* Swiss takes prologue ahead of German Tony Martin
* Armstrong fourth, five seconds in front of Contador
The Tour de France began on Saturday in a near carbon copy of last year’s edition, with the victory of Fabian Cancellara in the prologue and the promise of a showdown between Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong.
Switzerland’s Cancellara is the time-trial world and Olympic champion—the best active prologue specialist in the peloton — and he made a point of clocking a perfect time of 10 minutes on the 8.9-km of slippery roads in Rotterdam.
German Tony Martin, who opted for an early start to avoid intermittent rain, led the race for hours before bowing to the rider known as ‘Spartacus’ by 10 seconds.
Briton David Millar was third, 20 seconds off the pace, 10 years after his prologue win near the Futuroscope theme park.
“This victory really gets us going,†said Cancellara who started … Details
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Colorado Springs, Colo. (July 2, 2010) –USA Cycling announced today the 11 elite riders it will send to represent the United States at the 2010 UCI BMX World Championships in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, July 29 – August 1. 2009 world champion Donny Robinson (Napa, Calif./Hyper-Monster Energy) will lead the U.S. squad as he looks to collect his third elite world title on the supercross track in Pietermaritzburg. Â
Two men will represent the U.S. in the elite men’s competition at the BMX World Championships. As the reigning world champ Robinson received an automatic nomination to the funded team while 2008 Olympian and three-time world champion Kyle Bennett (Conroe, Texas/Free Agent-Rockstar) earned the coaches selection in the elite men’s division. The top two Americans in the elite UCI BMX Supercross World Cup standings, juniors Connor Fields (Henderson, Nev./Free Agent-Rockstar) and Corben Sharrah (Tucson, Ariz./Redman-Rockstar) were automatically selected to contest the junior men’s division.Â
Five women will represent the U.S. in elite women’s division at the BMX World Championships. Arielle Martin (Pleasant Grove, Utah/Intense-Monster Energy) and Amanda Geving (Largo, Fla./MCS) earned automatic nominations, while Alise Post (Saint Cloud, Minn./Redline Bicycles), Ashley Verhagen (Simi Valley, Calif./Crupi) and Amanda Carr (Punta Gorda, Fla./Endeavor-RippXX) will join the squad as coaches’ picks. Martin, the 2009 overall women’s Supercross World Cup champion and last year’s Worlds bronze medalist leads this group  … Details
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