Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Oscar Pereiro finally got his hands on the winner's yellow jersey from the 2006 Tour de France yesterday.
"Finally, we have a winner and it's Oscar," Tour director Christian Prudhomme said at the handover ceremony in Madrid. "Oscar, you have won the Tour out on the road."
The Spaniard moved from second to first after Floyd Landis's disqualification for doping.
"I have the feeling of arriving at the end of a thriller, after having spent 14 months thinking about it and not being able to concentrate as I should have on my job," Pereiro said. "It is essentially a kind of release."
The International Cycling Union formally declared Pereiro the winner on Sept. 21, one day after a U.S. arbitration panel voted 2 to 1 to remove the title from Landis for using synthetic testosterone during the Tour.
It's the first time in the 105-year history of the race that a winner has been stripped of the title.
"The moment I received the profit of my work, I had mixed feelings, something between satisfaction and regret for what we were deprived of," Pereiro said.
Pereiro stood on the top step of a podium with his winner's jersey, not along the Champs-Elysees as a normal champion would but in offices of Spain's Sport Ministry.
Landis has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which is expected to issue a final and binding ruling by mid-February.
¿ COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Matt Carufel, who started three games at right guard for Notre Dame, has decided to withdraw from school after losing the starting job.
"I spoke with Matt Carufel Sunday evening and he informed me that he was going to leave the team and withdraw from the University of Notre Dame," Coach Charlie Weis said. "I appreciate all Matt has done for Notre Dame and wish him nothing but the best."
The 6-foot-5, 295-pound sophomore from Forest Lake, Minn., had started three games after Dan Wenger was injured against Michigan, but lost the job to Eric Olsen last week. Carufel missed practice and was not at the Boston College game on Saturday. . . .
Three Coastal Carolina football players were dismissed from the team, one day after they were arrested on drugs and weapons charges.
Mario Tynes, Eric Brown Jr. and Ricky Johnson were arrested Sunday after police stopped the car they were in and found two guns, three pounds of marijuana and $1,345 in cash, authorities said. . . .
The Southeastern Conference fined Kentucky $50,000 for failing to prevent fans from rushing the field after the Wildcats' triple-overtime victory over top-ranked Louisiana State.
It was the third violation dating from last year for Kentucky, which was fined $5,000 for the celebration after a win last year against Georgia and $25,000 earlier this year after a victory over Louisville.
¿ TENNIS: Serena Williams has qualified for next month's season-ending WTA Championships in Madrid.
Williams arrived at the Zurich Open to discover she was the fifth player to qualify, along with J ustine Henin, Jelena Jankovic, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Ana Ivanovic.
The championship features the season's top eight singles players.
¿ HOCKEY: Jesse Boulerice, who last week was given the longest single-season suspension in NHL history for hitting a player in the face with his stick, was placed on waivers by the Philadelphia Flyers.
Boulerice, 29, was suspended 25 games by the league for cross-checking the Canucks' Ryan Kesler in the face on Wednesday. The penalty matched the ban given to New York Islanders forward Chris Simon in March for his two-handed stick attack on Ryan Hollweg of the New York Rangers.
¿ SOCCER: Stuart Holden scored the only goal as the visiting Houston Dynamo defeated Real Salt Lake, 1-0.
The win kept the Dynamo (15-8-6) in second place in the Western Conference. Houston could take over the top spot if it defeats Chivas USA in both teams' final regular season game on Saturday.
-- From News Services
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