The Tour of California, the most prestigious annual cycling race in the US, gets under way today.
A stellar field of 128 elite riders, including eight UCI ProTour teams, have entered the eight-day event that covers more than 1,184km through the jagged mountains and spectacular coastlines of the Golden State.
Even though the race clashes with the Giro d’Italia, interest has been heightened both because of changes to the course, including a stage that will start in Beverly Hills, and because it comes just before the Tour de France and the London Olympics.
In five of the previous six editions of the Tour, the overall winner has been an American, and the host-nation has a strong hand again this year.
Last year’s winner, Chris Horner, is again looming large as the man to beat, although he faces stiff competition from compatriot Levi Leipheimer, a three-time winner in California, and Belgium’s Tom Boonen, the No. 1 ranked road cyclist in the world.
Horner, 40, has been plagued by injuries and bad luck since last year’s victory. He is still recovering from a cold, but expects to be at his best when the Tour begins in Santa Rosa, California.
“Things are looking pretty good for California,” Horner said. “It’s less ideal for me than last year, but will be harder for most of the field because of the additional climbing in the early stages.”
Leipheimer is still recovering from a broken leg he suffered when hit by a car while training in Spain and remains in some doubt for the race.
That opens up the prospects for a European winner. Leipheimer’s teammate, Boonen, has already won the Paris-Roubaix and Tour of Flanders this season, while Italy’s Vincenzo Nibali won the 2010 Tour of Spain.
The sprint stages look set to be fiercely contested between by Peter Sagan of Slovakia, Marcus Kittel of Germany and Australian Robbie McEwen.
The tour ends on May 20 with a final stage that starts on Rodeo Drive and ends in downtown Los Angeles.
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