All of your cycling news: April 26, 2010

(c) Thierry Roge/Reuters

In today’s bicycle racing news, disappointing classics season for Quick Step, Rahsaan Bahati fined for unsportsmanlike conduct, Gerald Ciolek returns and more…

• Quick Step ended the spring classics season without a team win. Tom Boonen put in some strong performances, but the team did not seem there to support their leader. They have also been plagued by injuries in some of their “go to” riders.
• After undergoing tests at the Montegnee Hospital (Liege), Quick Step’s Sylvain Chavanel was diagnosed with a fracture at the base of his cranium. The fracture has not compromised his motor or sensory skills. As a precautionary measure, he will remain under observation at the Montegnee Hospital today and tomorrow, Tuesday, April 27th 2010, he will be flown to the local Châtellerault Hospital in France where he will be close to home and reunited with his family after further checks. Chavenel crashed in the final kilometers of Liege-Bastogne-Liege.
• Spaniard Jose Luis Arrieta suffered a fractured left elbow in a fall last week at the Tour of Trentino and will miss the Tour de Romandie, which begins Tuesday in Porrentruy.
• BMC Racing’s Karsten Kroon will undergo surgery today to repair the facial injuries he sustained in a crash during Wednesday’s Fleche Wallonne. Kroon suffered fractures to his cheekbone, nose and a bone under his right eye.
• Fresh off of his L-B-L win, Alexandre Vinokourov says that he would like to stand a step below teammate Alberto Contador on the Champs Elysee in the Tour de France. Whether the ASO will let him race remains to be seen.
• That said, Tour director Christian Prudhomme said, “Vinokourov has made a mistake and paid for it. Even in normal life is each given a second chance.”
• Rahsaan Bahati will pay a fine for unsportsmanlike conduct at the Dana Point Grand Prix, USA Cycling announced Friday. The race federation did not announce the amount of the fine and neither Bahati or USA Cycling officials were immediately available to comment. Earlier this month Bahati told VeloNews  that UnitedHealthcare-Maxxis rider Jake Keough had purposely crashed him in the final laps of the race. A few laps later Bahati, standing near the start-finish line, threw his sunglasses into the passing peloton.
• Floyd Landis will wear a big OUCH on his chest for another season. The OUCH Sports Medicine Center is new co-sponsor of the pro cycling team formed by Rashaan Bahati, now to be known as the OUCH-Bahati Foundation team.
• Gerald Ciolek (Milram) returns to racing at the Tour of Romandie this week after a ten week enforced break. Ciolek crashed at the Tour of Qatar in early February and had thereby a disruption of the acromioclavicular joint and sustained a scaphoid fracture.
• The Lampre-Farnese Vini team picked up Samsung as a new sponsor for Swiss races just before the start of the Tour of Romandie.
• Unlike previous years in which he traveled across Europe contesting both road and mountain events, Sven Nys will spend this summer racing mountain bikes in Belgium. He’s looking to stay on top of the MTB rankings to protect his place in Belgium’s roster for the next Summer Olympics.
• Giro d’Italia director Angelo Zomegnan announced that Alberto Contador has committed to racing the event in 2011.

Other Results:

• Karl Menzies (UnitedHealthcare-Maxxis) got the better of a group of sopping wet group of breakaway riders to win the 30th edition of the Athens Terrapin Twilight. The Tasmanian veteran powered away from the six-man move on the final lap of the event to take a decisive victory after nearly 90 minutes of racing under often torrential conditions.
• In the women’s event, Theresa Cliff-Ryan (Colavita/Baci) outkicked Sam Schneider (Tibco) and Erica Allar (Team Vera Bradley Foundation) in the finishing sprint.
• Philip Nielsen (Concordia) won the 8th and final stage of the Vuelta a Mexico, but the overall win went to Rock Racing’s Oscar Sevilla.