these races, a selection of which are below.

Caisse d'Epargne for Tour of Poland

Andrey Amador, Anthony Charteau, Vasil Kiriyenka, Pablo Lastras, David López, Alberto Losada, Ángel Madrazo, Dani Moreno.

Lampre-NGC for Tour of Poland

Marzio Bruseghin, Vitaliy Buts, Angelo Furlan, Francesco Gavazzi, David Loosli, Manuele Mori, Marcin Sapa and the World Champion Alessandro Ballan.

AG2R La Mondiale for Tour of Poland

Aurélien Clerc, Blel Kadri, Yuriy Krivtsov, Tanel Kangert, Alexandr Pliuschin, Nicolas Rousseau, Gatis Smukulis, Tadej Valjavec

Katusha for Tour of Poland

Laszlo Bodrogi, Pavel Brutt, Nikita Eskov, Denis Galimzyanov, Serguei Klimov, Guennadi Mikhsylov, Alexander Serov and Danilo Napolitano.

AG2R La Mondiale for San Sebastian

José Luis Arrieta, Alexander Efimkin, Stéphane Goubert, Julien Loubet, Rinaldo Nocentini, Christophe Riblon, Nicolas Roche, Jean Charles Senac

Katusha for San Sebastian

Alexandre Botcharov, Joan Horrach, Serguei Ivanov, Vladimir Karpets, Luca Mazzanti, Evgeni Petrov, Filippo Pozzato, Ivan Rovny.

Delfosse extends with Landbouwkrediet-Colnago, Vandenbergh with Katusha

Stijn Vandenbergh also extended his contract with Katusha for the next two seasons, according to his management company.

Cycling stars sign up to light up Blackpool Nocturne

As British cycling celebrates a wildly successful Tour de France, the strongest criterium field assembled in the UK this season is set to light up Blackpool on Saturday night (August 1).

Riders include Russell Downing (CandiTV squad), Dean Downing and Kristian House (Rapha Condor) Dan Lloyd (Cervelo TestTeam), Antonio Tauler, Franco Marvulli, Robbie Hunter and Daryl Impey (Barloworld) and Rob Hayles, Ed Clancy and Ian Wilkinson (Halfords Bikehut).

Blackpool will be Impey's first race since he won the Tour of Turkey in April despite a violent crash with Theo Bos that left him with extensive injuries.

The Blackpool Nocturne is free to attend and will take place around Blackpool Tower between 6pm and 10pm on Saturday 1st August. Go to www.nocturneseries.com for full details and to enter the races and visit www.visitblackpool.com for ideas to make a weekend of it.

BikeNZ gets performance grant increase

Elite cyclists in New Zealand will make a better living thanks to an increased performance grant system from Sport and Recreation New Zealand (SPARC).

SPARC's Performance Enhancement Grants (PEGS) will now see a world champion in an Olympic discipline receive $60,000, up from $40,000 awarded previously.

BikeNZ High performance Director, Mark Elliott said the increased grants from SPARC will play a key part in support for potential medallists in London.

"It's important we recognise world class performance" said Elliott. "National Sports Organisations now have more control and can target athletes who they believe will perform in the next three years.

A key change to PEGS allows targeted sports a discretionary annual fund of $50,000 to support athletes who do not meet the PEGS criteria.

"The changes allow us to look at what an athlete's potential is for the future, rather than looking retrospectively at past results. SPARC recognises their targeted Olympic sports can manage their athletes' performance development over time.

"BikeNZ can now fund athletes earlier in their career, which is especially important in disciplines such as BMX or Points Racing on the track where the best prepared athletes can crash in the first corner, for instance. The changes acknowledge the long term investment of an athlete in development and performance. "

Web presence for Grendene

Lampre-NGC's young neo pro Andrea Grendene scored his first professional podium on the first stage of the Brixia Tour last week. His team proudly announced this and gave a link to the rider's personal web site. Fans can see bio, news, photos and video at www.andreagrendene.it.

Globalbike wins award

An American cycling team - globalbike (presented by Catoma Outdoor Adventure Shelters) - was awarded the "Best Project by a Professional Sports Team" at the Beyond Sport Summit held in London, England July 7-9, 2009, celebrating the world's best sport-led social innovation projects.

The team was selected for their role in promoting the non-profit organization - globalbike, which supplies bicycles in developing countries to enable care workers to address some of the world's most challenging problems like inadequate health care, poverty, poor sanitation, and lack of education

The internationally prestigious award was presented to globalbike by Doug Ullman, Chair of Lance Armstrong Foundation.

"This is very exciting for globalbike. We are delighted to win the award considering the competition we were up against. The other projects were excellent and I commend them for their work," said Kelly Lowry, globalbike board member, who accepted the award.

The award recognizes the team's contribution to connecting cycling enthusiasts in the United States to people and places in the developing world where bicycles are a sustainable and reliable form of transportation that can vastly improve quality of life. Prior to collaborating with the cycling team, globalbike was a small grassroots organization that primarily relied on word of mouth marketing.