Sources: velonation.com, wort.lu

Andy Schleck is continuing to lose ground to his Tour de France rivals as his knee problems linger on. The 2009 Tour runner-up has had persistent problems in the joint this year and, according to the Luxembourg newspaper Wort, has been forced to head back home and undergo more treatment.

Schleck was originally due to start his season in the Challenge Majorca, running from February 11th, but had to scratch those plans due to the pain. He was told by doctors in Luxembourg to take a break from training and to work with physiotherapists, and duly did so.

He returned to Majorca last Tuesday, stating before the flight that he was feeling good. “[I’m] really happy, I got my knee pain-free and can get back on track,” he said on his Twitter feed, apologising for having to miss the Ruta del Sol.

The following day he said that he was able to ride without pain, but continued to feel some tenderness afterwards. Schleck returned to Luxembourg on Monday, having spent less than a week training on the island and, according to Wort, will now undergo alternative treatment to try to get to the bottom of the problem.

He stated before that he hoped to start his season in the Giro del Friuli, which takes place in exactly one week’s time. That will clearly now depend on how his knee responds to the latest treatment.

Schleck is likely to be concerned at the ongoing delays he is facing. Lance Armstrong, who finished just one minute and 13 seconds behind him in last year’s Tour, began racing over a month ago and has been training hard ever since. Alberto Contador, who beat him to take the yellow jersey to Paris, began his season last week in the Volta ao Algarve and won the mountain stage plus the final overall classification there.

In fact, every other rider in the top ten at last year’s Tour has started their season. Four of those have already taken victories; Contador had that impressive success in Portugal, Bradley Wiggins (4th in Paris) was part of the TTT-winning squad in the Tour of Qatar, Vincenzo Nibali (7th) won a stage plus the final classification in the Vuelta a San Luis and Christophe Le Mevel (10th) took the last stage plus the final GC in the Tour du Haut Var on Sunday.

Source

World cross-country mountain bike champion Burry Stander is in action on two continents in the space of days.

At the weekend the South African mixed it with the country’s top road bikers in the Amashova race in KwaZulu-Natal and tomorrow he’s in Spain where he takes on Tour de France runner-up Andy Schleck of Luxembourg in a unique match-up.

“I was just back in Europe in time for the Amashova weekend,” said Stander. ‘”First up was the somewhat muddy 70 kilometre MTB race which saw me completing the distance in 3hr 30min. It was seriously tough and slow going out there but I still managed to notch the win with (Specialized SA team-mate) Ben-melt Swanepoel in second spot.

‘Then on Sunday we made the trip down from Pietermaritzburg to Durban along the Comrades route by bike. All the SA domestic pro teams were present - Team Medscheme and MTN made the racing hard upfront and as we neared the finiah line of the 106km race the bunch was down to only 30 riders or so.

“I had a solid sprint by my standards and ended up ninth. I also managed to miss the huge bunch crash at the line which was caused by the timing mats lifting of the ground!”

Stander, a member of SASCOC’s OPEX programme of potential medallists at the 2012 Olympics, had this to say about tomorrow’s clash. “It’s to race Andy Schleck… we’re racing up a climb. I will be on the shorter MTB trail and he will take the road. It should be a fun experience!”

The question of who are the best cyclists - mountain-bikers or road disciplines - is always a hotly disputed one and tomorrow’s clash should go some way to settling the argument. According to UCI rankings, Stander is the world’s third-ranked mountain-biker and Schleck the country’s fourth ranked roadster.

To learn more about Burry, walk this way.

This interesting race was on October 22, but, to be honest, I still don't know who won:) But I think that it's friendship (usually in events like this friendship always win, no?).
And if you wanna see some photos of Andy, visit Andy's French fan-blog on skyrock (I decided do not copy photos, I don't know where the owner of the blog has found them, so...).

Source: Velonews.com



Photo credit © Isabelle Duchesne

Alberto Contador and his Astana team topped the season-long world rankings, realised Monday by UCI.
Sweeping to victory at the Tour de France, Contador and Astana racked up just enough points to win the final standings of the reworked "world ranking" that includes points collected during ProTour and Historic events on the UCI racing calendar.
The season wrapped up with Saturday's Giro di Lombardia, which constituded the 24th and final race of the UCI world calendar.
In the individual standings, Contador wins with 527 points to Alejandro Valverde, with 483 points, and Samuel Sanchez, third with 357.
In the team classification, Astana wins with 1,100 points to Caisse d'Epargne's 1,048. Columbia-HTC, which led the way with 85 on the season, ended with 957 points.
Curiously, Astana had only 22 victories all season, but most of them came in the World Calendar, allowing them to win the team classification in the UCI rankings even though six teams posted more victories throughout the year.
Spain led the world nation's ranking, with 1,756 points, followed by Italy, with 984, and Australia, in 3rd with 960.
Columbia-HTC won the season-long sweepstakes on the most numbers of wins across the UCI race categories with 85. Saxo Bank was second, with 43, and Garmin-Slipstream, powered by a very strong second half of the season, ranked third on season-long victories with 29.

Source: cyclingnews.com




Alberto Contador has spearheaded a dominant season for Spanish cycling after finishing on top of the International Cycling Union's (UCI) world rankings, announced on Monday. The Tour de France champion led a Spanish trio, with compatriots Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d'Epargne) and Samuel Sánchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) taking second and third in the individual rankings, respectively. Contador's trade team Astana finished the season at the top of the team rankings, while Spain finished well clear of Italy as the top nation.

Contador's success this season helped him become the inaugural champion in the UCI's world ranking system. The new system was implemented as a replacement for the ProTour rankings, which due to disputes between race organisers and the UCI had last year, failed to incorporate results from any of the three Grand Tours, Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix or Liège-Bastogne-Liège. The revised UCI World Calendar ensured that the rankings announced today include results from those seven events.

Despite competing in just four of the 14 UCI World Calendar events in 2009, Contador's victories at the Tour de France and Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco, and high finishes at Paris-Nice and the Dauphiné Libéré were enough to finish world number one. He finished with 527 points, 44 ahead of Vuelta a España winner Valverde (487 points) and 170 in front of Vuelta and Giro di Lombardia runner-up Sánchez (357 points).

Sánchez was one of the most prominent movers in the final world rankings. The Euskaltel rider moved from eighth to replace Andy Schleck in third place. Sánchez secured his position in the rankings with a second place finish in the final event on the UCI World Calendar, Saturday's Giro di Lombardia. The results of the Italian race also saw winner, Philippe Gilbert (Silence-Lotto), catapulted into the world top-10, from 20th to ninth place.

Grand Tour winning teams Astana and Caisse d'Epargne finished first and second in the team rankings, with Columbia-HTC finishing third. Silence-Lotto moved from eighth to sixth, by virtue of Cadel Evans' third place finish at the Vuelta and Gilbert's Lombardia win.

The efforts of their riders throughout the season saw Spain finished almost 800 points clear of Italy in the team rankings. Australian and Germany retained their positions in third and fourth, respectively. Gilbert's Lombardia triumph was enough to see Belgium replace Russia in fifth place.

Sourse: Velonews.com

AC: "My authentic rival is Andy Schleck. Looking at the time trial, it's better for me than last year. This Tour is better for me than last year, especially with a stage finish atop a climb so difficult as the Tourmalet.
If I have good laeg, I can take out a lot of time in the mountains going into the final time trial. Astana was the most-watched team during the past year. We have nothing to hide. I don't have any problems. I hope to be the leader of the team, but I'm still don't know where I'm going to be racing. Concerning a rivalry with Armstrong, I don't see it like that. I see Andy Schleck, myself and Armstrong as a favorites. I won't look just to Lance, but rather watch all my rivals."



AS: "At first glance, the entire Tour looks hard. The first week with the classics-type courses will require special attention. The second week, we're already in the mountains with the Jura and Alps. Those stages will be harder than they look on paper. And the third week is brutal. Tourmalet is a classic, big climb, which I like better anyway. The final time trial doesn't suit my abilities, but I'm improving and I will have to adapt. Contador will be the man to beat."



LA: "I think it's going to be a lot more open than last year. There isn't the team time trial and a lot of guys will be missing that. I was one never to say this Tour is harder than another.
They're always hard. And the strongest rider always win. (The rivalry with Contador) is good for cyclin, but honestly, I think he and I could do without it. It's good for the events. The biuldup to the Tour, in April, May and June, will be really intense. I think the Schleck brothers will be good and I think Wiggins can come back."

The Schlecks meet the press

An article on Velonews