Former winner of the Tour de France Green jersey, Baden Cooke, has confirmed his departure from the French FDJeux.com team.   26 year-old Cooke and fellow Australian, Matt Wilson, confirmed they would be a part of the newly named Belgian Unibet.com team, formerly MrBookmaker.com.   Despite struggling to recapture his form of 2003, his new employers hope that Cooke?s reputation and hopeful return to good form will help them gain entry to ProTour events.

Italian starlet, Damiano Cunego (Lampre-Caffita) has been left looking for answers after disappointing end of season results.   Having shot to stardom with victory in last year's Giro d?Italia, Cunego has struggled to re-find that form after contracting mononucleosis at the end of last season.   On Sunday he finished 37 ^th in the Coppa Sabatini.

Speaking to Italian website tuttobiciweb.com, Cunego?s Director Sportif Giuseppe Martinelli said that, ? I insisted that he didn't abandon, I wanted him to finish the race, also out of respect for the guys that had worked for him from the start of the Coppa Sabatini. At the end, however, Damiano did not have the legs and didn't get into the group of 21 that played out the race ."

"In
Zurich on Sunday I saw a lot of riders who were going really strongly, Bettini above all. Those will be the ones who will figure in the last races. With regard to Damiano, I think he's on the wane. Most likely, he is thinking of next year, considering what happened this year. I think in September, he has not raced enough and that he's lost a little bit of his edge. Four races is not really enough. He trained hard, because he knew that all the other riders were racing. In the end, I think it would have been better to race more and train less. Perhaps it would have been better if Damiano did a stage race like the Tour of
Poland in September ."

Cunego is expected to continue until 23 ^rd October when he competes in the Japan Cup.

In light of the bad press that cycling has had to endure in recent months and years, French daily, L?Equipe, requested that the French research institute, Ipsos, conduct a survey into the credibility of professional cycling amongst the general public.   Research was conducted in four European countries:
France,
Germany,
Italy and
Spain.

Findings from the survey include:

?          79% of those interviewed associated doping with the sport of cycling

?          97% of French people interviewed believed that cycling is the sport which is most infiltrated by doping

?          62% of German people interviewed believed that cycling is the sport which is most infiltrated by doping

?          48% of French people interviewed believed that the majority of the professional peloton using doping products in competition.

?          12% of German people interviewed believed that the majority of the professional peloton using doping products in competition.

?          50% of German people interviewed believed that only a few professional riders were using