Gaudin takes prologue in Luxembourg

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Damien Gaudin (Equipe Cycliste Armée de Terre) claimed the early race lead in the Skoda Tour of Luxembourg with a victory in Wednesday's two-kilometre prologue.

The Frenchman set the fastest mark on the short – though intermittently cobbled – course at exactly three minutes, topping BMC Racing's Greg Van Avermaet by one second and Jean-Pierre Drucker by four.

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"I am pretty happy with my ride. I was not expecting anything coming into today's race, but it is a course that really suits me. It’s a bit disappointing that I am not in my best condition right now but I am happy with what I did, and we will see what happens over the next few days," said Van Avermaet.

Racing continues Thursday with a rolling 170km stage 1 from Luxembourg to Bascharage.

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Valverde: Older, Faster, Stronger

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To understand how unusual Alejandro Valverde is, you could compare him with another child of 1980 who has been equally prolific as a winner, with 122 victories to Valverde's 106 to date: Tom Boonen.

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Valverde and Boonen's cycling universes were so different that they rarely overlapped, even though they both turned pro in 2002. Valverde's natural territory is the hills, while Boonen's was the cobbles, although they did occasionally cross swords. The most memorable occasion was in 2005 when Boonen outsprinted the Spaniard for gold in the World Championships in Madrid. And after 15 years of pedalling along parallel career paths, one particular weekend this April proved significant for both of them.

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For Boonen, the red-letter Sunday came when he pulled down the curtain on his career in the Roubaix velodrome, following a respectable but fairly unremarkable final Classics swansong, garnering one low-key win in the Vuelta a San Juan to maintain his record of at least a win a season since 2002.

Valverde's red-letter Saturday came when, on the eve of Boonen's farewell race, he won the Vuelta al País Vasco for the first time in his career, bringing his victory count for 2017 to nine. "My best spring ever," was his own analysis at the time, and you'd be hard pushed to disagree. It's been extraordinary: he's won the Vuelta a Murcia, a stage and the GC of the Ruta del Sol, three stages and the GC at the Volta a Catalunya and a stage and the GC in the Basque Country. Following that, he won Flèche and Liège.

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DEVO: Junior, U23 teams gain valuable, hilly experience in Europe

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Last weekend, six junior cyclists from the United States got a taste of what itandrsquo;s like to contest a long, difficult top-level European stage race.

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Porte primed for Criterium du Dauphine

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After joining BMC Racing to become the team's leader for the Tour de France, Richie Porte has surfed the highs and lows of a Grand Tour contender. Having missed out on last year's podium in Paris in large part due to a late mechanical on stage 2 that cost him nearly two minutes, his fifth place overall confirmed him as a genuine contender at the Tour de France. The Australian will look to this week's Critérium du Dauphiné for a confidence-inspiring performance in his build-up to the Tour.

Last year, Porte finished two seconds off the podium in the Dauphine and went into the Tour de France without a major victory for the year. This season, Porte has won the Tour Down Under and the Tour de Romandie and has taken heart from those results, even if his Paris-Nice went pear-shaped in the crosswinds on stage 2.

"The Critérium du Dauphiné is the last big test before the Tour de France so it is a chance to see where I stand compared to everyone else," Porte said in a team press release. "I'm taking a lot of confidence out of my Tour de Romandie win and a good result at the Critérium du Dauphiné would set me up perfectly for July."

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Like many of his Tour de France rivals, Porte has spent half of May training at altitude, and said he is "as prepared as possible".

"I'm feeling really good right now and although the Tour de France is obviously the main goal this year, I would love to add the Critérium du Dauphiné to my palmarès. We have a strong team to support me and we'll take things stage by stage."

BMC's directeur sportif Fabio Baldato has chosen a veteran team to back Porte in the Dauphiné to give him the best chance at getting that confidence-inspiring result.

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Tour de Pologne 2017 route unveiled

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Tour de Pologne organizers have unveiled the route of the 74th edition of the WorldTour race. This year’s parcours sees some changes introduced to what had lately become a traditional course.

The Tour de Pologne runs between July 29 and August 4 and, just like in recent years, will be the main stage race between the Tour de France and Vuelta a España. The route features 23 categorized climbs and three uphill finishes, and follows a well-trodden trail in the southern parts of Poland. However, it includes neither a time-trial stage nor unnaturally long stages. Instead, seven days of racing are designed to give opportunities to both sprinters and puncheurs.

Krakow will host the start of the race, while Katowice and Rzeszow will be the two other major cities welcoming the WorldTour peloton. Traditionally a venue of the final time trial, this year the capital of Lesser Poland sees riders kick off racing with a short but undulating stage, likely to be snatched by sprinters. Day two will also be familiar as riders head to Katowice for a bunch sprint on a wide roads in the city centre, although there is a short climb to deal with on the way.

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First moves in the general classifications are expected to take place on day three as riders tackle a hilly course on their way to the ski resort of Szczyrk. With four categorized climbs on the menu, punchy riders are likely to battle for the win on a steep climb that awaits in the final.

The sprinters will have their last chance on day five as the peloton crosses Silesian roads and finishes in Zabrze after 238km of largely flat stage. The peloton then moves east on a short stage to Rzeszow, climbing four times in the final 60 kilometres – an overture to the more mountainous part of the race.

The final two days see the riders tackling the narrow roads of the Tatra mountains, where short stages with uphill finishes are designed to create an explosive race. Stage 6 leads through five categorized ascents into Zakopane, finishing on an uphill by Wielka Krokiew, the famous ski jumping venue, where Bart de Clercq and Tim Wellens triumphed in 2015 and 2016 respectively.

2017 Tour de Pologne route:

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Amber Pierce: Forging paths through the cycling world

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Amber Pierce (Colavita-Bianchi) might just have been a celeste-coloured blur to many of the fans who watched the UCI Women's WorldTour visit California earlier this month for the Amgen Women's Race, but the 36-year-old American has for the better part of a decade been a loyal domestique, slogging it out in Europe and stateside, drawing from her love for the sport to keep going.

In many ways, Pierce, (a former Cyclingnews blogger) embodies the majority of the women's cycling world - the many passionate riders who are fighting and sacrificing outside the spotlight, helping their teammates win races and working to make the sport better for the athletes who are just discovering the sport.

Over the last decade, the former collegiate national champion has built a solid career as a domestique in the bigger races, taking a few small victories closer to home, all the while advocating for female athletes and bike-friendly communities.

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"You could sum up the longevity my career in one word, resilience," Piece said. "It has been a long span of years and has spanned a lot of different teams and languages. Bike racing is a hard sport and what I have found is, what has helped me stay in it for a long time is number one, it is a source of joy to me."

Pierce was born in Northern California and grew up in Reno, Nevada close to the race's start in South Lake Tahoe. As a swimmer, Pierce earned a scholarship to Stanford, but a shoulder injury interrupted her first athletic career. Pierce discovered cycling and quickly climbed the ranks from a Cat 4 to professional in less than two years.

Pierce caught the attention of the Webcor Women's team, which was based out Northern California, after winning two collegiate cycling titles in 2005. Pierce rode her first professional season in 2006 supporting riders like Olympian Christine Thorburn. It was at Webcor that Pierce began to evolve into a trusted domestique.

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Sagan and Majka headline Bora-Hansgrohe Tour de France long list

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Peter Sagan and Rafal Majka have been confirmed as Bora-Hansgrohe's leaders for the Tour de France, with the German team unveiling a long list of 12 riders in the running to support them. 

Majka will lead the team's general classification bid, while Sagan will hunt victories across a variety of stages and a sixth straight green jersey. 

The team will make its final decision on selection after June's Tour de Suisse, with 12 riders vying for the remaining seven places on the nine-man squad. Six of them are German, meaning their should be a strong home contingent for the Dusseldoorf Grand Départ, but general manager Ralph Denk insisted decisions will be based on class and form, not nationality. 

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“It’s always a hard decision, everybody wants to ride the Tour de France. Especially this year with the Grand Départ in Düsseldorf, it will be a lifetime memory for every German rider and a stepping stone for German cycling," said Denk in a statement on Wednesday. 

"In our long list, we have almost 50 per cent riders from Germany, but of course the best riders will be on the start in Düsseldorf at the end. Still, I am proud that six German riders are on our list today."

Those riders are Emanuel Buchmann, Marcus Burghardt, Christoph Pfingsten, Andreas Schillinger, Michael Schwarzmann, and Rudiger Selig. Burghardt is likely to support Sagan at the Tour de Suisse, along with the world champion's closest domestique, Maciej Bodnar, and fellow long listers Patrick Konrad, Jay McCarthy, and Juraj Sagan. Majka is set to head to the Tour of Slovenia, alongside Selig and Konig. The rest of the German riders will be at the Critérium du Dauphiné. 

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