WADA and the British Olympic Association (BOA) have been at loggerheads over UK rules introduced in 1992 that ban former dopers from Olympic competition for life.

WADA contends that the ban violates its code, and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is expected to consider the issue ahead of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has a similar rule — it does not allow athletes to compete if they’ve tested positive within six months of the Olympic Games, something WADA claims constitutes a second ban.

If CAS does not support the IOC rule, the British ban could be also overturned. Should that be the case, athletes such as David Millar would be allowed to compete in London.

Millar served a ban after admitting he doped during his stint at Cofidis and has since been barred from Olympic competition. However, he is allowed to compete in other international competitions, including the world road cycling championships, and Millar represented Scotland during the 2010 Commonwealth Games, where he won the gold medal in the time trial.

Bos will undergo surgery to repair damage caused by a burst vein in his groin next Monday and will then undergo a period of rehabiliation, during which he will not be able to move his left leg for the first month and a half.

“Because of this long period of rehabilitation, I’ve decided to give up on my Olympic track ambitions,” he said. “I have to be realistic, even though it hurts.”

The 28-year-old switched from track cycling to road racing after the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. On the track, the Dutchman won three world titles in 2004, 2006 and 2007 but only took a silver medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens and was also thwarted in his quest for gold in Beijing.

He had planned to return to the track for the London Games and was hoping to compete in the omnium, a new event combining six different races.

Born on October 10, 1910, Pavesi was the oldest surviving Olympic champion having won gold medals in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, in the individual road race as well as the team road race.

The 11th child in a family from the Northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, Pavesi moved to Argentina at the start of World War II where he organized cycling races.

Katie Compton finished fourth at the Val di Sole, Italy World Cup last season.

What makes Katie Compton’s seven consecutive national cyclocross championships so impressive and her pioneering American success on the European ‘cross circuit even more meaningful is that she’s done it largely as a privateer.

Operating on the same bare-bones program, “Team Compton” — made up of Compton and Mark Legg, her husband, mechanic, soigneur and training partner — won two mountain bike national titles in short-track cross-country in 2008 and 2010.

Now, however, Compton may have found the extra push needed to reach two lofty goals: qualifying for the 2012 U.S. Olympic mountain bike team and finally standing atop the podium at the cyclocross worlds after winning silver twice and bronze once. After some 16 years’ racing, the 32 year old has signed on with a full-on, international sponsor — Rabobank-Giant Off-Road Team.

“As much as I liked being independent for a few years, I’m ready to move onto a team that has the infrastructure to support me on both the ‘cross and mountain bike,” Compton said.

Hailing from Wilmington, Delaware, but now a long-time resident of Colorado Springs, Compton won her seventh-consecutive U.S. cyclocross title in 2010 and added a fistful of wins to her list of UCI cyclocross podiums this past season. She started riding track and fat tires as a junior, then began racing on the track in college. Next came mountain biking as a member of the Trek/VW East Coast team.

While a coach at Carmichael Training Systems, Compton started racing again as the sighted pilot with Karissa Whitsell on a tandem Paralympic cycling team. The pair won multiple world and national paralympic championships as well as medals at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens on the road and track.

But it was in 2004 that Compton made her true debut on the American cycling scene by winning the first of her string of U.S. cyclocross national championships and then finding success on the world stage in 2007.

We caught up with Compton to get her thoughts on her new team and how she plans to meld mountain bike racing with cyclocross.

Q. To one degree or another, you’ve been a privateer for most of your career. How do you see the partnership with Rabobank-Giant Off-Road helping in reaching your goals?

A. They have a great program, great support and I’m just really excited to be a part of it now. I think this program has what I need to get me to that next level and win more races. It’s also a big stress relief to not have to worry about paying the bills anymore. I can focus solely on training, resting and racing now.

Q. One of your stated goals is qualifying for the mountain bike cross-country at the 2012 Olympics. What is your plan/schedule for 2011 as far as World Cup and domestic XC and then the lead-up to London in 2012?

A. For this year I’m going to do the full mountain bike World Cup schedule and will race ‘cross again in the fall. Next year is the same plan, I just need to get the right results in order to reach that goal. I plan to do everything in my power to make that happen and the team is 100 percent in support of that.

Q. In order to qualify for the U.S. Olympic MTB team, one has to rack up UCI points and top-10, or better, results internationally and domestically. How does that commitment fit in with your continuing success in cyclocross — especially with the Olympics looming?

A. I think training and racing well is a good build up for my ‘cross season. I’ll have a little more flexibility for ‘cross so I can set up my race schedule to come into worlds feeling strong and racing well like I did this year. I love riding and racing my bike and staying fit, so as long as I have a little down time in between seasons I’m good to go.

Olympics is the main goal, so I’ll do what I need to in order to qualify — that is first and foremost on the list. I think preparation for that will bring me into ‘cross season riding well.

Q. Other than you and Katerina Nash there aren’t too many other women who are consistently legit podium contenders on the both the World Cup cross-country and cyclocross scenes. With the demands being great for both, is it possible to excel at both in one year or does one have to be a priority over the other?

A. I think you can do well in both in the same year as long as you plan your seasons right. I think the two disciplines really complement each other. The mounain bike racing gives you the strength and aerobic fitness to be a good ‘cross rider and ‘cross gives you the speed to be a better mountain biker.
I like going hard over the winter and racing throughout the year, six months is too long to go without a race effort in the legs.

I know that doesn’t work for everyone, but it does for me as long as I have some down time between the two seasons. I just look forward to racing. As soon as I finished ‘cross worlds I was already thinking about what fun mountain bike rides I wanted to do.
‘Cross and mountain bike are such different scenes; both fun in different ways that it’s enough variety to keep from getting tired of either one.

Q. You’re the U.S. national champ in short-track XC, which, to a degree, requires the similar power and endurance needs of ‘cross racing. Olympic XC is a bit longer, with different requirements. How are you training differently or do you?

A. They are different efforts for sure, but the training is similar. I just make some adjustments depending on what racing I’m preparing for. It’s not like I only do 45-minute rides during ‘cross season since the races are so short. I still get in the endurance and the strength work. I just focus on shorter and harder efforts when ‘cross season comes around. And that’s kinda nice when it is really cold outside. I’d much rather go hard for a short time then do long training rides in cold wet weather.

Q. That said, the UCI has mandated shorter Olympic XC courses for 2011 and onward. How do you see that working out for your style of racing?

A. I think it’s great. It suits my racing style and it’ll be more exciting for TV and spectators.

Q. Going with Giant you have a variety of bikes to choose from — straight up hardtails, 26-inch dually XC, 29er dually. So what will it be — 29er or 26er?

A. I know, and I can’t wait to get them. I’ve got some fun bikes on order for training, but I plan to race the World Cups on the 26-inch hardtail. I have an aggressive riding style and I’m out of the saddle a lot so I like the response of a hardtail when I have to ride fast and the full suspension when I want to have fun and work on skills.

Not sure what I will race in the U.S. yet. It will probably depend on the courses and how I am feeling. As much as I like 29ers for Colorado trails, I’m still happier with smaller wheels on tight, technical terrain so I probably won’t be racing a 29er much.

Rebellin wants to resume his career after his suspension

Italian cyclist Davide Rebellin continues to insist that he didn’t dope at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games , where he won a silver medal.

Rebellin, 40 this summer, is coming off a two-year ban after officials say he tested positive for CERA-EPO en route to winning the silver medal behind Samuel Sánchez in China.

“If I was doping, I wouldn’t have gone to the Olympics,” Rebellin said in an interview with the Italian daily La Stampa. “I am not stupid. I knew that certain substances can be detected very easily.”

Rebellin, who lost a challenge to his doping ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport last summer, insists there were irregularities during the anti-doping process and suggested there was contamination of his samples or perhaps even the accidental mixing up of labels.

“In Beijing, I underwent three extractions of blood (for anti-doping controls), four days before the race and just ahead of competition,” he said. “In total, there had to be six test tubes, two for every extraction. In the end, they told me there were seven and I only tested positive for one. And the others, they weren’t enough?”

Rebellin’s positive wasn’t announced until April 2009, more than a half year after the conclusion of the Olympic Games.

Rebellin is trying to mount a comeback this season when his doping ban ends April 27 this year. Italian officials insisted that he return his silver medal along with 75,000 euros in prize money.

The medals podium has since been rearranged, with Fabian Cancellara receiving the silver medal and Alexandr Kolobnev bumped up to bronze. The Russian finally received his Olympic medal during a Katusha team ceremony in Moscow at the end of January.

The Russian is expected to be awarded the medal during a Katusha team presentation in Moscow on Wednesday, team officials confirmed to VeloNews.

Kolobnev finished fourth in the Olympic road race but was bumped to third after silver medalist Davide Rebellin tested positive for CERA and was disqualified. Bronze medalist Fabian Cancellara was elevated to second place and received his medal last year in a ceremony with Swiss officials.

Kolobnev remained in the dark, however, and wondered if he would ever receive the medal. As late as last week, Kolobnev said he still had not heard from Russian authorities.

Kolobnev will be relieved that he finally has the medal, telling VeloNews earlier this month that he was growing exasperated with the ongoing drama.

“In the end I want to get this medal just to have it,” he said. “Everyone keeps talking about this medal, that it should be mine, but I don’t have it yet. So once I get it – if I get it – then I can put in my home next to the other prizes I have from cycling, and I can finally be happy. And I can finally forget about it!”

The selection procedures outline prioritized automatic and discretionary selection criteria, key dates (including any tryout events), long-team qualification period, maximum team size and more.

The only discipline set to include an Olympic Trials event is men’s BMX, where one of three maximum spots will be determined at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, California, on June 16, 2012.

The 2012 Olympic Games are scheduled for July 27 through August 12 in London, United Kingdom.

For women’s road racing, all eligible riders placing in the top-three of the 2011 UCI world road championship or world time trial championship will be automatically nominated to the women’s Olympic long team. Results that may bring nominations include a top-five at the world road or time trial championship; a top-25 placing in the UCI individual rankings as of November 15, 2011; a top-10 ranking in the UCI World Cup individual ranking as of November 15, 2011; winning a UCI European 2.1 individual general classification in 2011; winning a World Cup event in 2011; and winning a 2011 national road or time trial championship title, provided the race is held in its entirety and run under UCI regulations.

The men’s road selection procedures are pending final approval and will be announced shortly.

For track riders, top results at the 2011 UCI track world championships (March 23-27), the 2012 UCI track world championships (March 23-April 1), the 2011 UCI Pan-Am Championships (May 5-15) and at 2011 UCI track World Cup events will be given highest priority for team selection.

On the mountain bike side, results from the 2011 world cross-country championships (August 29-September 4) and the 2012 World Cup series will hold highest priority.

Any U.S. man finishing in the top-10 of the 2011 world cross-country championships will be nominated to the 10-man Olympic long team; any U.S. man finishing in the top-10 of a 2011 World Cup cross-country event may be nominated. Other criteria for nomination to the men’s long team include a top-three ranking in the 2011 USA Cycling Pro XCT rankings, and a top-60 placing in the 2011 UCI individual world rankings.

Qualifying criteria for U.S. women cross-country racers is similar — any U.S. women finishing in the top-10 of the 2011 world cross-country championships will be nominated to the 10-woman Olympic long team. Top-10 finishes in a 2011 World Cup cross-country event, a top-three ranking in the 2011 USA Cycling Pro XCT rankings, and a top-50 placing in the 2011 UCI individual world rankings may qualify for nomination to the women’s long team.

An outline of key information the full 2012 U.S. Olympic Team selection procedures is available below, and on the USA Cycling web site.

2012 Olympics selection calendar

Kolobnev

Alexander Kolobnev (Katusha) is starting to think he’ll never see an Olympic medal that should be his following the disqualification of Davide Rebellin during the 2008 Olympic Games.

Rebellin tested positive for CERA and was disqualified from the silver medal. Bronze medalist Fabian Cancellara has already seen his result adjusted and received his new medal in a ceremony with Swiss officials. Kolobnev, who crossed the line fourth, still doesn’t know if he’ll ever receive a medal.

There is some talk of a medal presentation during Katusha’s team presentation in Moscow on January 26, but Kolobnev says he remains in the dark.

VeloNews caught up with the Russian one-day specialist last week during the presentation of the 2011 Vuelta a España, and Kolobnev seemed to be losing patience over the slow pace of sport justice.

Q. Any word on the elusive Olympic medal?

A. Not yet, I don’t know what’s going on. The Russian Olympic committee has not contacted me. For them, it’s something that doesn’t seem to be interesting. Maybe I will be getting the medal at the team presentation, but they should contact me before then, no? Maybe there will be a presentation there with the medal. I am tired of all this.

Q. Do you feel this medal is yours or are you tired of hearing about it?

A. In the end I want to get this medal just to have it. Everyone keeps talking about this medal, that it should be mine, but I don’t have it yet. So once I get it — if I get it — then I can put in my home next to the other prizes I have from cycling, and I can finally be happy. And I can finally forget about it!

Q.Looking back at the 2010 season, you had some big results, including second at Liège and a strong Tour de France debut, would you rate it as your best season ever?

A. Well, in some ways, yes, I had some big results compared to the other seasons. I had some nice results, but the end of the season didn’t go as well as I had expected. The world championships were not hard enough for me. And at Lombardia, I had really good form and I wanted to win that race, but I had a bad crash after 70km and could not go for the victory. So in that regard, the end of the season was shitty. In general, I can say it was good overall.

Q. What are you expectations for 2011?

A. I think it will be even better for me this year. I will try to get better form early. Maybe I will try to do some good results at Paris-Nice and Basque Country and of course the classics. I will also try to do much better in the Tour de France. Last year was my debut and I didn’t know the best way to prepare for the Tour. I think I am able to find the right way this year because I saw that I made some mistakes in the training plan to be in the good shape for the Tour.

Q.You always do well in the worlds, but this year’s course doesn’t suit you as well, will you race in Denmark?

A. I don’t know yet, because the course is for the sprinters. Maybe I will prefer to end earlier this season and begin earlier next year. I have not seen the course, but when I was in Saxo Bank, we did some training there. The guys showed me where the course would probably go and there’s not much of a climb at all. There’s just a bridge. We expect rain and cold in Denmark at that time, it will be a hard race, but the sprinters will be good there. I will not have a chance to get a medal this year.

Q. How was your experience racing with the Russian Katusha team last year?

A. Of course, it’s different. The feeling inside the team was very good for me. It put me in the front row as a leader. It’s a good feeling and I have some extra responsibility as well. This was a challenge for me and I expect to be able to grow in this role for this season.

McQuaid at the GP Montreal in September

Editor’s note: This is part 2 of a three-part interview with Pat McQuaid, focusing on McQuaid’s five years as head of the UCI. Part 1 looked at the sport’s globalization, the new World Tour and the process used to choose ProTeams for 2011. Part 3 will be published next week and will, among other things, delve more deeply into how the UCI has dealt with the doping problem.

To the general media, Pat McQuaid is a lightning rod in world cycling. He’s the go-to guy whenever a controversial development, good or bad, hits the sport. But most of the work accomplished by the 61-year-old Irishman in his five years as president of the Union Cycliste Internationale goes unreported or under-reported.

That was the case last Friday when McQuaid was in Paris for the annual meeting of AIOCC, the international association of bike race organizers, representing the sport’s top 75 race promoters. Also in attendance was AIOCC president Christian Prudhomme, race director of the Tour de France, along with the organizers of cycling’s other grand tours, who for the better part of seven years have fought a much-publicized battle with the UCI over their rights to invite whatever teams they want to the Tour, Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España.

That battle officially came to a close on Friday when Prudhomme and his fellow big-race organizers agreed to the UCI’s new regulations concerning entry to all WorldTour races, whereby all 18 ProTeams get automatic qualification — leaving room for just four wild-card invites to the grand tours (and seven for shorter stage races and the one-day classics).

This successful conclusion to the long-standing dispute was worthy of major headlines. Instead, Europe’s top sports daily, L’Équipe, which over the years routinely blamed the UCI for a battle that threatened to close down pro cycling, buried the story in last Saturday’s edition on page 23 in a two-sentence paragraph.

It read: “The new qualification rules for events put in place by the UCI were accepted by the race organizers, whose international association (AIOCC) held its general assembly (yesterday). A development that’s less trifling than it seems, insofar as it officially brings to an end the long discord that opposed the UCI to the grand tours.”

That news was a clear victory for the negotiation process that McQuaid helped to engineer following a change of regime at Tour organizer ASO in 2008; but such legislation rarely gets the publicity it deserves.

Dealing with problems in international pro road racing and high-profile doping cases are only part of McQuaid’s purview — about which the UCI president elaborated in this exclusive interview with VeloNews. In Part 2, McQuaid talks about developments in mountain biking, an improved relationship between the UCI and the bicycle industry, the difficulty of increasing cycling’s popularity on television, the controversial decision to drop the individual pursuit as a medal event at the 2012 Olympic Games, and the chances of cyclocross becoming an Olympic sport.

VN: How do you see the state of mountain biking?

PM: It’s at a level that’s neither going up nor going down. And it’s something that the UCI needs to seriously address in the next year or two for a couple of reasons. One, it’s an Olympic discipline, and it’s very important that it remains an Olympic discipline; so we have to take cognizance of the evaluations that the International Olympic Committee do, because the Olympic Games belong to the IOC. They can decide what’s in and what’s not in … and if mountain biking is presented in a way that is not attractive to the public and television then it risks its position on the Olympic program. There’ll be another evaluation of that program in 2013, so we have until then to make mountain biking more attractive to television in particular.

By its nature and its traditional presentation, mountain biking is the most difficult and most expensive to produce for television in the Olympic program. In Athens, for instance, there were 45 TV cameras needed to cover the mountain bike course. We have since reduced the distance of mountain bike courses somewhat, but it still needs to be made into a more attractive discipline. I have great respect for the athletes because it’s an extremely hard discipline, but it doesn’t come across on television like that. We don’t want to turn into cyclocross, which is an attractive sport, but we do need to make changes.

One aspect of this is the recent improvements that have been made in the relationship between the UCI and the (bicycle) industry. That’s come about for two reasons. For a long time, I’ve felt the UCI should be closer to the industry and we should be working in harmony; and then, because of the problems last year with bikes being outside the regulations, I decided that we had to get closer to the industry. Hence, I went to Taiwan for the first time, to the bike show, in March; and then in Friedrichshafen, at Eurobike, we made a presentation to the industry as to how we’re approaching the problems on materials and so forth. So we’re now going from what was a philosophical approach to the regulations to reflect the (1996) Lugano Charter on how the sport should be regulated; and maybe from the industry’s point of view they weren’t clear enough or too ambiguous, which resulted in some of them going over the limits. So we’ve changed into a more engineering-oriented approach to it, and employed an engineer in the UCI; and we’re now working closely with EPFL, which is a high-level engineering department of (Switzerland’s) Lausanne University. So all the bike manufacturers will liaise with the EPFL to get approval for the dimensions and so forth. This will develop over the next couple of years and help the sport as well.

This brings us back to the discussions I had in Friedrichshafen with the owners of the main manufacturers, and each one of them said to me that we need to consider what we’re doing with mountain biking, because it’s extremely important to the industry. So they’ve agreed to work with the UCI to try to bring the sport up a couple of notches. So we’ll sit down with them in the new year and hopefully work out something.

My reasoning for getting close to the industry was, the UCI’s working very hard to globalize the sport, and we’re under pressure from the IOC to do that, and if we do so the beneficiary is the industry. It’s in both our interests, so why can’t we work together to help globalize cycling?

VN: The engineering connection, is this for all types of bikes or just mountain bikes?

PM: For all types of bikes and in particular for road bikes, because that’s where we have the biggest problems. And it’s also for (new) materials. The EPFL is run by Professor Jan-Anders Manson, who has worked for instance with Boeing in Seattle for several years, and worked on the development of the Alinghi (America’s Cup-winning) boat and the solar-powered plane that flew over Switzerland for over 24 hours. The EPFL is also the unit that FINA (the international swimming association) went to to help with their problems on race-swimsuit technology.

So they’ll also help us in the matter of new materials and technology, all of which can have an effect on the athlete’s performance that wouldn’t fall within the philosophy of the Lugano Charter.

VN: How will Manson work with the manufacturers?

PM: My understanding is that manufacturing (a new bike) is a three-year process from the original design through delivery. Now, manufacturers can come to him at an early stage — there’s obviously confidentiality involved here, but he’s working in a very professional way. If they want to come with particular components, or whatever, they will come to him with their designs or new technology, and if he determines it’s not gonna be something that will aid the effort of the cyclist, he’ll say I’ll go to the UCI and you can go ahead with that process. And they’ll come back to him at the next stage ….

When I made my presentation on our philosophy in Friedrichshafen, he made one on his approach to things. The reaction from the industry was very positive. They see that they can deal with someone at the same level who understands their position and ours. Also, an engineer is coming from the EPFL to work on a three-year contract for the UCI as the liaison person. All this will serve the industry a lot better than we have in the past.

VN: Moving on to track, which is a big part of the sport, especially at the Olympics … What do you see as the state of the game there, starting with your decision to make changes to the Olympic program, which has eliminated the individual pursuit from the 2012 Games.

PM: I think people need to understand the situation the UCI was in with relation to the track program. First of all, we were under pressure — the IOC told us, as well as all sports, that we had to be gender equitable. That was something we needed and what I think in the long term is a good thing for the sport. When we were in the situation of having seven men’s events and three women’s events, federations, national Olympic committees and governments were naturally diverting most of their resources to the men’s track program. And so women’s track racing wasn’t progressing very much. The fact that we’ve made it five and five means that the resources will be spread equally and women’s track will now develop at a fast rate over the next two Olympic Games.

The second aspect is that when we decided we had to do it — and this was discussed amongst the track commission, and the federations, who were told the situation we were in — it didn’t come as a big surprise. Our thoughts were, what do we do if we have to drop two men’s events, and do we have three sprint events and two endurance events, or vice versa? Now since track racing is basically a sprint sport, we felt three sprint and two endurance would be the best way of doing it.

After that we had to decide what events you do, and that’s where we had the hard decisions to make — and the hard decision was to drop the individual pursuit, the Madison and the points race, and replace with one event, the omnium. Now, the points and the pursuit are both part of the omnium. Also, had we not introduced the omnium and kept the individual pursuit, we would have had a track program that would have been over in about three days, because they’re all quick events. Whereas the omnium gave us the opportunity not only for a five-day program but to extend it to six days.

These are factors that the IOC recognized and encouraged, and for London in particular they were screaming at us for an extra day in track racing — because that’s gonna be the most popular event there in 2012. Besides all this, we still have an individual pursuit and a points race (as part of the omnium) and also included a new one, the elimination race, or devil-take-the-hindmost as we used to call it in my day, again as part of the omnium.

As for the Madison, that wasn’t such a difficult position, even though I have great respect for the Madison, which is an incredibly skilful race to watch. The problem is, live in the track, if you understand what you’re watching you can follow the Madison. But as soon as you take your eye off it, it’s gone. Now, commentators on TV end up having even bigger problems with it …

People also need to understand that the Olympic Games and the world championships are two different events altogether. When the world championships are on television anyone switching them on has switched them on because they want to watch the world track championships, and they understand what’s going on. But 80 percent of the audience at the Olympic Games don’t understand what they’re looking at. They’re just general sports people that have got caught up in the Olympic Games and are watching. So if you’ve got a Madison on the program nobody will watch it because they can’t follow it.

These are all factors that we had to take into account, all of which brought us down to the five and five that we’ve got. Now, I’m not particularly happy with the five and five. I’ve had a discussion with the president of the IOC already, and I’ve said that we do risk damaging track cycling … if this program is not 100 percent successful.

What I’d like to see is to go to six and six, and bring in a third endurance event whatever that might be, which would give us a balance that would be much more equitable. And it would be more in tune with keeping the track a strong discipline, because the endurance guys who ride the track are important — a lot of them are road guys who come to the track. And it’s important to have them instead of just pure sprinters. My objectives post-London would be to try very hard to get another medal event in both men’s and women’s track racing.

VN: What about the track World Cups? They seem to be a mixed bag: some are successful, others don’t attract spectators at all.

PM: It’s true that some venues don’t attract spectators. I don’t fully understand why because the racing can be spectacular. One thing I would say about the track World Cup, it has been responsible for the massive improvement in the quality of track racing. Were it not for the World Cups, you would have the riders only coming together once a year for the world championships. Here, you get the best in the world coming together four or five times a year. It’s because of that constant competition between the top guys that the standard has gone up.

The World Cup still needs to achieve something in terms of the live spectator audience and television audience. The UCI’s problem is that we’re limited in resources. We’re not like FIFA (the international soccer association), which receives big television fees to broadcast their games. We’re the other way round and have to buy television time for certain disciplines.

The big tours have no problem getting on TV, but once you leave that then there’s a lot of sports competing for time. There’s a lot of channels and then the Internet with social networking and live streaming, which has actually diminished the desire of TV to pay money for sports events because people can watch it for free…. If we could find some big sponsors who wanted to work with us on a discipline like track we could do a lot with it. But we don’t have the money to do that at the moment.

VN: In North America, cyclocross has become a big part of cycling, and the world championships are coming to North America in a few years. Do you think there’s any chance, now that you’re member of the IOC, that ’cross could become part of the winter Olympics — because it is a winter sport?

PM: That’s actually a discussion I had recently with the president of the IOC (Jacques Rogge), and his response was no. My discussion with him was on the back of a discussion my colleague Lamine Diack at the IAAF (international track & field association) had with him because he was pushed at his congress to ask that cross-country running become part of the Winter Olympics. Rogge said no because the Olympic charter states that Winter Olympic disciplines must take place fundamentally on snow or ice.

Cyclocross can take place on snow but that’s not a primary part of the sport — it is a winter discipline that takes part on grass. So it doesn’t match the criteria to be in the Winter Olympic Games unless they change the charter. And cycling wouldn’t have the power or capacity within the IOC, or I wouldn’t, to push for a change in the charter for something like that, whereas the IAAF might. If they were to achieve that for cross-country running we would be on their heels straight away.

(Editor’s note: Cyclocross would qualify as a winter Olympic sport on another criterion, the number of nations that take part. Whereas sports in the summer Olympics need participation from a minimum of 50 countries, only 15 are needed for winter sports’ disciplines. And currently the world cyclocross championships attract teams from about 20 countries.)

Having said that, the discipline is growing, it’s successful and its one of the most spectacular events to watch and one of the most physically demanding to compete in. And the fact that it’s now growing well outside of its traditional heartland in northern Europe is very satisfying for the UCI. That’s why we’ve given a world championships to USA Cycling (to be held in Louisville, Kentucky, in January 2013). There are some good promoters in North America that want to develop the discipline.

(In the third and final part of this interview, Pat McQuaid will talk about what he has learned about the world of cycling in his five years of traveling the globe as UCI president, the work done at the UCI’s World Cycling Center in Switzerland, a second look at the sport’s major problems with doping, the continued expansion of road racing worldwide, and the future of cycling at the world championship and Olympic level.)

Editor’s note:

Rebellin finished second in the men’s road race in Beijing behind Spaniard Samuel Sanchez, but in April 2009 it was announced that one of his samples from the Games had tested positive for the new generation of EPO, a Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator (CERA).

Rebellin, who is registered with the Monaco cycling federation, had already been stripped of his silver medal by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and provisionally suspended.

The UCI said Saturday “the FMC has sanctioned Mr. Davide Rebellin with a two-year suspension starting on April 28, 2009.”

The decision is likely to spell the end of 38-year-old Rebellin’s career. He was a one-day classics specialist and scored a number of top victories such as Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Flèche Wallonne and Amstel Gold Race.

Earlier this year Rebellin appealed the loss of his medal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), claiming that testing procedures had not been respected.

However, in July the arbitration body rejected that appeal, ruling that the presence of CERA had been validly detected in Rebellin’s blood samples and that the laboratory followed the correct method and system of analysis.

With Rebellin’s disqualification, Switzerland’s Fabian Cancellara moved up to the silver-medal position and Alexander Kolobnev of Russia took the bronze.

On Saturday the UCI also confirmed that two other federations had handed down sanctions.

The Spanish federation banned Eladio Jimenez Sanchez for two years and handed him a fine of 8,400 euros ($11,600) for doping while the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) hit Massimo Giunti with a two-year suspension and a 1,750-euro fine.

Rebellin had initially been awarded the medal after finishing second behind Spain’s Samuel Sanchez in the 245km road race. Blood and urine analysis conducted immediately after the event showed Rebellin to have tested negative for banned substances. However, in January of 2009, the International Olympic Committee ordered the re-examination of several athletes’ samples in order to test for a new generation of the blood boosting drug EPO, known as a Continuous erythropoietin receptor activator (CERA). Rebellin was one of several athletes who tested positive in that second round of analysis.

In November 2009, pursuant to a recommendation from the IOC Disciplinary Commission, the IOC Executive Board disqualified Rebellin and withdrew his medal.

Rebellin, however, filed an appeal with CAS, which was heard on June 17.

“For his defense, Davide Rebellin has alleged several mistakes concerning the analysis procedure of the samples and has challenged the validity of the method applied by the (French national anti-doping) laboratory of Châtenay-Malabry,” said Friday’s statement from CAS.

“The CAS panel has rejected all the arguments put forward by the athlete and has confirmed that the procedures of the chain of custody have been complied with and that there was no departure from the international standards for laboratories (ISL) which could have reasonably caused an abnormal analysis result.”

CAS confirmed that the presence of CERA had been validly detected in Rebellin’s blood samples and that the laboratory followed the correct method and system of analysis.

With Rebellin’s disqualification, Switzerland’s Fabian Cancellara moved up to the silver medal position and Alexander Kolobnev of Russia took the bronze.

Keen, Brailsford’s predecessor, said running a professional cycling team alongside an Olympic track squad is not something he would have attempted.

“The stakes are higher,” Keen told the Guardian. “It’s about people and their ability to work across another dimension. I think Dave would concede it’s an experiment.”

Three members of the Team Sky team managed by Brailsford that competed at the Tour de France were British ─ three-time Olympic champion Bradley Wiggins, Steve Cummings and Geraint Thomas.

But asked if there was a worry Team Sky meant Brailsford would be devoting less time to a British track team that won eight golds at the Beijing Olympics, Keen replied: “Yes, there is.

“But there’s a counter-argument that the very talented and driven people there need new challenges to refresh them and the Tour provides that.

“But it is a big risk. Dave knows I wouldn’t have done the same thing. I’m a more conservative planner than Dave,” Keen said. “He’s well aware of the risks and my views on it; time will tell.”

Rebellin is challenging charges that he doped during the 2008 Games.

Rebellin was one of the highest-profile doping cases from Beijing, one of six athletes to test positive during the Summer Games. He rode to silver in the men’s road race only later to test positive for the third-generation EPO called CERA. A follow-up, B-sample confirmed the result.

Rebellin, 38, has broken his silence and told the Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport that he’s innocent.

“There’s nothing to confess,” he said. “I have never taken CERA. I want to demonstrate that I never asked my trainer what he couldn’t have given me. There will always be someone who believes I’ve doped. I accept that, everyone has to say what they think. But I keep walking with my head held high.”

Rebellin has mounted a legal challenge and says there are too many irregularities in his case. He insists he won his medal clean in August of 2008, only to find out in April of this year that he tested positive.

A scheduled December hearing date before the Italian Olympic committee has been delayed. In the meantime, CONI is insisting that Rebellin return his medal and 75,000 Euros in prize money.

“My lawyers and I have discovered too many mysteries in the case,” Rebellin said. “There’s things coming out, rules were not following, principles stepped on. If rules exist, it’s fair that they’re respected, including by the Italian Olympic committee.”

Facing a likely two-year ban, Rebellin vowed the best way to demonstrate his innocence is to mount a comeback.

He insists that he would return to competition if he is dealt a ban for something he says he never did.

“Cycling has always been my life,” he said. “And I will come back, even at 41 or 42 years of age, just to show that I never took anything.”

British cycling great Chris Hoy is ready to abandon the defense of some of his Olympic titles at the 2012 London Games ifit increases his chances of adding to his gold medal collection.

Hoy was one of the stars of the Beijing Games where he added three gold medals, from the sprint, keirin and team sprint, to the gold he won in the kilometer at the Athens Games in 2004.

Now one short of rowing legend Steve Redgrave’s British record of five gold medals, Hoy admits however he took a risk last year in Beijing by competing in three events as he could have ended up with nothing.

London is likely to be the 33-year-old Scot’s Olympic swansong and while he would like to defend all three of his Beijing titles he will not do so unless he is sure he is on course for another winning treble.

“It’s a risk and something you have to be aware of but I wouldn’t be entering a race unless I had the belief I was going to win it,” Hoy said at a sponsor’s event on Tuesday.

“It’s still quite a long time to the Olympics and anything can happen.

“At the moment, I plan to go for all three and it’d be lovely to defend all three titles but I wouldn’t risk losing a gold medal for the sake of having three bronzes or three silvers.

“It’s about winning gold medals and I’d rather have one gold medal than three silvers.”

Alterations to the track program means Great Britain’s Victoria Pendleton will have the chance to emulate Hoy’s Beijing treble in London. Last year Pendleton won the only race in which she was entered, the sprint.

But in a bid to ensure gender equality in 2012, cycling chiefs have added a women’s team sprint and keirin to the programme.

“It’s great news for Vicky,” said Hoy. “It’s going to give her the chance to go for three events.”

He added: “It’s something she’s been outspoken about and quite rightly so, to try and get the parity between men and women.”

But the process of levelling up the Olympic program has, from a British perspective, been negative with both the men’s and women’s individual pursuits scrapped.

Bradley Wiggins and Steven Burke won gold and bronze in the men’s individual pursuit in Beijing with Rebecca Romero and Wendy Houvenhagel taking gold and silver in the women’s equivalent.

Hoy, who admitted after his Beijing success that the scrapping of the kilometre after Athens had forced him to focus on track’s sprint events, said: “There’s plusses and negatives.

“I can really empathise with people like Rebecca Romero, Bradley Wiggins, Steven Burke, Wendy Houvenaghel, Olympic medallists in events which are not going to be there in two-and-a half-years’ time.

“When my event, the kilo, was dropped from the program in Beijing it was devastating.

“More than anything, it’s the timing of it, you don’t get a full Olympic cycle to change your plans and prepare.

“It’s frustrating for a lot of riders but I think it’s been done for a positive reason and that’s to get parity between men and women.”

The 30-year-old found pro cycling a bumpy road during his year with Xacobeo-Galicia. Raña crashed in his road debut and broke his collarbone during the Mallorca Challenge back in February.

The former world triathlon world champion said he wants to return to the relative comfort of triathlon instead of taking more risks on the road.

“I was suffering and having a ball all at the same time,” Raña told the Spanish wire service EFE. “The current situation is very difficult now in cycling and I prefer to make a bet on something more sure. I will return to triathlon with the intention of regaining my former level.”

Raña,  twice fifth in the Olympic Games, said his primary goal will be preparing for the 2012 Games in London.

Raña said he expects it to take him “four or five” months to return to competitive condition on the triathlon circuit.

His switch to the road in 2009 came from his professed lifetime admiration for road racers. He said his hard-knock experiences racing this year only reconfirmed his belief that road racing is one of the most grueling and demanding sports.

“Physically, I was up for it, but it would take more another three years to learn the skills to win on the road,” he said. “The tension and suffering in road cycling is extreme. You’re going at 180 (beats per minute) and you have to think very fast.”

Raña bounced back from his crash at Mallorca and completed about 45 race days, primarily in races in Spain and Portugal. His best result was 37th overall at the Vuelta a la Rioja.

10 December 2009
Change to the Olympic track programme

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) today confirmed the new track programme which was proposed by the UCI for the XXX Olympic Games in London 2012.

In its report to the IOC after the Beijing Olympic Games, the UCI had requested that 2 extra track events for women be added to the programme in order to increase women participation in the track and indeed to give a more meaningful number of events for women to compete in.

The IOC turned down this request and in August 2009 informed the UCI that whilst it had a clear policy of gender equity within the Olympic programme, and as such supported expanding the female track programme, it could not increase the total number of medals awarded for cycling events at the Olympic Games (currently 18 gold medals) nor the number of athletes (500).

As a result, the UCI needed to undertake an in-depth evaluation of the overall situation.

As the UCI’s priority is to maintain the Olympic status of each of its disciplines that currently feature in the Games programme (road, track, mountain bike, BMX), and in view of the fact that the IOC will undertake a complete review of the Olympic programme in 2013, it is clear that this exercise was extremely important for the future of our sport.

Based on this conviction, the UCI therefore drew up a proposal to modify the track events programme at the London Olympic Games taking into account both its desire to:

preserve the technical heritage and history of the different specialties;
develop the discipline on an international scale using the visibility and popularity gained at the Olympics.

As a result of this reflection, the UCI Management Committee – the body responsible for taking such decisions – unanimously accepted the following solution to be proposed to the IOC to consider for the 2012 Olympic Games:

Track Programme (men – women)

individual sprint
keirin
team sprint
team pursuit
omnium

As a result, the new programme includes five events for men and five for women, which allows track cycling to retain the same number of medals.

The sprint (individual and team), the keirin and the team pursuit already feature in the men’s competition programme at the Olympic Games: the individual pursuit, points race and madison will not be held in London, where an Olympic title will be awarded for the omnium, a multi-discipline event, like the decathlon in athletics, which has a long tradition in track cycling. At the same time, the women’s programme sees the addition of the team sprint, team pursuit, keirin and omnium to the individual sprint, while the individual pursuit and points race will not be held.

The omnium at the World Championships comprises the following events:

individual sprint, 200 metres
1km – 500 metres time trial (men – women)
individual pursuit
points race
scratch race

However, now that it has been approved for the Olympic programme, the UCI Track Commission will make a detailed study of the format of the omnium in order to guarantee that it will be attractive to the public and indeed more oriented towards endurance; this will involve the addition of a sixth omnium event. This will fulfil the ambitions of endurance athletes aiming to participate in the Olympic Games. The new programme will also necessitate an extra day of competition giving 6 days of track cycling, one more than we had in Beijing.

This in no way affects the programme for the UCI Track World Championships, which will remain at 10 races for men and 9 races for women. The rationale behind the decision of the UCI Management Committee was to provide a track programme for the Olympic Games that was first of all equitable as well as exciting as a spectacle and catering for both sprint and endurance athletes in the best manner possible. The UCI will work towards guaranteeing an increase in the number of countries participating in the Games.

Our Federation has been delighted to be able to count on the unconditional support of the IOC for over a century, and is sure that the modifications made for the London Olympic Games will only serve to increase the stability of cycling, one of the founding sports of the Olympic movement.

The UCI is aware that over and above the legitimate discussions brought about by the changes – in particular concerning their short-term practical impact and the preoccupations of certain national interests – the cycling world will once again prove to be united and cooperative when faced with this historic turning point in its development.

UCI Press Services

International Olympic Committee (IOC) chief Jacques Rogge arrives at a press conference at the IOC headquarters on December 10, AFP PHOTO / FABRICE COFFRINI

The International Olympic Committee approved a UCI recommendation to restructure track events at the 2012 Games in London, including the abandonment of individual pursuit events.

The changes were part of a plan to bring “gender equity” to track events at the Olympics, but resulted in the elimination of the individual pursuit for both men and women.

The changes will, however, increase the number of women cyclists at the Olympics from 35 in Beijing to 84 – 45 percent of track cyclists, versus 19 percent in Beijing – by introducing more track events for women. There will now be a total of five track cycling events for men and women. There were seven men’s events and three women’s events in Beijing.

Under the plan approved during an executive board meeting on Thursday, women will compete in sprint, team sprint, team keirin, team pursuit and new omnium events, while the individual pursuit, points race and Madison events will be dropped altogether.

IOC president Jacques Rogge defended the changes, underlining that they followed a UCI recommendation “to focus more on endurance events.”

The new Omnium event is already partt of the UCI’s world Championship program. It is cycling’s equivalent of the decathlon in athletics, with six competitions, including individual pursuit and a points race.

As readers of this column well know, there is no disagreement with the IOC and UCI’s goal — to give women the same number of events as the men — but both sexes and a large percentage of the sport’s insiders are upset that cycling’s governing body plans to achieve that goal by eliminating the individual pursuit race from the Games.

Was 2008 the last time the individual pursuit appears on an Olympic track?

By now, both the UCI and IOC know from the open letters published on the Web, a petition drive being delivered Tuesday (with 4,408 unique signatures from people in more than 55 countries), and pleas by various national cycling federations that there’s a consensus to keep the individual pursuit. Track racers do not want the pursuit to go the way of the kilometer time trial, which was cut from the Beijing Olympics to make way for BMX.

Yes, the reason given for cutting the pursuit (along with the points race and Madison) from the 2012 Games in London is gender equality. The IOC needed the UCI to eliminate two men’s races and add two events for women. But, of the three eliminated events, the pursuit is the only one that was already raced by both men and women (see below). So why cut such a marquee event and add a completely new one, the multi-event omnium?

Over the past few weeks, we’ve communicated with administrators, riders, coaches and other insiders. Besides the members of the UCI management committee who voted for the proposals — “The decision was unanimous,” said UCI president Pat McQuaid — the people outside the UCI talk about “being kept in the dark,” or having it “sprung on us” with no consultation.

McQuaid, speaking last Friday from the World Anti-Doping Agency meeting in Sweden, told VeloNews that one reason for the lack of consultation was timing. He said that the UCI did not learn of the IOC’s gender-equality directive until mid-August this year. This was apparently too late for discussion by the 2009 UCI track commission, which had already held its last meeting; and it left only five weeks before a proposal had to be finalized for discussion by the management committee in late September.

Perhaps it was during that small window that a more open discussion could have taken place about which events to cut, and which ones to add. McQuaid, though, said that consulting with all of the national federations was not on the table. “We went through the federations when we took the kilometer off [the Olympic program],” he said, “and from 24 different federations we got 24 different responses.”

But that doesn’t tell us why the UCI’s inner circle decided that track racing’s signature event, the individual pursuit, had to be cut — for both men and women.

McQuaid explained that the management committee was guided by two main principles: (1) keeping the track races sufficiently diverse and attractive that they would sustain the public’s interest for at least five days; and (2) making sure that the whole cycling program was attractive enough that the sport remains part of the Olympics.

“There was full discussion [of the proposals] within the management committee and everybody had full opportunity to make their points,” McQuaid said. “It’s not that we haven’t tried to get more events — and we will continue to try to get more events in the future — but we were told we couldn’t have more events, and that was some weeks before the management committee meeting. So I couldn’t introduce [a proposal] in September and wait until January to make a decision. And the UCI has to make decisions in the best interests of the sport.

“I’d love to keep the pursuit in there, along with the Madison and the points race, but we were faced with a situation where there’s another review of the Olympic program coming in 2013, when one sport is going to be voted out. And we can’t see cycling put into a position where it is voted out of the program; so at the end of the day we have to work within the constraints that the IOC gives us.”

The UCI president is aware that cycling’s name has been dragged through the mud by the media because of frequent doping offenses. And that reputation didn’t improve at the 2008 Olympics when Spain’s national women’s road champion Maria Isabel Moreno was the first athlete sent home from Beijing for a positive drug test, and Italy’s Davide Rebellin, one of five athletes caught out retroactively, was recently stripped of his road race silver medal.

McQuaid did not mention doping as an issue, but he is well aware that the percentage of positives in the sport is much higher among road and six-day racers than it is among pure track racers. And as he pointed out, the pursuit is the one track event “that attracts road riders.” And he could have added that the other eliminated events, the points race and Madison, are the ones most suited to six-day riders.

As for keeping the track program long enough, McQuaid said, “If we put in the pursuit and not the omnium we would have an Olympic program that would be over in two days; but there’s still the team pursuit — and the individual pursuit in the omnium will be the full distance [4,000 meters for men, 3,000 meters for women] — so the events that are coming out of the program are in the omnium. And that will give us six days of racing instead of the current five.”

This argument is dubious at best. Because the Madison and points race went straight to finals, without qualifying rounds, their elimination from the programs deletes just two races. And they will be replaced by women’s races in the team sprint and team pursuit, which, assuming 12 nations take part in both events, would provide 16 separate races. Just these changes (while retaining the individual pursuit for men and women) makes 14 additional races — so the overall schedule would still run for at least five days.

McQuaid said that another part of the decision was a balance between sprinters’ events and endurance races. And though there are three sprinters’ races in the UCI proposal (sprint, keirin and team sprint), he claimed that endurance riders have not only the team pursuit but several races within the omnium.

“The distances [in the omnium] will be more reflective of an endurance event than the current shorter disciplines,” he said. “We haven’t put the whole project out yet, and we will when the proper time comes … and that will explain everything.

“The IOC makes an evaluation based on a whole load of issues, such as television, and we have to take into account other factors not just the history of the event [as in the case of the pursuit]. We have to adjust to modern times and modern demands — and the modern public. The arguments are all one-sided at the moment … so we’ll just have to wait and see.

“Right now … we’re waiting for the IOC decision to whether they accept it or not. But very rarely would they [change a decision]; they’re tendency is to accept the proposal from an international federation.”

As for the future of the individual pursuit (Madison and points race), and the future of track cycling, McQuaid concluded, “It’s not as if these event are going to disappear; they’re staying in the world championships every year. It’s not the end of track racing. And the program we’ll have for the Olympic Games will be attractive … both to the live public and the public at large.

“First we’ve got to wait and see when the IOC makes a decision and puts out a statement, and then we work within it. I do feel overall that it was agreed [by the management committee] that you’ve got to take something on the chin, but overall it’s better for the track sport. If it comes out being five and five [events for men and women in 2012], we can work towards getting six and six in the future.”

But as the international petition has shown, there are interested parties in at least 55 countries that want to see track sport’s classic event, the individual pursuit, remain as one of those five events.

Italy’s tax agency alleges that the 35-year-old Bettini had tried to avoid paying taxes by falsely claiming to have relocated to the tax haven of Monaco.

Bettini was twice crowned world champion in 2006 and 2007 and also picked up the Olympic gold medal in Athens in 2004.

• Keep it short. And remember that we reserve the right to edit for grammar, length and clarity.
• Include your full name, hometown and state or nation.
• Send it to webletters@insideinc.com.

Are we really No. 1!?
Dear Velo,
Is the U.S. a cycling nation? Not quite, but nonetheless it is impressive to see more UCI registered teams from the USA (3) than from France (2). Even though not all the riders are Americans on those U.S. teams, it sure shows support is growing for cycling in this country.

Go USA!

Don Atkinson
Tacoma, Washington

Swimming is worthy of respect
Editors,
I have to say I am disappointed a bit in the cycling community’s view and attitude towards swimming. Having swam competitively in high school for USA Swimming club and swam at the Missouri State Championships for four years in high school I can say that every event in swimming has its own characteristics. Most individuals train their entire career to specialize in one single event that fits how they swim. I know many people who swim for NCAA D1 schools whose scholarships ride on only one event. It’s just like how cyclists will either be a climber or a sprinter based on their body type.

Having this kind of cavalier and ignorant attitude is very insulting to individuals who train their entire life for a single even in swimming to be told that their even doesn’t matter. It’s like saying the Sprinting Jersey in the tour should be taken away. Phelps is a freak of nature in that he wins so many events. That’s not normal.

As a cyclist, if we want people to appreciate sports in this country besides football then we need to help people understand all the subtleties and complexities to our respective sports. Not tear them down.

Drew Cistola
Asheville, North Carolina

Drew, the letter we published was a suggestion from one person who wrote in to VeloNews.com. That’s hardly representative of “the cycling community’s view.” – Editor.

For swimming, the Olympics are pretty much it
Editor,

All one has to do is look at the athletes in Olympic swimming and cycling to know which is deserving of Olympic exposure. Olympic cyclists seem to fit the Olympics into an engrossing professional or quasi-professional schedule. With swimmers, the Olympics is the marquee event. When it comes to swimmers, their hearts are in a better place for the Olympics.

Keith Whelpley
Las Cruces, New Mexico

VeloNews or lostbikes.com?
Yo Editors,
Why am I turning to VeloNews to find a cover story about a stolen bike? Oh, it was a LIVESTRONG bike – sorry, my mistake.

I would like to report that my Devinci Stockholm commuter bike was also stolen. It happened while I lived in Victoria. Its primary rider during the summer 2008 season was me. It’s a hybrid bike, with a Bontrager seat and old Profile bar ends I had kicking around from the early 90′s, and can be easily identified by the Shimano 747′s – only one side of the pedal on the drive side works.
Cam Robertson
Canada

We will enlist millions of the Twitterati to recover your lost steed, Cam. Seriously, good luck. – Editor

The speed of change?
Hello from Cancun!
I am not sure it has to do with you, but your new version of VeloNews is very slow on my computer at work, and it freezes very often. It might be the firewalls we have in the company, or probably the low capacity of these very basic generic computers. I like the new version a lot, but it doesn’t do me much good if I can’t open it from work.

I am very glad that today I could open the old version again and catch up with the latest news. There is no other website I like as much as yours.

Thank you so much!

Jesus Nieto
Cancun, Mexico

You know, we kinda noticed that, too. In fact we’ve been saying it a lot. Our crack tech crew is working on cleaning up some coding issues and we’re making sure the new servers have the capacity to handle traffic before we permanently make the jump. It’s a beautiful piece of work, but it’s a work in progress, Jesus. We’re just glad we didn’t make the big switch in, say, late June? – Editor