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Team Katusha 7′th in UCI’s World Rankings
There are 4 Katusha riders in top 30 of the UCI’s World Rankings
Tour of Poland 2009: Team Katusha ready
Katusha for Tour of Poland
Laszlo Bodrogi, Pavel Brutt, Nikita Eskov, Denis Galimzyanov, Serguei Klimov, Guennadi Mikhsylov, Alexander Serov and Danilo Napolitano.
Tour de France 2009: Stage 9. Ivanov top 5
1 Pierrick Fedrigo (Fra) BBOX Bouygues Telecom 4:05:31
2 Franco Pellizotti (Ita) Liquigas
3 Oscar Freire Gomez (Spa) Rabobank 0:00:34
4 Serguei Ivanov (Rus) Team Katusha
5 Peter Velits (Svk) Team Milram
6 Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil (Spa) Caisse d’Epargne
7 Greg Van Avermaet (Bel) Silence – Lotto
8 Geoffroy Lequatre (Fra) Agritubel
9 Alessandro Ballan (Ita) Lampre – NGC
10 Nicolas Roche (Irl) AG2R La Mondiale
Redesign Pozzato jersey!
Filippo Pozzato and Team Katusha need to respect the design of the national champion jersey, said the Italian cycling federation (FCI) today in a press statement.
“It is not the same design we gave to him at the championships in Imola. The jersey he is using does not conform to the tricolore design,” a representative of the FCI told us.
Pozzato won the Italian championships on June 28 ahead of Damiano Cunego. He is entitled the wear the prestigious national – green, white and red – jersey for one year.
He is racing at the Tour de France, July 4 to 26, where the champion’s jersey is visible to millions of fans. The federation is upset with the design Katusha has used. The design adapts the Italian colours to the sponsor’s logo and results in very little green.
“We just used the same layout and changed the colours. We did that with the Austrian and Russian champions’ jerseys as well,” Katusha‘s press spokesman, Andrea Agostoni, told us.
Agostoni explained the team will change the jersey in the coming days. They are waiting for a new jersey to arrive from their supplier, Santini, in Italy.
Riders wear different variations of the national champion jersey from year to year. Agostoni noted that no one forced Alejandro Valverde to change his Spanish Champion jersey last year. It had more black than the nation’s red and yellow traditional design.
Riders’ association says clause not in regulations
The Professional Cyclists’ Association (CPA) has explained that a clause demanding payment of salary should a rider test positive for performance-enhancing substances is not permissible according to UCI regulations.
The declaration follows news that Team Katusha riders were told to sign a clause in their contracts stipulating that should they test positive for doping products a financial penalty of up to five times their annual salary may result.
Robbie McEwen stated last week that a third doping case would spell the end for the Russian team, given that star riders Christian Pfannberger and Toni Colom both tested positive for EPO after controls taken during the Spring Classics.
While McEwen expressed misgivings over the introduction of the stipulations, he signed the charter. Overnight however, Belgian rider Gert Steegmans has stated he won’t sign the charter, a move which jeopardises his chances of competing in the Tour de France next month. Steegmans has expressed concerns over the situation, labelling it as ‘complex’.
In a statement released on Monday, the stance of the CPA concurred with that of Steegmans, explaining, “the CPA reminds all the riders who belong to a ProTour or Continental Professional Team that the UCI Regulation which includes the Joint Agreement does not allow to add a clause which impinges on the riders’ rights.”
Tour de Suisse 2009: Cancellara wins at home
Fabian Cancellara of Team Saxo Bank dominated the opening time trial of the Tour de Suisse, finishing an astonishing 19 seconds faster than his closest competition over the 7.8 km course in Liechtenstein. Defending champion Roman Kreuziger (Liquigas) was second and Astana’s Andreas Klöden was third, 22 seconds down.
Results
1 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Team Saxo Bank 9.21 (50.053 km/h) 2 Roman Kreuziger (Cze) Liquigas 0.19 3 Andreas Klöden (Ger) Astana 0.22 4 George Hincapie (USA) Team Columbia - Highroad 0.24 5 Tony Martin (Ger) Team Columbia - Highroad 0.31 6 Kim Kirchen (Lux) Team Columbia - Highroad 7 Maxime Monfort (Bel) Team Columbia - Highroad 0.32 8 Heinrich Haussler (Ger) Cervélo TestTeam 0.34 9 Lars Boom (Ned) Rabobank 10 Rui Alberto Faria (Por) Caisse d'Epargne 0.35 ... 16 Vladimir Karpets (Rus) Team Katusha 0.38
KatushaTeam for Tour de Suisse 2009
73rd Tour de Suisse – UPTSwitzerland, June 13-21, 2009Katusha 51 Vladimir Karpets (Rus) 52 Antonio Colom (Spa) 53 Nikita Eskov (Rus) 54 Joan Horrach (Spa) 55 Serguei Ivanov (Rus) 56 Luca Mazzanti (Ita) 57 Robbie McEwen (Aus) 58 Filippo Pozzato (Ita) |
Giro d’Italia 2009: Stage 2. Swift third.
With the gorgeous seaside town of Trieste providing the backdrop to the 156-kilometre opening road stage of the 2009 Giro d’Italia, LPR’s Alessandro Petacchi – once considered the top sprinter in the world – beat the man who many consider to be the best sprinter in the world.
On the long, wide-open, Riva III Novembre boulevard, it was vintage Petacchi: the 35-year-old from La Spezia choosing to jump a massive 300 metres from the line, arms bent, torso still, chin almost touching the stem, and powering his massive 11-cog down the right-side barriers. Cavendish tried to overtake him, but it was useless: Petacchi 1, Cavendish 0.
“Today [Sunday] was the first real win of the year,” said Petacchi, whose victory punch – his 24th at the Giro – would have delivered a knockout blow, had he been in the ring with the Anglophone.
Speaking of Anglophones, a trio of English speakers rounded out Stage 2′s top five, British rider Ben Swift (Katusha), Aussie Allan Davis (Quick Step) and American Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Slipstream) third to fifth, respectively.
“Sprints at the Giro, Tour de France and Vuelta are totally different,” said Petacchi. “I didn’t know much about Cavendish; I saw him win Qatar, I saw him win in Milano-Sanremo, but again, Sanremo is very different to stage races. I wanted to see if he was that fast.
“I started my sprint really far out,” he continued, describing the finale. “I took a risk doing so but I knew [long sprints] don’t suit his characteristics. Sure, I won easily, but it’s not certain that tomorrow or the next time will be the same.”
Said fifth-placed Farrar, “To be honest, I was just thinking about winning the stage; today, winning and taking the pink jersey were going to be one and the same thing.
“Unfortunately I didn’t quite have the right positioning. It was very wide between about four and two kilometres to go, then there were a few bends and your finishing position was pretty much the position in which you went into those bends. And it was chaotic even before that, coming off the climb. I think that’s perhaps why Columbia went too early, just as we hit the front too early with around three kilometres to go.”
It may have been Petacchi‘s 164th career win, but it’s been a long time coming.
“I wasn’t happy watching the Giro on TV last year,” he said, referring to his suspension last year by the Court of Arbitration for Sport for testing non-negative to asthma medication Salbutamol (which Petacchi has clearance to use), resulting in him being fired from his previous team, Milram. “So to win the first stage at the Giro [after my suspension] is very important to me. I’m really happy to be back.”
Results
1 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) LPR Brakes - Farnese Vini 3.43.07 (41.951 km/h) 2 Mark Cavendish (GBr) Team Columbia - Highroad 3 Ben Swift (GBr) Team Katusha 4 Allan Davis (Aus) Quick Step 5 Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin - Slipstream
Amstel Gold Race 2009: It is Ivanov!!!
Ivanov finally wins his “favourite race”
He’s threatened with Ardennes assaults in the past but today Serguei Ivanov made good on the promise shown and won a dramatic Amstel Gold Race. While it was a dream come true for the Russian, it served as Team Katusha’s most significant triumph to date.
The former Astana rider capitalised on a flourish of activity during the latter part of the race to take his place in a three-man group nearing the finish. With a charging peloton hot on their heels, it was then a matter of surviving out front and fighting out the sprint.
Ivanov out-sprinted Saxo Bank’s Karsten Kroon in the uphill sprint as the duo left Rabobank’s Robert Gesink behind on the final climb of the Cauberg, with the lanky Dutch rider rolling in for third.
Despite having won a Tour de France stage Ivanov claimed the Amstel title was, “the biggest win of my career. This is my favourite race and over the past ten years I have always done well here.” 
best finish had been second in 2002. “Today the team worked very hard for me, I am very thankful to them.”
The race was overshadowed by a serious crash involving Saxo Bank’s Fränk Schleck and Silence-Lotto’s Matthew Lloyd. Both were taken to hospital, but first reports indicated no serious injuries.
Coppi e Bartali 2009: Stage 1a. Napolitano the best
Danilo Napolitano won the opening stage of the Settimana Internazionale di Coppi e Bartali Tuesday morning in Riccione. The Katusha rider out-sprinted Marko Kump (Adria Mobil) and Enrico Rossi (Ceramica Flaminia-Bossini Docce) after 81.2 kilometres of racing.
“I feel good. It all went well and the victory is the compensation,” said the Italian from Sicilia. “We pulled all day to try to keep the escape controlled. In the finale my teammates did excellent work, with Trusov as the last man in the train.”
Dmitri Nikandrov (Centri della Calzatura), Dainius Kairelis (Ceramica Flaminia-Bossini Docce), Marco Cattaneo (LPR Brakes-Farnese Vini) formed a three man escape early in the day. The trio obtained a maximum advantage of 1:25 by kilometre 55 under the watchful eyes of teams Liquigas, Columbia and Katusha.
The Russian team handled a last minute attack from Yuri Mitlushenko (Amore & Vita-McDonald’s) to deliver Napolitano to his third win of the season. It is his first win in Italy after wins in Spain and Belgium. 
will wear the general classification leader’s jersey for the afternoon’s team time trial.
The afternoon’s semi-stage covers 14.3 kilometres from Riccione to Misano Adriatico. Big names, like Damiano Cunego (Lampre-NGC) and Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto), will be eager to test their time trial form. (GB)
