One week after the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup began the second half of the season in Champéry, Switzerland, the circuit moves to the mountainous countryside bordering the Lombardia and Trentino regions in the northeast of Italy. Val di Sole (Valley of the Sun) was the location of the 2008 World Championships and is a fitting locale for the first triple event of the season, where all three disciplines - cross country, four cross and downhill - come together. The organizers have made adjustments ...

After a break from racing, Tejay Van Garderen (HTC-Columbia), will start his first race since June at the Clásica San Sebastian in Spain, this weekend. The American has had a successful season to date and capped it with a podium spot in June's Critérium du Dauphiné. The second part of his season will revolve around his first Grand Tour - the Vuelta a España - where he's already set some impressive goals. "I don't want to go there and just ride around," he told ...

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) dismissed the doping case appeal filed by the Italian cyclist Davide Rebellin against the decision of the Executive Committee of International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Friday. The IOC had disqualified Rebellin from the 2008 Olympic Games and withdrew his silver medal, and with this ruling CAS upheld the decision. Rebellin's sample from August 5, 2008, during the Olympic Games, eventually tested positive for EPO CERA. On August 9, 2008, he took part in the ...

Slovenian rider Tadej Valjavec has been cleared by his national anti-doping agency. The AG2R rider, currently suspended by his team, had been accused of blood doping within the framework of the UCI's Biological Passport in early May this year, with the questionable values dating back to 2009. However, according to Slovenian website siol.net , the disciplinary board of the Slovenian NAK ruled on Thursday, July 29, that there was not enough evidence to open disciplinary proceedings against Valjavec. ...

Kim Kirchen wants to come back to pro cycling next year despite suffering a heart attack at the Tour de Suisse in June. The Katusha rider made his first public appearance after awakening from a medically induced coma and coming out of hospital on July 8, attending the presentation of the Tour de France Gala criterium earlier this week. While the exact causes of his heart failure are still unknown, Kirchen hopes that he will be able to ride a bike again soon. "We have to wait and see," ...

After a five-week break from racing, Dominik Klemme (Saxo Bank) is looking to hit the ground running when he lines up for the Tour of Poland, August 1. The German will use the seven-day race as preparation for his first tilt at a Grand Tour, at the Vuelta, which starts August 28. "The training has been going well," Klemme told Cyclingnews . "I've had five weeks off and went for a holiday. But since then I've really ramped things up with a week at altitude followed by a week of interval ...

Fränk and Andy Schleck have officially announced that they will not be riding for Bjarne Riis' Saxo Bank cycling team next season. Instead the brothers will ride for a Luxembourg-based team in 2011. For months the pair were rumoured to be setting up a team based in their homeland, while Riis, struggling to find a backer for next season, had finally announced at the Tour de France that a new sponsor had been found to replace Saxo Bank, who are set to leave the sport at the end of the year. In ...

With team leader Alberto Contador set for the exit and likely to take four Spanish team-mates with him, Astana have started their rebuilding process by signing Robert Kiserlovski from Liquigas. The 24-year-old Croat, who finished 10th on his Giro d'Italia debut in May, has signed a two-year deal with the Kazakh team. "I will benefit from having time to adapt. For the first season I will be at the service of a team leader and then we will see," Kiserlovski said in the Croat press. Kiserlovski ...

Alessandro Ballan has been announced as the BMC team leader for the upcoming Tour of Poland, starting on Sunday, August 1. The former world champion intends to defend his title at the week-long stage race in Eastern Europe, where he won a stage last year before taking the overall classification. "Ballan comes out of the Tour de France in excellent form," said John Lelangue, sports director at BMC. Ballan placed second in the 15th stage of the Tour after having finished third at the Italian ...

France and the Netherlands face lining up with a reduced complement of riders at the World Championships Road Race for the second year in succession. The allocation of places for the event in Melbourne will be finalised based on the UCI’s world rankings of August 15. As things stand, with both nations lying outside of the top ten in the national standings, they will have only six riders on the start line as opposed to the full quota of nine. The current top ten as per the classification calculated ...

Hayden Roulston will compete in New Zealand’s Tour of Southland once again this year, with the HTC-Columbia rider announcing he’ll ride with the Calder Stewart Industries squad. Roulston started last year’s race while riding for Professional Continental outfit Cervelo Test Team, but Southland’s loss of International Cycling Union ranking this year allows him to take part despite having graduated to a ProTour outfit. "The status change is not a bad thing as it now allows ...

The USA Cycling National Racing Calendar is in its final stretch as the professional men and women teams each embark on the last three events scheduled. Luis Amaran and his Jamis-Sutter Home squad lead both the men’s individual and team classifications, while Cath Cheatley and her Colavita-Baci team top the women’s ranking. The next stop on the calendar for the men is the Alexian Brothers Tour of Elk Grove held this weekend outside of Chicago, Illinois. For the women it will be ...

HTC-Columbia might not have been as competitive on general classification at the Tour de France as hoped, but sport director Allan Peiper believes the Grand Tour has two of his riders in excellent form for this weekend’s Clásica San Sebastian in Spain. Peiper believes changes made to the race’s course will play into its hands, with the team aiming to get Michael Rogers or Kanstantsin Sivtsov into a winning position. "They've completely restructured the last part of the course, ...

Fränk and Andy Schleck have officially announced that they will not be riding for Bjarne Riis next season. Instead the brothers will ride for a Luxembourg team in 2011. For months the pair were rumoured to be setting up a team based in their homeland, while Riis, struggling to find a backer for next season, had finally announced at the Tour de France that a new sponsor had been found to replace Saxo Bank, who are set to leave the sport at the end of the year. In a message to Cyclingnews , Andy ...

Frenchman Sylvain Chavanel, who wore the Tour de France's maillot jaune and won two stages this year, has been forced to skip the upcoming ProTour race Clasica San Sebastian due to an infected toe. The Quick Step rider suffered toward the end of the Tour from the injury to his right toe, and he and the team decided against his participation in the Spanish race this weekend so as not to jeopardize the rest of his season. "On Tuesday I rode in a criterium, which is a short race that lasts about ...

The Italian Olympic Committee's Anti-doping prosecutor has officially recommended a two-year suspension for Franco Pellizotti for violation of the WADA Anti-doping code. The 32-year-old was provisionally suspended by his Liquigas-Doimo team in May after the UCI announced that it had detected abnormal values in the profile of Pellizotti's blood passport. The irregularities date back to a sample taken after he placed second in the 2009 Giro d'Italia and before the 2009 Tour de France, where Pellizotti ...

North America's top female mountain bikers are having a stellar year on the World Cup cross country circuit. They occupy five of the top 15 spots in the World Cup standings after four of six rounds. The best of them, American Willow Koerber (Subaru/Trek), sits second overall with 640 points, just 15 behind series leader Italian Eva Lechner (Colnago Arreghini Sudtirol). "All of us are riding so well at the World Cups," said sixth-ranked Georgia Gould (Luna) to Cyclingnews . "Sometimes, ...

Alexander Wetterhall and Daniel Teklehaymanot have signed with Cervelo TestTeam as stagiaires for the remainder of the season. Wetterhall, 24, and from Sweden, started his career as a mountain biker before moving to the road in 2008. During his first full season on tarmac, he became the national champion in the individual time trial. This year, he has already taken the overall in the Irish tour FDB Insurance Rás and a stage victory in the Ringerike Grand Prix. His first race in Cervelo colours ...

While his Bbox Bouygues Telecom team-mates celebrated Thomas Voeckler’s stage victory at Bagnères-de-Luchon, Pierrick Fédrigo was, he later admitted, on the verge of breakdown. The Bbox puncheur felt his chance of adding to his two previous Tour stage wins had gone. The following day’s stage to Pau offered him one final chance for victory, and the prospect of failing to take advantage of that last opportunity was shredding his nerves. This is where former football coach ...

Endurance racers, hang on tight and prepare for the oldest, 100-miler in the Kenda National Ultra Endurance (NUE) Mountain Bike Series, The Wilderness 101, in Coburn, Pennsylvania, not far from the town of State College. Stop number five on this year's NUE circuit has roots dating back to the early 90s. "The 101", as named by many, had an initial short run of just three years, suffering an early death, before being resurrected in 2001 by promoter Chris Scott of Shenandoah Mountain Touring. ...