Winner of the inaugural ProTour
competition, Danilo Di Luca, has chosen to not defend his title in 2006.Di Luca will instead focus on the Giro
d’Italia, an event where surpassed all expectations of himself last year.As a result, the Liquigas-Bianchi rider
may miss some of the late spring classics which set him up for his victory last
year.
In a similar fashion,
current ProTour leader, Floyd Landis, has said that he will not attempt to
defend his jersey throughout the season as his sights are firmly targeted on the
Tour de France."By winning Paris-Nice,
Floyd Landis now leads in the ProTour ranking. This is very good news," said
John Lelangue, Director Sportif, in a team newsletter. "But we know that he will
relinquish that lead soon. The focus for us is the Tour de France. Consequently,
Landis will not be put into action in ProTour races
automatically."
Tom Boonen (Quick Step) takes the win ahead of Allan Davis (Liberty Seguros - Würth). Photo copyright Fotoreporter Sirotti.
Lelangue added that,
"The sole
concern is to prepare him well for the season climax, the Tour de France. We
know now that his training is on target."
Landis leads the ProTour
competition by one point over Rabobank’s Thomas Dekker.
The German city of Aachen has reportedly
requested to be involved in the 2008 Tour de France, according to Aachener Zeitung.The Mayor is hoping the city will be
able to host both the start and finish of a time trial although he will not know
for sure until towards the end of 2007.
The golden boy of cycling, Tom
Boonen, last week collected the "Premio Oscar Gazzetta-Bici d'Oro Fausto Coppi
2005" award at a ceremony in Milan, hosted by Italian newspapers Corriere della Sera and La
Gazzetta dello
Sport.The award is presented
to the best performing rider of the previous season, as voted for by all of the
ProTour team managers, the organisers of the three grand tours and a further 17
former cycling stars.Runner-up was
winner of the Tour de France, Lance Armstrong.
Floyd Landis (Phonak - iShares) on the Podium in Nice. Will he win the 2006 Tour de France? Stay tuned to Roadcycling.com to find out. Photo copyright Fotoreporter Sirotti.
After receiving his gold plated
award, reported to be worth in the region of €15,000, Boonen said, "This prize
is the biggest award of my career. It means a lot to me because great riders
like Lance Armstrong and Danilo Di Luca have won it before. I hope to honour
this award on Saturday with a victory in San Remo. To win there would give me another
major classic win and at 25 years old, it would be something special." We now
know that Boonen did not take the win in San
Remo.
German rider, Danilo Hondo, has had
his two-year doping ban over turned by a Swiss court.He was sentenced last November and
recently had the ban increased from a single year, to two, by the Court of
Arbitration for Sport.
"The court took our arguments
seriously, and I am very happy about it,” he said on his website.I have been training all along and am in
good shape. Now I have to see what happens, so that I can start riding again as
soon as possible."
The ruling paves the way for Hondo
to return to the sport almost immediately although his attorney did warn that,
“The verdict has only been set aside. A definitive decision by a higher civil
court will come in about six months."
Finally this week, after numerous
complaints by the riders, the final day of the 2006 Giro d’Italia, will take
place between Ghisallo and Milano instead of the proposed double stage as
unveiled at the race presentation in November.
"[UCI] regulations do not hinder us
to program two half-stages on the last day," said Angelo Zomegnan, Director of
RCS, the company behind the event. "Nevertheless, we talked to the riders and
took note of the problems TV had with the time trial in the morning. We don't
want to put any further pressure neither on the riders nor on [Italian host
broadcaster] RAI."
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