They call him the `falcon' for his fearless downhill racing, but Paolo Savoldelli of Italy was keeping his feet firmly on the ground after his victory on the 17th stage of the Tour de France on Wednesday.
Savoldelli, the reigning Giro d'Italia champion who also won the race in 2002, claimed the second victory for a Discovery Channel rider on this year's race after dominating Norwegian Kurt Asle Arvesen in a two-man sprint to the finish line of the race's longest stage -- held over 239.5 km.
For a reputed climber and time trial rider, it wasn't a bad effort -- and it was certainly welcomed by Lance Armstrong's Discovery Channel team, which also celebrated George Hincapie's stunning stage win on Sunday in the Pyrenees.
PHOTO: AFP
After his maiden win on the race, the 32-year-old Savoldelli was expecting questions over whether he might be tempted to go for the yellow jersey next year.
Armstrong retires this Sunday, when -- failing catastrophe -- he will win a seventh conseuctive Tour de France crown.
However Savoldelli affirmed what most race fans already know -- the Tour de France, which is raced significantly faster than the Giro, is a more difficult challenge.
"I think to win the Tour de France you have to be very, very strong. And I feel attached the Tour of Italy. I don't think it would be possible for me to give up racing the Tour of Italy," said Savoldelli, who admitted he has been getting used to the idea of being a labourer for a designated team leader.
"It's the first time I've really been in a stage race and been a gregario [team worker,] and it takes a bit of getting used to. I've never been so tired after working so much for Lance this year. But I consider myself lucky. I've had quite a bit of luck this season," he said.
Luck has not always been on Savoldelli's side, however and goes a long way in explaining the massive hole in his list of honours.
After promising displays on the Tour of Italy in 1997 and 1998, when he came 13th then ninth respectively, Savoldelli took the runner-up place in 1999 when he finished 3:35 behind Ivan Gotti.
Savoldelli finally managed to dominate his three-week home race in 2002 when, without winning a stage, he managed to hold off the threat of American Tyler Hamilton who at the time was riding for CSC.
But after his victory, his only one that year, Savoldelli's career stalled.
He was involved in a crash which left him recovering for months, then when he was on his way back he was struck down by a fever.
As for the Tour de France, Savoldelli conceded that next year, it will be his compatriot Ivan Basso who will likely start as the favorite to succeed Armstrong.
"I think he's ready both mentally and physically to win the Tour de France next year," he said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier