Veteran Alexandre Vinokourov took the leader’s jersey in the Criterium du Dauphine on Monday, but he was quick to pay tribute to surprise stage winner Jurgen van den Broeck of Belgium.
Astana leader Vinokourov, 37, came in fourth, seven seconds adrift of van den Broeck on the hilly 144km ride from Albertville to pull on the leader’s yellow and blue tunic.
However, it was Omega-Pharma rider van den Broeck’s impressive ride in a frantic final 7km that caught most people’s attention. Despite finishing a commendable fifth place overall on last year’s Tour de France, seven years into his career the 28-year-old had yet to register a professional victory.
Photo: AFP
“It’s a huge relief to have won,” van den Broeck said. “I’ve been waiting for this win for the past seven or eight years. All too often I’ve finished runner-up, so winning the first stage at the Dauphine, before heading to the Tour de France, is perfect. It’s given me even more confidence for the Tour.”
“He’s finished fifth overall on the Tour and he had yet to win” said Vinokourov, who was hoping his team could control the race in the 179km second stage from Voiron to Lyon, which could finish in a bunch sprint. “I’ve got the leader’s jersey, which is good. Tuesday, we’ll be looking to control the race with the sprinters’ teams. They don’t have a lot of chance to shine this week.”
Dutchman Lars Boom started the day in the lead after blowing the field away in the opening prologue held over 5.4km on Sunday, but after the chasing peloton reeled in a three-man breakaway with about 10km to race, the chase to the finish left the Rabobank rider, and many others, in the red as the gradients increased to a still theoretically manageable average of 5 percent.
Dutch climbing specialist Robert Gesink of Rabobank went on to concede more than a minute to van den Broeck at the finish, while Spanish Olympic champion Samuel Sanchez of Euskaltel lost almost a minute.
Even worse off was Italian Ivan Basso, last year’s Giro d’Italia champion. The Liquigas rider lost more than three minutes to van den Broeck.
With 7km remaining, van den Broeck pulled away from his rivals in a bid to counter Belarussian Konstantsin Siutsou of HTC-Highroad. Behind, French champion Thomas Voeckler countered, but van den Broeck dug deep to pull away again. Despite a last gasp effort by Spanish climber Joaquin Rodriguez in the final kilometer, the Belgian held on to savor a memorable win.
Katusha rider Rodriguez finished second six seconds back alongside Australian Cadel Evans of BMC.
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