Van de Wouwer retires

Kurt van de Wouwer will ride his last race today. The 35 year old Belgian rider will start at the last Belgian race of the season and will leave the peloton through the back door. Van de Wouwer was Belgium's hope for the Tour de France overall after his 11th sport in the 1999 Tour de France. Van de Wouwer told Begian daily sports "Sportwereld: "I won't shed a tear, it has been enough."

Jan Schaffrath leaves Milram

Milram DS Jan Schaffrath and the Italian/German Milram squad agreed to dissolve Schaffrath's contract for 2007 as a sports director. Personal reasons were the reason of Schaffraths choice to quit his job as a DS at Milram. Jan Schaffrath retired last year as a rider.

Mayo to Saunier Duval

Iban Mayo and Saunier Duval - Prodir are pleased to announce that the Basque rider will join the team for the next two years. Saunier Duval, their Sports Directors and all the management team feel very glad about the great rider´s new contract. It was already known for a while that Mayo and Saunier Duval were negotiating a contract.

VDB: "I want to be ready for 2007"

Frank Vandenbroucke (Aqua e Sapone) didn't start at the Giro di Lombardia last Saturday due to tendonitis in his knee. VDB told Belgian daily newspaper "Het Laatste Nieuws": "I felt the pain rise the previous Saturday in the Giro dell'Emilia," said Vandenbroucke. "The feeling didn't improve during the course of the week. For this reason I stayed away (from the Giro di Lombardi) on the side of precaution."

However on Sunday Vandenbroucke was already training on his bike again. VDB stated: "I want to keep moving," the former winner of Liège-Bastogne-Liège continued by saying: "In the winter I will not rest too much; I want to start 2007 and be standing ready immediately."

Georg Totschnig retires

After 13 years in pro cycling, Austrian rider Georg Totschnig (Gerolsteiner)announced his retirement yesterday. Totschnig said during a press conference in Salzburg: "After long and intensive consideration, the time has come to put this wonderful but hard part of my life behind me. Now I want to start something new and can end my career the way I always imagined I would: healthy, satsified, successful, happy and I had some good offers to keep on riding."

The 35 year old rider was the first ever Austrian rider to win a stage in the Tour de France (2005). Totschnig will work for the sponsor of the Tour of Austria, Hervis, in the future.

Eeckhout wins Europe-Tour

Belgian national champion Nico Eeckhout (Chocolade Jaques) has won the overall of the European pro continental tour. Eeckhout, who extended his contract with Chocolade Jaques last week although he had some offers of Pro-Tour teams, had a lead of 21 points on the number two of the list, German rider Danilo Hondo (Lamonta).

Tomasz Brozyna retires

Tomasz Brozyna (Intel-Action) retires after 12 seasons pro cycling. Brozyna won the Route Du Sud in the year 2000 and also has the Tour de Pologne on his palmares.

UCI Pro-Tour: Valverde, CSC and Spain

Spain’s Alejandro Valverde did not finish the Giro di Lombardi but had already sealed overall victory in the season-long ProTour competition at Züri Metzgete.

Valverde became the second rider to win the season-long UCI ProTour competition after Italy’s Danilo Di Luca (Liquigas) in 2005. Thanks to his all around ability in both one-day races and stage races, Valverde scored the impressive total of 285 points during the season. He won the Fleche-Wallonne and Liege-Bastogne-Liege races in the spring and scored 85 points in the Vuelta Espana in September, despite breaking his collarbone in the Tour de France in July.

Thanks to his second place in the Giro di Lombardi Samuel Sanchez finished second in the ProTour with a final total of 213 points, while Luxembourg’s Frank Schleck (CSC) was third with 165 points.

“I want to thank everybody for their support this year and I’m very honoured to have won the ProTour individual title. It’s a special prize and confirms I’ve had a great year,” Valverde said.

CSC won the team competition for a second consecutive year thanks to consistently strong all round performance in all the big races. The team managed by former Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis scored a total of 388 points, beating Valverde’s Caisse d’Epargne team by 38 points, with the Dutch Rabobank team is third with 346 points.

Thanks to Valverde’s success and their strength in depth, Spain won the nation standings of the UCI ProTour, comfortably beating rivals Italy with a total of 808 points. Italy only scored 651 points, while Germany finished third with 475 points.

Breukink content with ProTour ranking

The Rabo Team didn’t have a member among the top-10 of the individual ranking of the ProTour, but as a team it is one of the worlds greatest. In the team placing the Rabo ProTeam finished on the third place, only four points behind the runner up Caisse d'Epargne, of the winner of the individual ranking Alejandro Valverde. Therefore team manager Erik Breukink  was satisfied about the performances of his team as he noted after the race in Lombardy: “Of course you always want to do better and aim for the highest, but we have to focus on our achievements as a team throughout the year, and we can conclude we are one of the best.”

The team had five important spearheads this year in the ProTour as Denis Menchov and Michael Rasmussen do great in major tours, Oscar Freire is a terrific sprinter, Michael Boogerd can perform anywhere and anytime, and Thomas Dekker is an extremely talented cyclist. “All these five men have done a great job and met up to the expectations of the team, Breukink remarked: “And Michael Boogerd was just in an exceptionally shape this year. From day one up until the final race he took part and moreover he did great.
It is an enormous achievment to be on top form time and time again while the pressure is huge. Above all he even had to recover from a feet injury early this season.”

Menchov, Rasmussen and Freire were in great shape during the Tour de France, as the Rabo Team as a whole performed extraordinary well. As a result Erik Breukink noted that “this was the best Tour ever.” Also in this major event Boogerd was present and among the best as he was in all the other races he participated in. He was a leading men and mental captain for the Rabo Team this season. Breukink even said that “what Michael did this year in the Tour de France was not only stimulating for him as an individual but for the entire team and he really helped the Rabo team to another level.”

Thomas Dekker was the most important cyclist of the Rabo Team in the first part of the season as the youngster even won Tirreno-Adriatico, one of the significant short stage-races of the year. “Thomas was already in great shape then and was perfectly assisted by our team; he did just great in the preseason”, as Breukink could recall. “Unfortunately Thomas faced some difficulties later on and had to deal with these circumstances, but a 21-year-old cyclist that wins the Tirreno has a great future lying ahead of him. That I am sure of!”

Johan Museeuw free to ride again

Johan Museeuw's two year suspension after the "Landuyt affair" is over. The former king of the classics is working as a pr officer for Quickstep at the moment but is now also allowed to work as a sports director.

Cuapio stays with Panaria

Mexican rider Julio Alberto Perez Cuapio extended his contract with Panaria for one more year. Cuapio his a climber and won 3 stages in the Giro d' Italia. In 2002 he also won the mountain jersey of the Tour of Italy.

T-Mobile women's team with new look for 2007

Fresh off a hugely successful first full season of international competition the T-Mobile women’s team is aiming even higher in 2007 with a world-class roster of eleven riders from six nations. Leading riders Ina-Yoko Teutenberg, Judith Arndt and Kim Anderson stay with the team, and they will be joined by eight new athletes, including two-time World Cup Series winner Oenone Wood (Australia), in a squad that blends youth and experience.

"In their first full international season, the women’s team impressed everybody with their enthusiasm and dedication, while winning many races along the way; they are ideal brand ambassadors for T-Mobile," says René Obermann, Chief Executive Officer of T-Mobile International. "Going forward, the women’s program will remain fundamental to our overall cycling sponsorship and I am delighted that we now have an expanded roster to represent T-Mobile around the world.”
 
A new management regime has also been appointed, with Kristy Scrymgeour (Australia) taking over as team manager and Anna Wilson (Australia) as directeur sportif. Since their appointment, the duo have moved quickly to build on the success of last season, bringing Petra Rossner (Germany) on board as team coach and assembling a diverse roster capable of competing and winning across the entire season.
 
“Our goal is to follow up and expand on the success of the first season and we will target all the season’s major races, especially the one day races on the World Cup calendar,” says ex-pro rider Scrymgeour at the team’s first get-together in Lugano, Switzerland (October 11-13). “We have strength-in-depth and plenty of experience in the roster, so different athletes will be able to concentrate on their peaks to target specific races, where they can count on the support of a strong and motivated team.”
 
Teutenberg is looking forward to the new season. “I think the goals of the team remain pretty similar to this year: Winning as many bike races as possible. And I believe with the amount on talent we have on the team now, we will be able to play a role in every race.”
 
The magenta team finished the 2006 season in second place on the World Cup points rankings, while Teutenberg finished second and Arndt fourth in the individual standings. Along the way, Teutenberg sprinted her way to 15 season wins, including two World Cup wins, the first in Australia in February and the win in Rotterdam in September. Judith Arndt has also contributed hugely with seven season wins, including a fine World Cup win in Montreal.
 
Since the start of the 2006 season, the team – like the men’s equivalent – has been based in Bonn, Germany, and plays an important role in T-Mobile International’s extensive cycling program.
 
“Going forward we hope to lead by example and try to promote women’s cycling as a whole,” adds  Scrymgeour. “T-Mobile has given us a very unique opportunity in that we have a top women’s team run in conjunction with a very high profile men’s team. This is a fantastic thing for women’s cycling and I believe it is a step in the right direction for the sport.”
 
The team will be presented to the public during the course of the official T-Mobile Team  presentation (January 13th 2007, Club Robinson / Mallorca).
 
 
T-Mobile Team roster 2007:
Kim Anderson (USA/38), Judith Arndt (Germany/30), Kate Bates (Australia/24), Chantal Beltman (Netherlands/30), Suzanne de Goede (Netherlands/22), Emilia Fahlin (Sweden/17), Alex Rhodes (Australalia/21), Ina-Yoko Teutenberg (Germany/31), Linda Melanie Villumsen (Denmark/21), Anke Wichmann (Germany/31), Oenone Wood (Australia/26).