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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." 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 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 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 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." We want you to know about two
giveaways. Want to win a $1000 sponsorship? Check out the Pearl Izumi giveaway where
you can enter to win a $1000 Pearl Izumi gear sponsorship. Also, CTS is running
a giveaway
where you can enter to win coaching packages and gear. Please check out our sponsors -
they make Roadcycling.com possible. Thanks. To advertise, click on the
“Advertise on this site” links or email us at advertising@roadcycling.com. Until next
week, 
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