Bike World News

In today’s cycling news, Europe reacts to the death of Vandenbrouke, new investigation into Astana, Radio Shack loses a few potential riders and more…

• News continues to creep out about the death of Frank Vandenbrouke.
• Isle of Man cyclist Jonny Bellis is showing signs of improvement after slowly emerging from an induced coma following a crash on his motor scooter in Italy. Bellis has been receiving treatment at Florence’s CTO Hospital following the accident in the early hours of September 19th. The 21-year-old suffered a fractured skull and bruising to his brain when he crashed his scooter near the town of Quarrata in Tuscany.
• Garmin-Slipstream’s Trent Lowe is back on the saddle after fighting a bout with chronic fatigue that come on after the Tour of California. He was out of racing form from March through September before returning at the Tour of Britain. He’s now back at the Jayco Herald Sun Tour, a race where he finished third overall in 2007.
• Chris Horner will return to ride for Astana in the final two races of the year. He’ll join Janez Brajkovic, Valeriy Dmitriyev, Alexander Dyachenko, Maxim Iglinskiy, Roman Kireyev, Bolat Raimbekov and Alexander Vinokourov for the Giro del Piemonte and the Tour of Lombardy.
• Filippo Pozzato will be the captain of Team Katusha for Piedmont and Lombardy and will lead a team of Botcharov, Brutt, Eskov, Ivanov, Karpets, Mazzanti and Petrov.
• On the eve of the presentation for the 2010 Tour de France, director Christian Prudhomme told the press that he feels that cycling has changed, but that now is not the time to lower our guard and allow cheating to become commonplace once more.
• In their latest witchhunt, the prosecutor’s office for Paris has opened an investigation into ’suspicious’ syringes found in the medical waste of the Astana team during the Tour de France. The syringes are being analyzed to determine their contents. Other teams are involved in the investigation as well. The materials were found in specific containers supplied to the teams for disposal of medical waste. [How stupid would you have to be to put illegal materials into repositories given to you by race organizers? - Ed.]
• Astana says that they have nothing to hide and expressed their willingness to work with the French investigators.
• Several fewer riders for Radio Shack, as Astana has declined to release Andreas Kloden, Haimar Zubeldia and Gregory Rast from the remainder of their contracts, which run through the end of 2010.
• Johan Bruyneel is also still trying to clear himself from Astana. There were reports today that negotiations between him and the team have broken down.

Results:

• After two second place showings, Garmin’s Chris Sutton has finally captured a win for Stage 2 of the Herald Sun Tour, besting Jonathon Cantwell and Matthew Wilson at the line. Cantwell is the new race leader.

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