International Capsules: Armstrong vs. Contador will have to wait

PORTO VECCHIO, Corsica — Lance Armstrong didn’t put up much of a fight in his first faceoff this year with rival Alberto Contador.

The Texan placed 47th in the two-day Criterium International, won Sunday by Pierrick Fedrigo of France, but was not disappointed: the race was more about testing his legs than his competitors.

Armstrong repeatedly has said he isn’t yet in top form and is focusing his energies on the victory that he covets most: an eighth Tour de France title in July.

The 38-year-old has his work cut out.

He was 3:40 slower than Contador in the single mountain stage — one in which the Spaniard wasn’t at his best, complaining of allergies. And on a very short time trial, Armstrong was 17 seconds slower.

He will need to improve enough by the end of the Tour in four months to overcome such deficits. But Contador has said he too will be better by then.

One thing Armstrong could do without is the media hype about a looming clash with Contador, the defending and 2007 Tour champion. But the bad blood remains: cycling’s two biggest stars didn’t speak once during the weekend event.

"I wasn’t going to compete with him. I know that, he knows that," Armstrong said after finishing 15th in the final time trial Sunday in Porto Vecchio. "There’s no mystery there."

Sunday’s final two stages — a flat ride in the morning, then the afternoon race against the clock — went to Britons.

Scotland’s David Millar won the 4.8-mile time trial, clocking 9 minutes, 49 seconds. Contador was second, 2 seconds back. Australia’s Michael Rogers was third, 4 seconds back. Armstrong was 15th, 19 seconds off Millar’s pace.

In the morning ride, Englishman Russell Downing led a mass sprint to win the second stage, a generally flat 47-mile course in and around the Corsican port town.

Fedrigo won Saturday’s stage and was the only man to lead the race. Rogers placed second overall, 14 seconds back, and Portugal’s Tiago Machado of Team RadioShack was third, 15 seconds behind.

"I’m 31 years old but I still don’t know my limits, I still surprise myself," Fedrigo said. "It’s not like winning the Tour — the Tour is another dimension — but the Criterium International was the biggest race this year so far in terms of the participants, and I’m proud to have won it."

Armstrong, who finished 5:05 behind Fedrigo in 47th, played down Contador’s performance: The Spaniard was 15th — 1:08 behind overall — after complaining of allergy troubles in Stage 1 on Saturday.

"I expected him to be super yesterday. I don’t know the problem, but it didn’t work out," Armstrong said.

The tensions that first surfaced when they were teammates at last year’s Tour, which Contador won and Armstrong placed third, appeared undiminished. Asked if they are on speaking terms, Armstrong said: "Hmm. I dunno ..."

Armstrong said he felt better at Sunday’s time trial than he did at one in his last race, the Vuelta de Murcia in Spain earlier this month.

"It was hard to find a rhythm, but I felt better than I did in Murcia," he said. "I felt steadier.

"It was a good as it could be for two days. Yesterday was an extremely hard day."

After Saturday’s stage, a wind-swept 109-mile ride with an uphill finish on which Armstrong struggled, the Texan said he had a "really, really bad" day.

"We had 4,100 meters of climbing, that’s rare (even) for a Grand Tour," Armstrong said. "A longer race would have been better: five, six, seven days, but this is what we chose to do.

"I always wanted to come to Corsica. So we came, we saw it."

The race was the first on the Mediterranean island of Corsica since 1982, and local officials are hoping to host a Tour stage in coming years.

So will the real competitive showdown between Armstrong and Contador have to wait until the Tour starts in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam on July 3?

"It depends on what he chooses to do, and what I choose to do in June," said Armstrong. "There are only two options there — the Dauphine (Libere) or the Tour of Switzerland. So it might be that there’s not another confrontation until July."

"I think that he and I both would both prefer that the drama not exist," added Armstrong. "But what matters is what starts in Rotterdam."

England’s Clancy wins men’s omnium, Phinney 3rd

BALLERUP, Denmark — Edward Clancy won the men’s omnium in one of the final races of the track cycling world championships on Sunday, with Taylor Phinney of the U.S. finishing third.

Clancy edged Leigh Howard of Australia, last year’s winner in the five-part event that includes a 200-meter flying start time trial, a 5K scratch race, a 3K individual pursuit, a 15K points race and a 1K time trial. The placing a rider achieves in each event is converted to points, and the rider with the fewest points at the end wins.

Clancy clinched the gold in the 1K time trial.

"That was hard. It’s such a tough event but winning gold really helps," he said.

Clancy finished with 24 points, Howard had 32 and Phinney 33.

The 19-year-old American won gold in the men’s individual pursuit on Thursday. He is the son of Davis Phinney, winner of more than 300 races, and Connie Carpenter-Phinney, who won gold at the Los Angeles Games.

In the women’s points race final, Canada’s Tara Whitten secured her second gold, earning 36 points to beat second-place Lauren Ellis of New Zealand by three points. Tatsiana Sharakova of Belarus took the bronze.

Whitten also won the women’s omnium on Saturday

"I didn’t think I had anything left after winning the women’s omnium yesterday so I’m thrilled," she said.

In the women’s keirin final, Simona Krupeckaite won Lithuania’s first gold of the tournament, beating Britain’s Victoria Pendleton by a whisker. Krupeckaite also earned silver in the women’s 500 time trial.

In the final event, the men’s sprint, Gregory Bauge retained his title to secure another gold for France by beating Australia’s Shane Perkins.

The five-day competition ended with Australia picking up six gold medals, Britain three, while France and the United States had two apiece.

Figure Skating

Olympic-fatigued skaters bumble through worlds

TURIN, Italy — Olympic champion Kim Yu-na couldn’t wait for it to be over.

The fatigue from the long Olympic season showed in her unusually error-ridden performances at the World Figure Skating Championships. She ceded the world title to longtime rival Mao Asada of Japan on Saturday, settling for the silver just a month after dazzling the world with what many will remember as one of the best Olympic performances of all time.

But the end of the world championships did bring Kim one thing she coveted: relief from the unending pressure.

"I have been waiting for this moment, to finish this season. I am so happy right now I just finished," Kim said after completing the long program that she won, despite falling on a triple salchow and scratching an axel.

And she wasn’t alone.

Skater after skater coming off the ice talked about how exhausted they were after giving their all at the Olympics, the pinnacle of the sport and an event they train their entire lives for, only to turn around a month later for the world championships. The men’s and women’s competitions were particularly sloppy, with few of the top skaters coming close to their performances in Vancouver.

Which raises the question: Is another major international competition so soon after the Olympics too demanding for skaters?

"If indeed the time between the Olympics and the world championships is not enough to recover and prepare adequately for the event, it is our duty ... to pay attention to this fact," International Skating Union President Ottavio Cinquanta said Saturday.

"We have a duty to administer this sport. But the skaters have the right to be treated properly," said Cinquanta, a former speed skater.

Cinquanta stopped short of saying the issue would be raised at the ISU Congress in Barcelona in June, but he pointedly signaled the question to ISU council members sitting in the press conference.

World championships in an Olympic year have traditionally been a letdown. Many top athletes opt out — with good reason. There’s physical and mental exhaustion. And, more materially, the post-Olympic period provides a very short window during which medal winners can cash in on their achievement, long years of training and financial investment.

One needs to go back to 1992 for the last worlds where all of the Olympic medalists attended. And that year, all added a world gold to their Olympic gold: Kristi Yamaguchi, Victor Petrenko, Natalia Mishkutienok and Artur Dmitriev in pairs and Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko in ice dance.

This year’s worlds was more typical of recent trends.

Vancouver men’s champion Evan Lysacek skipped worlds, as did silver medalist and three-time world champion Evgeni Plushenko — who won the 2006 Olympic gold medal at the very Palavela where worlds were held. Pairs gold medalists Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo and Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin, bronze medalists in ice dance in Vancouver and the 2009 world champs, also took a pass. Women’s bronze medalist Joannie Rochette, whose mother died suddenly during the games, took a much needed break.

Veteran coach Frank Carroll said the back-to-back Olympics-worlds was "business as usual," but added "maybe they should separate a little. I don’t know, it’s an ISU decision."

He said most skaters should know they will have only four or five days of rest after the Olympics before hitting the training hard again. But Kim said she had a very hard time doing that, and told South Korean media she thought she would do well "just because of what I have."

While most skaters should be able to rebound, the exceptions are the champions, Carroll said. Lysacek, coached by Carroll, has been living the whirlwind, mingling with Hollywood celebrities and competing on "Dancing With the Stars." Kim’s shocking performance in the short, where she flubbed basic elements like a spin and a spiral, is an argument in favor of Lysacek’s decision, Carroll said.

"That was a disaster. But she was the Olympic champion," Carroll said. "Evan, coming here and doing all those talk shows and ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ what would he have done? It’s — for an Olympic champion — a risk to come here.

"They’d be fools not to take advantage of it, too," Carroll added of the spoils that come with Olympic gold. "There is only a certain time of their lives when they can enjoy this level of popularity and fame — and money."

While many champions stay away, that is not to say the world title is not coveted. Vancouver ice dance gold medalists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir came to Turin to click off the world title box, which they did with usual elegant, emotional and technically superior skating.

And for some, the worlds are a chance for redemption after a rough Olympics.

Daisuke Takahashi didn’t need any after winning Olympic bronze, and he delivered even bigger in Turin by winning Japan’s first men’s world title. But Patrick Chan, an Olympic medal hopeful who left Vancouver empty-handed, can be pleased with his second straight silver at worlds, and France’s Brian Joubert vanquished a disastrous Olympic performance with the bronze, his fifth world medal.

-- Colleen Barry

Sailing

Cal and Virginia crews power to wins in San Diego

SAN DIEGO — California’s men and Virginia’s women captured the major championships at the 37th annual San Diego Crew Classic on Sunday.

Cal took its second straight and 10th overall Copley Cup title for men’s eights, winning by more than a boat length over Brown in the final of the men’s Collegiate Varsity Invitational at Crown Point Shores on Mission Bay.

The Golden Bears covered the 2,000-meter course in 5 minutes, 49.5 seconds. Brown followed in 5:53.63 and Syracuse was third in 5:56.22.

"It’s a big regatta and I think it simulates the national championships where you have the heats and get into the top three and come back to the final," said Cal coach Mike Teti, who last weekend became the first person inducted into the National Rowing Hall of Fame as an athlete and coach.

"Last year at this time we were in the midst of selection and when we came here we had two even eights," Teti said. "But I think this year we have a little bit of a separation and I think this is pretty much the group for the varsity."

Boston University (5:59.36) placed third and was followed by Northeastern (6:00.69) and Stanford (6:03.85).

Virginia’s women held off Southern California to win the school’s first Jessop-Whittier Cup for women’s eights. The Cavaliers covered 2,000 meters in 6:34.2 to become the fourth women’s team from the East to win the race.

USC crossed in 6:37.48 and was followed by UCLA in 6:41.95, Washington State (6:44.06), Radcliffe (6:53.33) and Grand Valley State (6:58.20).

"It is an early race and it’s good to come out here and race well," Virginia coach Kevin Sauer said. "We haven’t been here since 2002. We went up to Stanford for a number of years, but it was good to be back here and to win.

"I was surprised that we got a lead at the beginning and were able to push away. USC kept coming at us and coming at us and we were able to hold them off."

Defending women’s champion Michigan did not compete this year.

Approximately 3,400 rowers competed in the two-day competition.

Winter Sports

Germany wins biathlon mixed-relay world title

KHANTY-MANSIYSK, Russia — Germany has ended the biathlon World Cup season by winning the mixed-relay world championship title in the final event on the season.

The team of veteran Simone Hauswald, double Olympic gold medalist Magdalena Neuner, Simon Schempp and Arnd Peiffer finished in 1 hour, 19 minutes, 59.5 seconds.

Ole Einar Bjoerndalen anchored Norway to silver, 1 minute, 24.0 seconds behind. Sweden was third, 1:30.8 back.

The International Biathlon Union schedules a one-off world championship race in the mixed relay during Olympic years, as the discipline is not part of the games. In other years, the event is held at the regular world championships.

Olympic biathlon champion Medvedtseva retires

MOSCOW — Two-time Olympic biathlon champion Olga Medvedtseva of Russia is retiring from the sport, ending a career marred by a doping violation that led to her being kicked out of the Turin Games.

Medvedtseva made the announcement after Sunday’s mixed relay race at the World Cup finals, but said her decision was made several months ago.

The 34-year-old Russian competed as Olga Pyleva at the 2006 Turin Olympics, where she tested positive for a banned substance and was stripped of a silver medal.

She got redemption in Vancouver, where her perfect shooting helped Russia win gold in the women’s relay.

She also won gold in the pursuit in the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.

Running

Ebuya wins men’s cross-country world title

BYDGOSZCZ, Poland — Joseph Ebuya has won the men’s race to complete a Kenyan sweep of the gold medals at the cross-country running world championships.

Ebuya finished the 12-kilometer course in 33 minutes to give Kenya its ninth medal at the event. Eritrea’s Teklemariam Medhin finished 6 seconds back in second, while Moses Ndiema Kipsiro of Uganda took the bronze, 10 seconds behind.

Earlier, Kenya’s Emily Chebet won the women’s 8K race in 24:19, ahead of compatriot Linet Chepkwemoi Masai and Ethiopia’s Meselech Melkamu.

In junior races, Kenyans Caleb Mwangangi Ndiku won the men’s event and Mercy Cherono captured the women’s title.