Czech rider Roman Kreuziger of the Liquigas team won the 72nd Tour of Switzerland on Sunday, despite losing out to Switzerland's Fabian Cancellara in the ninth and final stage.
The 22-year-old — the youngest winner of the Swiss tour — earned his first Pro Tour victory after an impressive showing, which included seizing the yellow jersey from Kim Kirchen during Saturday’s 25km time-trial.
Kreuziger finished 49 seconds in front of Andreas Kloden, of the Astana team, and nearly two minutes ahead Spanish climber Igor Anton, of Euskaltel.
“I have the feeling that this the beginning of my professional career,” he said.
“It is by far the most important success since my junior world champion road title in 2004,” the Czech said.
“My goal was to get to the Tour de France in good shape, but during the Tour of Switzerland I felt that I was already in good form. Perhaps I’m a little bit in advance of myself,” he said.
“I’m going [on the Tour de France] to really learn. I’m going to France to see what happens and get the experience,” he said.
It was a case of role-reversal for the first two over the line, after the young Czech finished behind Kloden in the Tour of Romandy earlier this year.
But the German — today celebrating his 33rd birthday — was happy with his second placing, praising the quality of Kreuziger over the nine difficult stages.
“After my illness in the Giro d’Italia, I started this race without real preparation,” Kloden said.
The bad weather in the first days did not help me, but I survived,” said Kloden, who placed third in the 2006 Tour de France.
“Twice I lost about twenty seconds. It could have made the difference, but I won’t complain. Kreuziger is a big talent,” he said.
Berne-born Cancellara won his second stage of the Tour, after taking Friday’s Lyss stage, and the Swiss star was content with his performance.
“I have not taken a decision over dropping out of the Tour [de France] to better prepare for the Olympic Games,” Cancellara said.
“I will take it day by day. Anyway, I’m happy with my performance,” he said.
The stage was lit up by a 130km breakaway by five riders, including Spain’s Francisco Perez Sanchez [Caisse d’Epargne] and the Netherland’s Maarten Tjallingii [Silence], but Cancellara’s climbing skills ensured he finished first.
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