Nicole Cooke is to lead a new all-British women’s cycling team that will combine assaults on the major races of the professional calendar with a focused preparation for the Olympics next summer in Beijing.

The right road: ‘It’s absolutely fantastic,’ said Nicole Cooke of the launch of an all-Britain women’s team

For the last few years the Welsh-born 24-year-old has been a dominant force in her sport, as the youngest-ever World Cup champion, as world No 1 and twice as the winner of the Grande Boucle, the women’s Tour de France. She won the gold medal in the road race at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, and followed up with a bronze in Manchester in 2006, despite an injury-interrupted preparation.

But Olympic success has been elusive. In Athens in 2004, Cooke could finish only fifth in the road race and 19th in the time trial. At that time, though, her preparation was compromised by the demands of racing for foreign-based professional teams, with an agenda often set by sponsors without Cooke’s Olympic interests in mind.

There was no injustice in that - they were her employers, after all. But the new, all-British team, with sponsors to be announced shortly, will be built around Cooke and, for the next year or so, will be directed with her Olympic ambitions as the number one priority.

“It’s absolutely fantastic,” Cooke said yesterday on a flying visit to London from her base in Switzerland. “This will be the first-ever British professional women’s team, and it’s the biggest step forward in the women’s sport in this country since I don’t know when.” The team will be guided by David Brailsford, the performance director of British cycling, who has brought such success to previous Olympic squads.
advertisement

Up to a dozen riders will compete for the team, which will tackle a programme of stage races and one-day events, always with an eye on Beijing and the world championships.

There was more good news for Cooke in a positive outcome to the keyhole surgery that she recently underwent to cure a painful knee injury. “The surgeon is very pleased with the outcome,” she said. “It feels as good as new.” The specialist has given her a DVD of the procedure, which was performed under a general anaesthetic, but Cooke will not be watching it. “No way, it would make me want to throw up. All I need to know is that it has worked.”

Cooke is now back in training on the mountainous roads around her home in Lugano. Today she will be riding for four or five hours: “Nothing too painful, just hard enough to do me good.”

Another young British sports star, Lewis Hamilton, attracted considerable flak when he announced his plans to relocate to Switzerland recently. Cooke expects no such attacks. Besides, her motives are entirely pragmatic. “Last year, I was racing for a Swiss-based team,” she explained. “And where I live is absolutely central for all the most important cycling events in Europe over the next couple of years.

“Women’s cycling is getting a lot more attention in Europe these days. We have gone from 24 professional squads to 41 in the last year, a massive increase. We would never have been able to put together a British women’s team five years ago.”

Part of the increased attention that the women’s sport is getting is a corollary to the dreadful goings-on in male cycling, in which every week brings a fresh drug exposure or confession and the premier event, the Tour de France, has lost any pretence of credibility.

“A huge amount of work is being done to restore credibility to men’s cycling, because sponsors and fans are demanding clean racing,” Cooke said. “We’re already there, we’re just standing there saying: ‘Hi, have a look at our sport.’

“Men’s cycling goes back so far that you have team managers who doped when they were riders, so it’s in the culture. They also have huge financial inducements, and we don’t have that.”

But is her sport entirely clean? “Let’s just say that the few rivals I’ve had suspicions about have been caught,” she said. “It’s annoying if they serve their bans during the off-season, or if their federations let them off lightly, but at least they are being caught. That’s the good news.”

MADRID (AFP) - Russia’s Denis Menchov put the smiles back on the faces of his Rabobank team when he claimed the Tour of Spain crown here Sunday following the 21st and final stage.

It is the second Vuelta crown for 29-year-old who lives in the northern Spanish town of Pamplona, after he took the 2005 title when Spaniard Roberto Heras was disqualified for doping.

“It’s the most important victory of my life,” said the Russian cyclist. “It’s nothing like the win in 2005.”

Spaniards Carlos Sastre and Samuel Sanchez completed the podium.

Italian Daniele Bennati of the Lampre team won a sprint finish ahead of Italian sprint king Alessandro Petacchi to claim the victory in the final stage.

With last year’s top three finishers out of the race, former runner-up Sastre was a big favourite along with Tour de France runner-up Cadel Evans of Australia.

Kazakhstan’s Alexandre Vinokourov and Andriy Kashechkin are serving bans for for doping and Spaniard Alejandro Valverde decided not to race the Vuelta to save himself for the world road race championships in Stuttgart this week.

But Menchov, who was forced to abandon last year’s race due to stomach cramps, killed all the suspense in what proved to be an insipid race in a matter of three stages.

He moved into second place after the eighth stage, a 52km time-trial in which he finished fourth.

The Russian then opened up a two-minute lead over the favourites at the end of the 167km ninth stage, the first mountain stage of the race between Huesca and the ski station of Cerler, when he finished second.

The next day Menchov won the 10th stage, his only stage win of this year’s race and another mountain run of 214 km between Benasque and Ordino-Arcalis in Andorra.

“I have the Vuelta half won, a little bit more than half if we consider that we have done the most difficult part,” Menchov said after the 10th stage win.

Menchov then rode a perfect race for the remainder of the tour and fought off without difficulty the attacks of Sastre.

“I was more consistent and the strongest in the Pyrenees,” he said on Saturday, the day before his victory.

Menchov said his main focus for the 2008 season would be the Tour de France.

In the Tour de France of 2006 the Russian took sixth place overall but retired on the 17th stage of this year’s event shortly after the expulsion of his team-mate, Dane Michael Rasmussen.

Rasmussen was evicted from the race, then sacked by Rabobank, after it emerged that he had lied over his whereabouts in June when drugs testers were trying to locate him for random tests.

It is CSC rider Sastre’s second runner-up place, following his second place finish in 2005 - also behind Menchov.

Sanchez meanwhile became the first Euskaltel rider to step on to the Vuelta podium, thanks mainly to his victory in the penultimate stage time trial which pushed Evans down into fourth place.

Wales star Nicole Cooke just missed out on a third World Cup title following the last race of the season on Sunday.

The Raleigh rider was pipped by Marianne Vos, who won the final sprint of the Rund um die Nürnberger Altstadt.

Cooke, 24, led her 20-year-old Dutch rival by 80 points prior to the race in Germany and would have taken the title had she finished second or third.

But the two-time World Cup winner from Wick, struggling with a knee injury, faded to 34th place in the sprint.

Cooke’s lead would normally have proved sufficient but there were double points on offer in Nürnberg.

Vos, who rides for Team DSB Bank, eventually finished 70 points in front of Cooke.

Home riders finished second and third in Germany, with T-Mobile’s Ina Teutenberg taking the runners-up spot and Equipe Nürnberger Versicherung’s Regina Schleicher in third.

On the day I just couldn’t do anything more because of my knee injury

Nicole Cooke

Cooke was told last week that she needed knee surgery and was unable to train in the build-up to the final race, but she decided to postpone the operation.

“I didn’t want to gift this to Vos without a fight,” she said. “It was a terrific ride by her, the pressure was on and she came up with the goods.

“On the day I just couldn’t do anything more because of my knee injury. Marianne won and I must be very proud of my second place.

“I have had a terrific season with a number of wins. My highlight was winning La Grande Boucle for the second time, but I am disappointed with the final result as I wanted to be the first person to win the World Cup for the third time.

“Next year I will be back and I am determined to win it.”

There was some consolation for Cooke, who was World Cup champion in both 2003 and in 2006.

Her Raleigh squad retained the team title, beating Team DSB bank by 13 points.

Cooke will fly to Britain, where she will have her knee operation, on Monday.

Give your reaction to the news