La Ruta ready to pay out prize money

Organisers of Costa Rica's prestigious mountain bike race, La Ruta de los Conquistadores, have received confirmation from the Costa Rican Cycling Federation (FECOCI) that all doping tests from last year's edition have come back negative. The race took place from November 14-17, but it had taken until last week to have all the samples tested at a UCI accredited laboratory in Madrid where the federation conducts all its anti-doping analysis.

A total of 20 riders were tested in the 2007 edition of La Ruta, the only multi-stage mountain bike race in Costa Rica to implement such testing.

"We are now allowed to release the prizes to the top five finishers in each category. We are going to deliver more than $25,000 USD in both cash and gifts prizes; such as several amazing Fox Shox (suspension products)," said PR director Luis Rueda.

Race director Diego Víquez added: "I guess the time was finally worth it. We don't know why it took almost five months for them to examine and send out the results, but the important thing here is that all the racers that were tested turned out to be clean once again; all of them, local and non-local guys."

The five category winners from 2007, Federico Ramírez (BCR-Pizza Hut-Powerade-KHS), Susan Haywood (Trek-Volkswagen), William Valverde (Vedoba y Obando), Mike Charuk (Team Whistler) and Sandy Mitchell (Gerick Cycle Nelson) will all receive free entry to this year's race, to be held November 12-15.