International Capsules: Armstrong looks to add race to Tour preparations
MURCIA, Spain — Lance Armstrong is likely to add an extra race to his Tour de France preparations following an average performance in the Vuelta de Murcia.
Armstrong finished seventh overall, 1 minute, 23 seconds behind winner Frantisek Rabon of Team HTC-Columbia after Sunday’s final stage.
The seven-time Tour champion said he was not worried about the lukewarm result but that improvement was needed.
"Worried would be too strong of a word," Armstrong said Sunday. "I’m aware of (my performance), but not too stressed."
Team RadioShack boss Johan Bruyneel said Armstrong could use an added race. His next event is the Milan-San Remo on March 20, and the most likely addition after that would be the Sarthe-Pays de la Loire in France from April 6-9.
"In Lance’s case he needs more competition," Bruyneel said. "His physical fitness overall is OK, but he just needs to get the speed and acceleration. Looking at Tour of Murcia in the past, he’s probably a bit ahead of what he was then."
Armstrong focused on improving his time-trial performance this offseason, but several Tour front-runners beat him in that event here, including second-place Denis Menchov of Rabobank, Team Sky’s Bradley Wiggins in third and RadioShack teammate Andreas Kloden in fourth.
Theo Bos of Cervello won Sunday’s stage while Rabon finished the five-stage race with an overall time of 16:01:24.
"My position (on the bike) was good but the power was not," said Armstrong, who travels to South Africa on Monday to take part in a race next weekend to promote his cancer charity.
Armstrong has also hired a new director of sports science and training, Allen Lim, to improve his overall performance.
Lim said the pair have worked hard to improve aspects ranging from his positioning on the bike to warmup protocols and nutrition. Lim said Armstrong was being weighed before and after each race to hammer home the idea of taking on more liquids and food during the race stage.
"I’d be a little more concerned if he was killing it right now," said Lim, who is using Armstrong as his guinea pig for a team-wide plan. "I’ve spent the last two months with Lance, and now it’s about making that trickle down to the rest of the team."
Lim said that Armstrong’s genuine enthusiasm and passion for cycling was the biggest benefit to the team’s performance.
"He is genuinely one of the happiest guys I know. He wakes up he’s happy, he wakes up and he’s motivated, ready to go and that’s infectious in the team," Lim said. "Lance — he’s human coffee."
Armstrong hopeful of meeting Nelson Mandela
MURCIA, Spain — Lance Armstrong says he hopes to meet with Nelson Mandela during a visit to South Africa next week.
Armstrong is traveling to South Africa on Monday to take part in a local race next weekend and says meeting the former president would be "the opportunity of a lifetime."
The seven-time Tour de France champion says he has not been guaranteed a meeting since Mandela’s schedule is busy and "at this point of his life he wants to take it easy and not meet too many people."
Armstrong was speaking ahead of Sunday’s final stage in the Vuelta de Murcia, where he is seventh overall after a disappointing time trial. The American admits his form has not been as good as he hoped, but that he is "not too stressed" about his performance.
— Paul Logothetis
Boom wins Paris-Nice prologue
MONTFORT L’AMAURY, France — Lars Boom of the Netherlands won the Paris-Nice prologue on Sunday and two-time Tour de France winner Alberto Contador was fourth.
Jens Voigt of Germany was second and Levi Leipheimer of the United States placed third in the 5-mile time trial that featured a third-category climb.
Boom won in 10 minutes, 56 seconds. Voigt was 3 seconds off the pace, while Leipheimer and Contador, winner of the prologue last year, were 6 seconds behind Boom.
Gert Steegmans, one of Lance Armstrong’s teammates on the Radio Shack team, will be out at least three weeks after breaking his left collarbone in a spectacular crash while riding at about 45 mph on a downhill portion.
Monday’s first stage will take the riders from Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines to Contres on a mostly flat 125-mile run.
The eight-stage, 800-mile race ends next Sunday in Nice.
Swimming
Phelps breaks own U.S. record
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Urged on by a vocal standing room only crowd, Michael Phelps closed out his weekend at the Maryland Swim Championships by setting the U.S. record in the 200 yard butterfly at the U.S. Naval Academy on Sunday.
Competing as a member of the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, located 30 miles from Annapolis, the 14-time Olympic gold medalist touched home in a time of 1 minute, 39.65 seconds.
His previous record time was 1:39.7, set March 3, 2006 at the South Texas American Short Course Championships in Austin.
The record came one day after Phelps had missed setting the American record in the 200 individual medley by a half-second. Though he failed to break Ryan Lochte’s record, Phelps did set a personal best in the event.
Phelps’ NBAC teammate, 16-year-old Elizabeth Pelton, set national age group records during the meet in the 100 backstroke and 200 backstroke and as a member of the 200 IM relay.
Her 200 backstroke time is second in the nation to Olympian Natalie Coughlin.
As for Phelps, the crowd noise let him know that he was swimming at a record pace late in the race.
"When the crowd starts yelling like they were, you know something good is happening," he said. "Whenever they get behind it and get more excited and louder, you kind of feel the energy and gain adrenaline. Being able to have that was definitely helpful. It makes it so much more exciting. You really can hear them on every stroke."
Phelps was primed to set the U.S. record in the shorter course race, measured in yards rather than meters.
"I tried to find out what my splits were when I broke the record back in ‘06 and just wanted to see what I could do tonight," Phelps said. "I wanted to try and go out and take a shot at it. Coming off the last turn I wanted to stay under as long as I could. That was clearly the difference."
Phelps had opened the three-day meet with a victory in Friday’s 400 yard individual medley, but was more than 3 seconds off the American record. After that race, his disappointment was obvious.
"On Friday, I let other things stand in my way and I wasn’t able to compete how I wanted to," Phelps said. "(Saturday) night and (Sunday) I wanted to come here and put all that behind me and just come in and race how I know how to race.
Phelps is preparing for the 2012 Summer Olympics and says the two years will "fly by." His next competition will be at Ohio State University during the first weekend in April.
"There are a lot of things yet to be done," Phelps said. "This shows that with more time and training I can get faster. I am not in the best shape athletically right now and not in the best swimming shape. But being able to do what I did the last two weeks shows anything is possible when I am prepared."
Dog Sledding
Competitors begin Iditarod race to Nome
WILLOW, Alaska — The festivities are over, and the serious competition began Sunday in the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
Under sunny skies, the drivers of 71 dog teams took off from frozen Willow Lake to begin the race to the old gold rush town of Nome on Alaska’s western coast.
Lingering was the carnival atmosphere of Saturday’s 11-mile ceremonial start in Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage, 50 miles to the south. But mushers were focused on racing for real with their 16-dog teams.
"Get the heck out of dodge, just like all the other mushers," said veteran Zack Steer. "You know, we want to hit the trail."
Three-time champion Lance Mackey of Fairbanks is seeking his fourth consecutive win, and is among five past Iditarod winners in the race.
Canadian Hans Gatt became a four-time winner of the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race in February, and is also running in Alaska. Mackey also has won that race four times, and is the only musher to win the back-to-back Quest and Iditarod in the same year — a feat he’s accomplished twice.
For the first time in Iditarod history, mushers will be tested for drugs and alcohol along the trail. Anyone testing positive would face disqualification.
The Iditarod began testing the sled dogs for prohibited substances in 1994.
Mackey, a throat cancer survivor, has been open about using medical marijuana in past Iditarods. He said he is honoring the drug rule, which has existed in some form since 1984 but was never strictly enforced.
In another first, a Jamaican musher is the first Caribbean entry in the Iditarod.
Newton Marshall, a 26-year-old resident of St. Anne Parish, has been training with Mackey this winter. Sponsored by Margaritaville icon Jimmy Buffett, Marshall completed the Yukon Quest last year as a rookie.
The poor economy has forced Iditarod organizers to stage the race with a diminished budget.
Race officials say they lost almost $1 million in funding after video deals collapsed and major sponsors dropped their support. Cushioning the blow somewhat, Exxon Mobil has pledged $250,000 annually in a five-year deal, and the city of Nome donated $50,000 earlier this year.
The total purse is $590,000 — down from a high of $925,000 in 2008 — with $50,000 of this year’s prize money donated by four-time champion Jeff King, who also is competing. The winner’s take is a new Dodge truck and $50,000, compared with $69,000 of past years.
— Rachel D’Oro
Winter Sports
Guay of Canada wins World Cup super-G in Norway
KVITFJELL, Norway — Erik Guay of Canada ended three years of near misses and captured his second career World Cup victory Sunday, narrowly winning a super-G that Bode Miller skipped.
Guay edged early leader Hannes Reichelt of Austria on the 1994 Olympic course to win his first race since a 2007 downhill in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
"It’s been a long time since I’ve been on top of the podium," Guay said. I took a lot of risks and it paid off. ... I’ve had a lot of close calls, fourths and fifths and I am going to push hard in the last races next week and see what happens."
Guay’s home Olympics in Vancouver also produced two fifth-place finishes despite bigger expectations.
This time, the close call went Guay’s way and he edged Reichelt by .02 seconds.
Olympic champion Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway and Tobias Gruenenfelder of Switzerland tied for third place. Svindal was second in Saturday’s downhill.
Miller, who took silver in the super-G at Vancouver, skipped the two races in Norway. U.S. teammate Andrew Weibrecht, who took super-G bronze at the Olympics, dislocated his shoulder in a crash in Saturday’s downhill and will miss the remainder of the season.
Didier Cuche of Switzerland, who won Saturday’s downhill, was disqualified. His Swiss teammate and Olympic downhill champion, Didier Defago, lost a ski halfway down the course and crashed.
Reichelt was first out of the starting gate and his time topped the board until Guay came down as No. 18.
Guay clocked 1 minute, 31.95 seconds over the 1.6-mile Olympiabakken course to snatch victory ahead of Reichelt. Svindal and Gruenenfelder clocked 1:32.26.
Mario Scheiber of Austria was fifth, only 0.01 seconds behind Svindal and Gruenenfelder.
Reichelt posted his best result in two years, a measure of redemption after failing to make Austria’s Olympic squad.
The World Cup season ends next week in Garmisch with final races in four events.
Michael Walchhofer of Austria placed sixth and kept his lead in super-G World Cup standings with one race left. He has 300 points, with Svindal second at 254 and Guay third at 231. A win is worth 100 points.
"Svindal is so strong right now, he can win every race and I am not going to play any tactical games in Garmisch but go for it," Walchhofer said.
In the overall standings, leader Benjamin Raich ceded more ground to Carlo Janka of Switzerland. Raich finished 19th and now has a total of 1,019 points, while Janka was seventh and is now only 46 behind.
"I’ll have to take risks if I want to get ahead," Janka said.
Cuche is third with 846 points and Svindal is fourth at 801.
— Nesha Starcevic
Gisin edges Vonn to won Crans-Montana super-G
CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland — Dominique Gisin of Switzerland won her first World Cup super-G race on Sunday by denying Lindsey Vonn a second win in two days.
Gisin attacked the Nationale course to finish in 1 minute, 24.14 seconds.
Vonn finished 0.15 seconds behind and U.S. teammate Julia Mancuso was 0.38 seconds back in third.
Vonn, who won gold in the downhill and bronze in the super-G at the Olympics, already has the World Cup titles in those two disciplines going into next week’s finale in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
However, she’ll have to wait at least another week to become the American with the most World Cup wins — Vonn and Bode Miller are tied on 32 after her downhill victory on Saturday.
Sunday’s super-G took place under good visibility but strong winds, knocking several contestants off course on the final jump.
Gisin, whose previous World Cup victories were in the downhill, appeared to have fully recovered from her spectacular crash during the final jump of the Vancouver Olympic downhill.
Her flawless run prompted wild cheers from the home crowd and a pained smile from Vonn as she ceded the top step on the podium.
Davis earns 6th World Cup win of season at 1,000
ERFURT, Germany — Olympic gold medalist Shani Davis of the United States improved to 6-0 at 1,000 meters during the World Cup season, winning Sunday’s race in 1 minute, 9.25 seconds.
His victory came a day after he clinched his third straight overall World Cup title.
Stefan Groothuis of Netherlands was second, while teammate and 1,500 Olympic gold medalist Mark Tuitert took third.
Jenny Wolf of Germany won her eighth 500 in 10 races this season with a time of 38.10. Wolf’s 48th World Cup victory moved her closer to a fifth overall World Cup title. Margot Boer led a trio of Dutch skaters finishing second, third and fourth.
Jan Smeekens of Netherlands won the men’s 500 in 35.20 for his second straight win at the distance in Erfurt. Yuya Oikawa of Japan was second and Finland’s Mika Poutala finished third to retain his lead in the 500 standings.
In the women’s 1,000, Yekaterina Shikova of Russia earned her first World Cup victory with a time of 1:16.93. She was followed by the Dutch trio of Laurine van Riessen, Natasja Bruintjes and Boer.
Christine Nesbitt of Canada remained atop the 1,000 standings by finishing ninth a day after she missed the 1,000 due to illness.
Norway takes 1-2 finish in men’s World Cup relay
LAHTI, Finland — Norway dominated the World Cup relay races at the Lahti Ski Games on Sunday, finishing 1-2 in the men’s race and winning the women’s event.
Kristian Tettli Rennemo anchored Norway II to the men’s win after winning a four-way sprint to finish in 1 hour, 27 minutes, 43.6 seconds. Tord Asle Gjerdalen was 0.2 seconds back for Norway I and Germany 0.5 seconds back in third after Tim Tscharnke beat Russia’s Ilia Chernousov in a photo finish.
Norway II also included Simen Oestensen, Roger Djupvik and Sjur Roethe. World Cup leader Petter Northug and most other top skiers skipped the event to rest up after the Olympics.
Triple Olympic champion Marit Bjoergen had anchored Norway to a victory over Germany and Italy in a three-way sprint to win the women’s relay earlier Sunday.
Uemura wins freestyle skiing World Cup event
INAWASHIRO, Japan — Japan’s Aiko Uemura has won a freestyle skiing world cup moguls event to claim her first title of the season.
Uemura, who was fourth last month at the Vancouver Olympics, scored 23.00 points to edge Olympic silver medalist Jennifer Heil of Canada with 22.73 on Sunday.
American Shannon Bahrke, who took bronze in Vancouver, was third with 22.20.
Heil leads the overall moguls standings with 585 points.
Poor visibility forced the cancellation of the men’s and dual moguls events.
Track & Field
Sprinter Bangura suspended for failed doping test
BRUSSELS — Belgian sprinter Fatmata Bangura will miss next weekend’s world indoor championships after she was provisionally suspended because of a positive doping test.
Sierra Leone-born Bangura was tested at her first Belgian championships last month and anti-doping officials found traces of the steroids clembuterol and stanozolol.
Belgian athletics official Tille Scheerlinck told Belgian media that the initial positive test triggered the suspension which will keep her from the three-day championships which open in Doha, Qatar, next Friday.
Bangura had only been approved by the IAAF to run for Belgium one week ago.
