Kelme and Domina Vacanze team have been dropped from this year’s cycling elite. Both teams had been threatened with being removed from the world’s top 30 for failing to meet International Cycling Union (UCI) rulings. Both Mario Cipolini’s Italian outfit and Vuelta d’Espana winners Kelme have been send down after failing to comply. They have until 15 January to meet the registration conditions to be a second-division squad. Roger Hammond’s Belgian Palmans Collstrop team and Spain’s Relax Bodysol benefited from the UCI’s decision and have been promoted to the top flight.
Canadian Dave Watson was announced winner of the Guardian Unlimited’s Sports Personality of the Year Award 2003, for his impressive Tour de France peloton jump in one of thois years mountain stages of the tour. Immediately after the jump, speculation regarding its authenticity was rife, but the release of MSP’s New World Disorder IV, Ride the Lightning, provided stunning evidence of a classic bit of freeriding. The third prize also went to a rider – Tour hardman, Tyler Hamilton.
Paola Pezzo has decided to return to the xc mountain bike scene in a bit to attempt to claim a thrid Olympic Gold medal. The decision was made during the World’s in Lugano, where she was a special guest and spectator. “I went to Lugano in September to see the World Championships. That’s where I told myself that I just couldn’t go to Athens to watch. The Olympics are possible, and I can do well. Nothing’s easy, but it wasn’t easy in Atlanta and Sydney either. It’s never easy.” More over at Dirt Rag.
Meanwhile some riders in California had an unexpected complication to a ride in the woods, when a mountain lion decided that one of them looked pretty tasty and tried to eat them. More here, but in all honesty, this story has been everywhere. What bandwagon?
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