Bike World News

Germany reports improved doping control compliance, Graeme Browne is Rabobank’s Aussie for the Tour Down Under, Vuelta may return to Basque region after long absence and more….

• Germany’s National Anti-Doping Agency says that compliance with doping tests have improved throughout 2009 and that the number of unsuccessful attempts at doping controls have been greatly reduced.
• The Cervelo Test Team will have their first team meeting tomorrow in Basel, Switzerland. The meeting will mainly serve to introduce the newest recruits, receive team materials and look at early season race calendars. After the meeting, some of the team members will travel to Italy to visit some the headquarters of some of the companies that collaborate with the team.
• Phillipe Gilbert estimates that he put in 35000 kilometers on the bike on 2009 and expects to do as many next year. He lives in Monaco now, so he’ll be able to make an early start to his winter training.
• Graeme Brown will be Rabobank’s sole Aussie in the Tour Down Under. The team is aiming to be very competitive, with Stef Clement, Rick Flange, Tom Leezer, Koos Moerenhout, Jos van Emden and Pieter Weening rounding out the squad. The team includes the national champion on the road (Moerenhout), the national time trial champion (Clement) and a former winner of a stage in the Tour de France (Weening).
• Diquigiovanni-Androni came out on top of the UCI Americas Tour for 2009, finishing ahead of Mexico’s Tecos de Guadalajara team and the U.S. Kelly Benefit Strategies team.
• Political change in the Basque regional parliament may lead to the Vuelta returning to the region for the first time in 32 years. In recent decades, the Grand Tour skipped the troubled region for safety reasons, fearing attacks from the ETA separatist organization. Spanish sports minister Jaime Lissavetzky welcomed the news, saying that the decision expressed the feeling of the region’s populace, and that they have the right to see the race. A spokesman for the liberal-centrist party Unión Progreso y Democracia called the decision “a sign of normality.”
• The Roubaix Lille Metropole team has recruited Clement Lhotellerie for the 2010 season. Suspended for five months last April after testing positive for methylhexanamine, he was dropped by the Vacansoleil squad. Lhotterie raced in Sunday’s Asper-Gavere cyclocross race and will contest the French national cyclocross championships in his new colors in January 2010.
• Milram’s Artur Gajek has the swine flu and will miss the team’s late November training camp. This will also likely affect his place on the team’s roster for the Tour Down Under.
• The International Olympic Committee has asked Davide Rebellin to return his silver medal from the 2008 Beijing road race. Rebellin tested positive for third generation EPP drug CERA at the event.

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