Garcia scoops victory on stage three of women’s Tour de San Luis, Barnes holds lead

After the Briton Hannah Barnes (UnitedHealthcare) clocked up back to back victories on stages one and two of the Tour Femenino de San Luis, Cuban rider Iraida García stepped to the fore on Tuesday when she won the 63.4 kilometre stage to Merlo.

García was quickest in the sprint to the line, darting in ahead of the Brazilian Clemilda Fernandes. The duo put three seconds into the Chilean Paolo Munoz and finished a further second ahead of the rest of the bunch, which was headed by Lotto Soudal’s Elena Cecchini.


Barnes rolled over the line in 11th and retained her grip on the yellow jersey.

Although she didn’t get involved in the final sprint, she showed her speed early on when she won the first intermediate gallop, 17.8 kilometres after the drop of the flag. Just under seven kilometres later the second such sprint took place and there Cecchini prevailed.

Attacks were fired off as the peloton continued towards the line but despite slight gaps in the final sprint, things remain relatively tight overall.

Barnes ended the day 11 seconds clear of Cecchini with Garcia jumping up five places to third overall, 13 seconds back. Alé Cipollini’s Arianna Fidanza has been bumped down one place to fourth.

Brazilian rider Camila Ferreira maintains her lead in the mountains classification, Cecchini leads the sprint classification and Barnes is the best young rider.

The UCI 2.2 ranked Tour Femenino de San Luis continues Wednesday with a mainly flat 12.8 kilometre time trial in El Durazno.

Stage 2: Villa Mercedes > Villa Mercedes - Stage Result

Monday 12th January 2015

1. gb
BARNES Hannah
UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling Women’s Team
 01:55:20
2. cl
MUNOZ Paola
-
3. it
FIDANZA Arianna
Alé Cipollini
-
View full results

Froome: The thoughts of Contador training push me to work harder

Having been beaten by Alberto Contador during last year’s Vuelta a España, Chris Froome has said that he is psyched by the thoughts of the rider he considers to be his greatest rival and driven to dig in harder during training rides in order to be able to beat him.

Like his Spanish rival, the Team Sky leader went into the Spanish Grand Tour with less racing in his legs than would otherwise have been ideal. Both riders crashed out of the Tour de France due to injury; Froome fractured his wrist and hand, while Contador suffered a crack to his fibula.

The latter initially said that he wouldn’t be able to ride the Vuelta a España but, following reports that he was back training earlier than either he or the team had suggested, he indeed went to the race and won overall.

Froome battled hard to try to overcome his rival but had to be satisfied with second overall, one minute ten seconds back. However, rather than being intimidated by what he saw, he said that he can accept the result without believing it will set a lasting precedent.

“He was coming back from injury, too. He just came back better than me,” he told the Daily Telegraph. “But I still think it was a fantastic race. It was great to be able to race like that in the mountains.”

Froome has been using the memory of that race to motivate himself during the off season, knowing the best way to react to Contador’s triumph is to beat the Spaniard in this year’s Tour.

“When I’m out training, I am thinking: ‘I wonder what he’s up to today, I wonder how hard he’s training.’ I always assume he is [training], somewhere in snowy, wet Lugano. It pushes me to train harder, definitely.”

Click here to read the full story on CyclingTips.

Prudhomme believes Vuelta’s La Course race for women could still go ahead

Although it was reported last month that the UCI had blocked the granting of a licence for the planned La Course race on the final day of the Vuelta a España, ASO’s Christian Prudhomme has said that there is still hope that the race will go ahead.

UCI’s opposition to the plans for the race, which would echo a similar event held on the final day of the 2014 Tour and due to be repeated this year, is though to be based on a clash with other existing events running on the same day.

However Prudhomme indicated to NOS that he was far from resigned to the race not happening.

“We are busy arranging a La Course in Madrid,” he stated. “It’s still not finalised, but we assume that it will succeed.”

He said that the women’s peloton wanted to capitalise on the media presence and publicity surrounding the Grand Tours and that such one day races were a good way to do this.

However he appeared to pour cold water on the aspirations for a women’s Tour de France and other such events.

“I have also talked with Marianne Vos about it,” he said, referring to the peloton’s most dominant rider and someone who was heavily involved in the push for the women’s La Course event at the Tour. “Ten years ago you could maybe still, but now it is logistically impossible.”

Click here to read the article at NOS.

More details emerge about Wiggins’ racing programme

In the wake of Monday’s news that Bradley Wiggins will ride the Challenge Mallorca, the Tour of Qatar, the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne prior to competing in Paris-Roubaix, more details have emerged in relation to his racing programme.

Under that schedule, the world time trial champion will show off his rainbow jersey just once during what will be a four month racing spell with Team Sky prior to moving across to the new Team Wiggins squad.

According to Cyclingnews, he will compete in Paris-Nice from March 8-15, then do the E3 Harelbeke on March 27 and Scheldeprijs on April 8.

Paris-Nice will offer him a chance to show off the jersey he won last September. Although his focus with Team Wiggins will be mainly on track racing, it is possible that he will do further stage races as part of the smaller team’s programme.

If so, his rainbow jersey will have more than one outing, although racing with a Continental team will ensure that it is seen in fewer big events.

Click here to read more on Cyclingnews.

Former Tour of Flanders winner Nick Nuyens forced to retire after team search proves fruitless

Almost four years after he won the 2011 Tour of Flanders, 34 year old Nick Nuyens admitted on Tuesday that his search for a new team for 2015 had been fruitless and that he would retire from professional cycling.

Nuyens was once seen as one of Belgium’s top riders, taking wins such as the 2004 Paris-Brussels, the 2005 Omloop Het Volk, the 2006 Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne and the Grand Prix de Wallonie in 2004, 2005 and 2009.

He also shone in stage races, ending up as the overall victor in the Ster Elektrotoer in 2004, the Tour of Britain in 2005 and the 2007 Étoile de Bessèges.

However although he moved on to a new level in 2011 when he won both the Tour of Flanders and Dwars door Vlaanderen, he ran into difficulties due to injury. He fractured his hip in a crash in the 2012 Paris-Nice, falling during the opening time trial, and spent much of that year trying to get back on track.

Nuyens moved from the Saxo Bank team to Garmin-Sharp at the end of that season but struggled to return to his previous form. His best result in 2013 was ninth on a stage of the Eneco Tour while his 2014 season was complicated by a heart rhythm arrhythmia. He underwent surgery on June 10 of last year to try to correct this.

As Nuyens explained in a press conference held on Tuesday, he wanted to keep going but was unable to find a satisfactory deal after his two year period with Garmin-Sharp came to an end.

“I was still keen to remain as a rider as I didn’t want to leave in this way,” he said, according to Het Nieuwsblad. That it has not been possible, which is unfortunate.”

Click here to read more at CyclingTips.

Etixx - Quick-Step team presentation to be showcased live on team website

The Etixx - Quick-Step squad of Mark Cavendish, Tom Boonen, Tony Martin and, of course, the new world champion Michal Kwiatkowski has revealed that it will broadcast the 2015 team presentation at 8pm CET on Wednesday, thus giving the team’s fans a chance to see the top riders and hear about their season goals.
Il Lombardia 2014 2014
The presentation will be held at the track named after Eddy Merckx at the Vlaams Wielercentrum in Gent, Belgium, and will last approximately one hour.

“For our fans who bought venue tickets of course the show will be longer by a couple of hours,” said the team CEO Lefevere said. “The fans who have tickets for the Tribune will have a great time, as they have in the first years.

“But for us it was also important to give our fans that are not based in Belgium the possibility to follow at least their favourite riders for the first hour online. We’d like to give our international supporters the feeling they are there with us as we introduce our team for the upcoming season.”

The riders will be presented one by one and the screening will finish with an elimination race.

According to the team, its social channels will also feature the presentation, including Twitter. The team website will also feature a recap afterwards, including pictures.

The team website can be found here.

Giro d’Italia’s leader’s jerseys unveiled in Florence

The jerseys that will be used in this year’s Giro d’Italia were officially unveiled on Tuesday afternoon in Florence, with the designs – put together by the Italian brand Lebole – being revealed.

The jerseys and their sponsors are the pink Maglia Rosa of race leader, which will be backed by Balocco, the Maglia Azzurra mountains jersey (sponsored by Banca Mediolanum), the Maglia Rossa points jersey (Algida) and the Eurospin-backed Maglia Bianca for best young rider.

Representatives of each of those companies were present, as was Raimondo Zanaboni, the Managing Director of RCS Advertising and CEO of RCS Sport. He underlined the importance of the event.

“The Giro d’Italia is a major asset of RCS Group, with an international prestige and value constantly increasing. We have one of the most relevant sport events on the world and we are very proud to be able to offer to our sponsors a high level event that allow us to grow with them year on year.”

Italian TV presenter and celebrity Cristina Chiabotto was named as the Giro d’Italia’s 2015 Madrina.

This year’s race will begin on May 9 with a 17.6 kilometre team time trial from San Lorenzo Al Mare to Sanremo.

Golf, the new cycling:

Post by Peter SagFan - non official.

The Rocacorba Recap

And finally this morning, here are a few things you might have missed at CyclingTips:

***

Don’t get dropped — keep up to date with regular CyclingTips content, updates, special offers and events, just by signing up to our newsletter.

Today’s feature image comes from Jered Gruber.