Lance Armstrong heads to the mountains + more race news

There will be no Busch beer involved….

Lance Armstrong headed to the mountains around Aspen to do some final high altitude training before heading to France to recon some key stages of the Tour. Coach Chris Carmichael says that he is focusing on climbing efforts that more closely mimic race conditions. Carmichaeal’s tests indicate that Lance has recovered from his efforts at the Giro and that his is producing more watts at his lactate threshold than when he was last tested on April 19th. So far, Armstrong has indicated via his Twitter account that he has ridden the routes for Stages 16 and 17.

More Tour de France News:

• Pierre Bordry, the president of anti-doping agency AFLD, says his drugs testers will treat Armstrong like any other rider. “He is probably a great sportsman and from that point of view he is not a rider like any other,” Bordry told The Associated Press in an interview at his office on Paris’ Left Bank. “But he should be treated like the others when it comes to the fight against doping.”
• Former professional cyclist Jörg Jaksche raised a lot of hackles when he said that the winner of the 2009 Tour de France will be a doper and that will be the way of the world for some years going forward.
• French veteran Christophe Moreau will headline Agritubel in what’s expected to be his final Tour de France.
• Quick Step announced eight of their riders for the Tour de France. The ninth rider will be either Tom Boonen or Allan Davis depending on the decision of the French courts, which is expected tomorrow. Boonen has scheduled a press conference for 5 o’clock in the evening tomorrow.
• Playitas – a Spanish holiday resort operated by travel services company Apollo, has signed on as a co sponsor for the Saxo Bank team. New kit is expected to be ready in time for the Tour de France.
• HTC Corporation, a manufacturer of mobile phones, has announced a partnership with the Columbia Highroad team that will go into effect at the Tour. The team currently called Columbia-Highroad, and known in 2008 and 2009 as the team with the most victories in professional cycling, will compete as “Team Columbia-HTC” and will present the new team uniform in Monaco on July 3, the day before the start of the 96th Tour de France.

Racing News:

• The Ceramica Flaminia team has signed Italian bad boy Ricardo Ricco to a contract that will take effect immediately after his doping ban expires in April of next year. Ricco was found to be doping during last year’s Tour de France be received a slightly shorter ban for cooperating with authorities.
• The Tour of Utah (August 18-23) will feature at least eight professional teams this year, including: BMC Racing; Garmin-Slipstream, OUCH-Maxxis, Bissell, Team Type 1, Land Rover-ORBEA, Fly V Australia, and Colavita-Sutter Home.
• Johnny Hoogerland has extended with the Vacansoleil team through 2011.
• Former world road champion Zinaida Stahurskaia (2000) was killed Thursday in a training accident after being hit by a car. She was 38. Stahurskaia won the 2000 world title and the 2002 women’s Tour de France, but saw her legacy tainted when she served a two-year racing ban in 2006.
• Taylor Phinney scored a fifth-place finish in Belgium’s ITW Oetingen pour Thomas De Gendt on Wednesday. The UCI 1.2 race in Belgium attraced 200 U23 riders and covered 170 kilometers.
• Andrei Kashechkin hopes to be back racing by early August. The former Astana rider tested positive for homologous blood transfusion in the summer of 2007.
• Niko Eeckhout of the An Post-Sean Kelly team will have to pass on Sunday’s Belgian National Championships due to knee problems. He won the 2006 championships.
• A documentary about Team Garmin Chipotle’s progression to being a Pro Tour team will have it’s debut on the Sundance Channel tonight at 9 p.m.
• The AG2R team has signed Maxime Bouet for the next two seasons. The 22 year old rider had been with Agritubel and has had 4 wins this season.
• For the second year running, Columbia-Highroad’s Frantisek Rabon (Czech Republic), Kim Kirchen (Luxembourg), Edvald Boasson Hagen (Norway), Bert Grabsch (Germany) and Marco Pinotti (Italy) have captured their respective countries’ individual time trial titles. The same five Columbia-Highroad riders also won gold in the same event back in 2008.
• Kristian House beat a host of Olympic superstars to claim the first major win of his cycling career at the British National Road Race Championships. The relatively unknown Canterbury rider won the national jersey in a time of four hours and 4.41 seconds from runner-up Dan Lloyd and Peter Kennaugh.
• Ivan Basso was subjected to a surprise anti-doping control at his home in Cassano Magnago this morning. He was last tested in late April, just before the start of the Giro.
• The analysis of the “B” sample of Katusha’s Christian Pfannberger confirmed the presence of the banned blood booster EPO, Austrian anti-doping officials said Monday. The 29-year-old Pfannberger tested positive for EPO in an out-of-competition test March 19. He faces a possible lifetime ban, having already served a suspension from 2004 to 2006 for using testosterone.

Tags: Agritubel, allan davis, ASO, astana, BMC Racing, Christian Pfannberger, Columbia Highroad, Edvald Boasson Hagen, garmin chipotle, Johnny Hoogerland, katusha, kim kirchen, Lance Armstrong, Luxembourg, marco pinotti, National Championships, Quick Step, Racing News, ricardo ricco, Sean Kelly, Sean Kelly Team, Slipstream, Taylor Phinney, Team Columbia, Team Type 1, The Saxo Bank, Tom Boonen, Tour de France News, UCI, vacansoleil