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All of your cycling news: April 23, 2010

April 23rd, 2010 by Al Fresco 2 Comments

In today’s bicycle racing news, Lance Armstrong returns at Tour of the Gila, Belgium honors Eddy Merckx with a stamp, Liege-Bastogne-Liege notes, results from Tour of Mexico and more…

Lance Armstrong will make his return to racing next week at New Mexico’s Tour of the Gila. Like last year, Armstrong will ride under the Mellow Johnny’s name. This year, he’ll be joined at the race by Levi Leipheimer and Jason McCartney.
Omega Pharma-Lotto manager Marc Sargeant says that the team “only has ourselves to blame” for the departure of former team leader Cadel Evans to BMC. Obviously, they would have liked for the 2010 World Champ to be wearing their colors this year as he surged to a win at Fleche Wallonne.
Cadel Evans still believes that he can win the Tour de France. He says that he has learned a lot from his mistakes last year and that the support structure at BMC better allows him to arrive fresher and stronger at thestart of a race and focus on winning. Before heading to France, Evans will also race in next month’s Giro d’Italia.
Alberto Contador played down Wednesday’s loss, telling Sporza “I want to win everywhere, but (what) ultimately counts is the Tour de France.”
Cervelo’s Theo Bos has had a strong start to his season including victories in the Tour of Castllië and Leon and the Tour of Murcia. He wants to continue to improve this season with the eventual goal of taking some stages at the Vuelta a Espana.
Belgium’s postal service is issuing a new stamp in honor of the 65th birthday of Eddy Merckx, the country’s greatest sportsman of all time. His birthday does not actually come until June 17th.
Retired pro cyclist Stephen Roche believes Team Sky will face a steep learning curve at this year’s Tour de France. Roche says Sky’s Tour chances hinge on the performance of star recruit Bradley Wiggins. “If he does well the others will roll in behind him,” he said. “But at this kind of level everything has to be right. For the Tour de France, the planning has to be right and the riders have to listen to the experienced individuals on the team.”
The Telenet Fidea Team will start participating in a number of road races, starting with the Omloop der Kempen on May 9th, to prepare for the 2010/11 cyclocross season.
Dominican Republic cyclist Leonardo Grullon died on Thursday after he and four other cyclists were hit by a truck while training for the Pan American Championships. An unidentified truck driver apparently fell asleep and hit the group near the mountainous community of Jarabacoa, northwest of Santo Domingo, according to the Dominican Cycling Federation.
After colliding with a guardrail during the Fleche Wallonne, BMC’s Karsten Kroon says that he looks “ridiculous”. He hopes to race again by mid-May.
Juraj Sagan will sign a contract with Liquigas. That was one of the conditions for extending the contract of brother Peter.
Former Belgian champion Niko Eeckhout (AN Post-Sean Kelly) will have to wait one month before resuming competition, his team said Friday. He suffered a fracture of a vertebra following a fall in the GP Cerami in early April, but was not disagnosed until a week later after playing the Brabant Arrow and GP Denain.

Liege-Bastogne-Liege:

Radio Shack’s team for LBL will be Matthew Busche, Ben Hermans, Chris Horner, Andreas Klöden, Sergio Paulinho, Yaroslav Popovych Ivan Rovny and Haimar Zubeldia.
Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) says that his immediate focus is on the Tour de France, but he’ll ride L-B-L to support his teammates, many of whom he’ll look to for support in the Tour.
Fresh off of his overall win at the Giro del Trentino, Alexandre Vinokourov will join Astana team leader Alberto Contador to take on Liege-Bastogne-Liege. The complete team will be Alberto Contador (Spa), Dimitri Fofonov (Kaz), Andriy Grivko (OEK), Maxim Iglinskiy (Kaz), Benjamin Noval (Spa), Oscar Pereiro (Spa), Gorazd Štangelj (SLN) and Alexandre Vinokourov (Kaz).
Encouraged by his success in the Amstel Gold Race, Philippe Gilbert is confident for L-B-L. “I know it will not be easy, I am expected,” he said. “But my success in the Amstel allows me to be calm and relaxed. I can run on the defensive. This year, there is no question of anticipating attacks like a year ago, at Sprimont. I can follow and rely on my top speed. In this, the coast of Ans is ideal for me, it rises and after, it can be played in a sprint which I fear nobody (can do) after 260 miles.”
Pieter Weening will replace Koos Moerenhout in Rabobank’s roster. Moerenhout is sick. The rest of the team will be Robert Gesink, Laurens ten Dam, Bram Tankink, Oscar Freire, Grischa Niermann and Paul Martens.
In top condition for the first time this season, HTC-Columbia’s Tony Martin will be on the hunt for an impressive result in Sunday’s race. “Tony’s had a difficult start to the season with a knee injury that’s kept him out of the running, but he’s finally come through and should be able to do a good ride on Sunday,” comments HTC-Columbia’s sports director, Valerio Piva. The complete team will be Michael Albasini (Swi); Tejay Van Garderen (USA); Rasmus Guldhammer (Den); Craig Lewis (USA); Tony Martin (Ger); Maxime Monfort (Bel); Martin Velits (Svk); Peter Velits (Svk).
“One day I will make the classics a major goal and have my first part of the season built around coming here and trying to win one of them,” Alberto Contador said on the eve of Liège-Bastogne-Liège. “This year I am here to learn more about these races so that I can come back to challenge for victory.”

Other Results:

The newly amateur Rock Racing squad continues to dominate at the Tour of Mexico. Lucas Macias won Thursday’s fourth stage and Francisco Mancebo was still in the lead. Local rider Alejandro Flavio de Luna (Spidertech) beat compatriots Cuautlaha Jesús Gomez and Moises Aldape to take the fifth stage, but Francisco Mancebo retained the leadership of the overall standings.