Team Talk 7

The Three Days of De Panne and the Spring Classics feature, plus UCI offer good news and the Austrlian Track squad lick their wounds.

Milram

The Milran team are in their final preparations for the Tour of Flanders and start the Driedaagse de Panne on Tuesday, April 1. (UCI 2.HC). The German team's Classics specialists will use the four stages in three days for their final preparations for the first big Belgian Classic.

"The coming three days will be very challenging and are a good last test for next Sunday,“ according to Jochen Hahn, Milram's Directeur Sportif.

"The first two stages are marked by constantly changing between flat and hilly. On Thursday there is a flat stage followed by an individual time trial.“

The race, which has been run since 1977, features three stages plus a time trial on three days in a row. The individual stages lead the peloton through the Belgian West Flanders region, around the cities De Panne and Koksijde. Milram newcomer Markus Eichler last year finished eighth overall for his team of Unibet.com.

Line-up: Artur Gajek (GER/Bergisch Gladbach), Brett Lancaster (AUS/Pistoia;ITA), Christian Kux (GER/Chemnitz), Enrico Poitschke (GER/Gera), Markus Eichler (GER/Mönchengladbach), Martin Velits (SVK/Riemst;BEL), Niki Terpstra (NED/Krommenie), Ralf Grabsch (GER/Hürth) Directeur Sportif: Jochen Hahn (GER)

U-23 World Champion Peter Velits finished the Criterium International (UCI 2.HC/ March 29-30) as the best Milram rider. The Slovakian ended up as 16th overall in the two-day French race, 1.35 minutes behind winner Jens Voigt.

"I am not entirely satisfied with my performance,“ the 23 year-old MILRAM youngster said "Actually, I expected more. My form was better at the end of Paris-Nice. But it was ok and I am getting ready for the upcoming Vuelta a Pais Vasco.“

Milram young rider Sebastian Schwager ended the first stage as fifth, and wore the white jersey of the best young rider in the stage Sunday morning.

Barloworld

Barloworld are very pleased with themsleves having won big at the PRISM awards in Johannesburg, the Public Relations Institute of South Africa awarded Barloworld with Gold in the Sponsorship category for the sponsorship of Team Barloworld at 2007 Tour de France. Runners up, taking home joint Silver awards, were the VISA rugby World Cup 2007 campaign and SAB Miller Genuine Draft campaign.

In 2007 Barloworld achieved an incredible 1 billion rand in global media impact in the three weeks of Tour de France, on the back of 4.5 billions viewers watching the race on television, with Team Barloworld taking part at it for the first time in their five-year history. In their sixth year of activity, recently Team Barloworld has been assigned a wild card to take part to the Grande Boucle once again, and received an invitation to Giro d’Italia for the first time.

Barloworld CEO Clive Thompson was comprehensibly happy with the award: “It is always wonderful to receive acclaim from outside of one’s organization. Our cycling team serves as wonderful ‘epitome’ brand to our Barloworld brand.”

"Anyone that has had the privilege of spending time with Team Barloworld – Thompson continued – will tell you that this team has an incredible spirit of self-belief. Like Barloworld in business, Team Barloworld has strong leadership, and this combined with the effective use of the collective wisdom that exists within the team makes even more ‘ the unthinkable - possible"

Tinkoff Credit Systems

Vasil Kiryenka will lead the Tinkoff Credit Systems team in the Cycling Week Lombard, 1 to 6 April starting from Brignano, Italy.

Alberto Loddo, Daniele Contrini, Ivan Rovny, Sergey Klimov, Alexander Khatuntsev, Yuahen Sobal and
the colombian Walter Pedraza. will join Kiryenka.

The Tinkoff team ride the Three Days of De PanneBelgium where the follwoing riders start - Brutt, Chernetsky, Eskov, Gottfried,
Ignatyev, Curly and Trusov

Astana

Astana Cycling Team start the Driedaagse de Panne with riders: Vladimir Gusev, René Haselbacher, Sergei Ivanov, Aaron Kemps, Dmitriy Muravyev, Gregory Rast, Michael Schär and Tomas Vaitkus. D.S.: Viatcheslav Ekimov

At the weekend, Alberto Contador won the 23rd Vuelta a Castilla y Leon, and quickly confromed that he would not ride for anither team at the 2008 Tour de France.

" I will not ride the Tour the France in another team than this one. I hope there comes an end now to all speculations and rumours that I will go to another team in order to participate to the Tour the France. No, I stay with my friends and sponsors who showed already to stay behind me. This week, we proved again that Astana Cycling Team is not only a strong team, but a group of friends as well.”

Team Manager Johan Bruyneel, present in this Tour of Castilla y Leon, and said; "I am convinced that we still can have a great season this year. Even without a Tour de France. Of course I regret that we are not welcome there, but we now are looking forward to the 2009 Tour. This year we will continue to focus on new objectives. We built a team around Alberto Contador, Levi Leipheimer and other great leaders and will continue to surprise the cycling world.

I can confirm Alberto’s words: he will not ride the Tour for another team. End of speculation.”

Lampre

The 2008 Fleche Brabanconne, saw Lampre's youngsters Spilak and Bandiera have quite good performances. Under a pouring rain, Spilak reached the arrival in the main group, while Bandiera had a little late.

"Race became very tough because of the bad weather condition - Fabrizio Bontempi, Lampre's sport director, explained - We had decided with Ballan that he would have not finished the race, so young riders could be free: I think they pedaled in a positive way. Now there's De Panne, the real beginning of the North Campaign: I can assure that we'll be competitive".

The team for Driedaagse de Panne already in Belgium (Ballan, Baldato, Bandiera, Fornaciari, Mori, Murro and Spilak) will be joined by Danilo Napolitano.

Quickstep

The Quickstep team for Driedaagse de Panne is; Tom Boonen, Steven De Jongh, Stijn Devolder, Kevin Hulsmans, Sebastien Rosseler, Dmitry Grabovskyy, Gert Steegmans and Wouter Weylandt.

UCI - "UCI Bikes for the World presented by Look"

The UCI and Look announce the launch of the programme

Mr Pat McQuaid, President of the International Cycling Union (UCI) and Mr Thierry Fournier, Director General of the French company Look Cycle International, today signed a partnership contract to establish a new programme entitled "UCI Bikes for the World presented by Look" at the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Manchester (Great Britain).

Under the programme, around 100 racing bikes will be sent to National Federations wanting to develop cycling in their country every year for a period of four years. This figure is set to increase in the future.

Bike frames (road and track), pedals, seatposts, track stems and handlebars will be supplied by Look while other components will be provided by a range of UCI sponsors.

Many Federations do not have the means to acquire a sufficient quantity of bikes for their young riders. The "UCI Bikes for the World presented by Look" programme offers a solution to this problem.

Federations interested in participating in the programme can apply to the UCI. The UCI will draw up a list of beneficiaries of the programme. One of the conditions of taking part in the programme is that the Federation must have set up training programmes recognised by the UCI: courses for coaches or training camps for riders.

The UCI welcomes this development of its partnership with Look. Look has been a major UCI partner since 2002. From this time the company has supplied considerable amounts of equipment to the World Cycling Centre (WCC), the UCI’s training centre devoted to developing cycling around the world. The WCC has assisted in the training of some 600 riders since opening its doors. Many of these are now among the best athletes in the world and still ride Look bikes.

Look’s Director General Thierry Fournier said that he was delighted to support the development of cycling around the world.

LPR

AFP report that Giro d'Italia champion Danilo Di Luca will ride in the Settimana Lombardia on April 6, his LPR team said on Sunday.
Di Luca is currently embroiled in an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to have a three-month suspension he served for a doping offence last year overturned.

He is also involved in another doping case with the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) requesting a two-year ban against Di Luca for providing an abnormal doping test during last year's Giro.

The Italian Cycling Federation is due to take a decision on that case on the same day as the race, meaning Di Luca will not be present at his own hearing.

Australian Track Squad

AFP report: Australia's track cycling team face a nervous four months in the lead-up to Beijing after being left trailing by their rivals at the Manchester World Track Championships.

Australia topped the Olympic medals table in Athens four years ago with a stunning nine in total and five gold, but given their miserly medal haul after four days of the five-day competition a repeat in China looks unlikely.

While Australia have yet to win a single gold medal here, Britain have won nine from 14 events so far - and Victoria Pendleton is favourite to defend her keirin crown later Sunday.

National Performance Director Shayne Bannan has seen promising performances here, especially from a men's pursuit team which, after being virtually cobbled together, claimed the bronze medal behind Denmark and Britain.

But the bottom line is, Australia's trackies have plenty of work to do.
"We're not far out of the medals but we do realise and understand that we have a fair amount of work to do, a fair amount of commitment to take place to achieve medal status," said Bannan.

Head coach Martin Barras knows their Olympic haul of four years ago was "extraordinary", but he admits the pressure is on.
"We're not in the position we were for Athens. We're in a race against time for Beijing," he told AFP.

For Australia, it's not a case of simply finetuning.
While the endurance team have a solid chance of a medal, Australian's speed specialists appear to need far more work.

There's also the fact that Australia, due to a lack of having the right riders at the right time this season, have not qualified a team for the Madison, in which Graeme Brown and Stuart O'Grady are the Olympic champions.

Anna Meares is the reigning Olympic and 500metre time trial champion, although the latter event is no longer on the programme, and she will ride the sprint in Beijing having won the bronze in Athens. As she continues her recovery from injury, Meares will have watched Pendleton's displays closely. The bespectacled Briton virtually coasted to a second consecutive gold in the sprint Saturday.

"I'm really pleased to be going in with a psychological advantage over all my opponents," affirmed Pendleton.

In the pursuit, Australia will be hoping the core of their gold-medal winning team from Athens returns to form.
Brad McGee, who also won individual pursuit silver in Athens, is back and could team up again with Luke Roberts, Graeme Brown and Brett Lancaster.

The Monaco-based professional from Sydney said after winning bronze here they will be motivated by Britain beating their old world record of 3:56.610 with a time of 3:56.322.

"It's going to be interesting times these next few months to see us put our package together, and (to see) what they can do to maintain or increase it," said McGee.

Tsylinskaya recovering after track crash

Former world champion Natallia Tsylinskaya is recovering in hospital from injuries sustained in a crash at the Manchester World Track Championships on Friday.

Officials said on Saturday that the Belarussian has been diagnosed with a "broken collarbone and extensive bruising around the neck area".
Tsylinskaya crashed out during the sprint competition on Friday when she clashed with Dutch ace Willy Kanis.

The pair were leaning heavily into each other as they raced at speed round a bend and Tsylinskaya, on the inside, came crashing down awkwardly on her shoulders as her head buckled underneath her body.

The race was immediately stopped and, in obvious pain, the Belarussian was given medical attention before being taken away on a stretcher with a head brace fitted.

The final of the women's sprint will be held later on Saturday between Britain's defending champion Victoria Pendleton and Simona Krupeckaite of Lithuania.

Collstrop

Collstrop rider David Kopp second in E3 Prijs Vlaanderen

Kopp had featured in the winnign break and went attacked at three kilometres remaining to Harelbeke. The German maintained a small but promising gap while the others were left looking at each other; however, Van Avermaet decided to make his final winning bid at 1,500 metres remaining. He was closing on Kopp while the remaining three – Eisel dropped – kept close behind. As Van Avermaet's legs faded, Arvesen accelerated out of the group to catch and pass Kopp in the final 200 metres.

Slipstream

On the team website, rider Steven Cozza writes about the Driedaagse de Panne . "First up on our plate is Three Days of De Panne on the windy coast of Belgium. This race is three days, just like the title implies.

What’s missing from the title is three “windy, rainy, sand-in-your-eyes, cow-poop-in-your-face, dangerous” days.

De Panne is known for its danger. In fact, some teams refuse to have their riders do it before the bigger, more important races around the corner: Flanders and Paris-Roubaix...." - more