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Óscar Freire, the three time world champion, wants another shot at the Olympic gold medal and has decided to postpone retirement until the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Freire told reporters at an honorary dinner for him in his hometown of Torrelavega in northern Spain that if he can get through the 2011 season without any major injuries or setbacks, he’d make another run for gold.

“I would continue racing at least through the Olympic Games of London in 2012,” Freire was quoted by the Spanish wire service EFE. “If I am not involved in any major crashes or suffer any injuries, I would probably try to participate in what would be my fourth Olympic Games. It’s a special race, totally different than any other. ”

Freire had hinted that the 2011 season was going to be his last, but the off-season seems to have mellowed his sentiments about retiring next year.

Despite some suggestion that Freire had a poor season last year mainly due to his lack of stage victories during the Tour de France and Vuelta a España, he scored two huge wins to book-end his 13^th professional season.

In March he won his third Milan-San Remo, and followed that up with two stage wins during the Tour of the Basque Country, and then closed the season with a trip to the top spot on the podium at Paris-Tours in October.

Those victories give him motivation going into what will be his ninth season with the Dutch-backed Rabobank, which sees the arrival of compatriots Luís León Sánchez and Carlos Barredo.

“I achieved two important victories in different classics and, even more important, I ended the season with motivation to keep going,” Freire said. “I admit when things weren’t going well this season, I was ready to retire at 100 perecent.”

Freire will debut at the Mallorca Challenge in early February and then race the Ruta del Sol, which he won in 2007. Milan-San Remo and a strong performance during the northern classics are also important goals for Freire in 2011.

Freire also admitted he likely won’t go to the Tour de France next year, in large part to prepare intensively for the world championships in Denmark, which will be held on a course favorable to his characteristics.

Despite notching back-to-back top-10s at the past two editions of the Tour de France, Roman Kreuziger has set his sights on a run at the overall at the Giro d’Italia in 2011.

.Roman Kreuziger in 2010. He'll be be sporting a new kit in `11. | Graham Watson Photo

Rather than return to the Tour and try to improve on his two ninth places, the all-rounder will try to win a very mountainous Giro that’s on tap next season instead.

“Other years (my goal) was the Tour de France because it is the biggest race in the world, but for next year, the goals have changed and my first objective will be the Giro d’Italia,” Kreuziger said Sunday. “From now until the Giro, I only have this race in mind.”

The 24-year-old Czech rider has made the switch from Liquigas, his home for five seasons, to Astana, where he is the most important arrival following the departure of Tour winner Alberto Contador.

The former junior world champion made steady progress after turning pro with Liquigas in 2006, with his career highlights including a stage and the overall at the 2008 Tour de Suisse, which he followed up with stage victories and overall titles at the 2009 Tour de Romandie and the 2010 Giro di Sardinia, respectively.

Many tap Kreuziger as a future Tour de France winner, but he could see that he would be the odd-man out at Liquigas, with Italians Ivan Basso and Vicenzo Nibali ahead of him on the power rankings of the Italian-backed team.

“After five years with the same team (Liquigas), I got to the point where I feel ready to become a leader,” he continued.
When Contador left behind his troubled tenure at Astana in favor of a move to join Bjarne Riis at Saxo Bank-Sungard, Astana needed a big name with future potential to try to fill the void. Although Alexander Vinokourov will race for at least one more season, the team wanted someone who could be a factor both in the present and future.

They found that rider in Kreuziger, a son of a former pro who can climb and time trial well, with room for improvement.

Kreuziger made his Tour debut in 2008 with a solid 13th overall, which he confirmed with ninth in 2009 and ninth again in 2010. He’s also performed well over the past three seasons in other stage races, claiming second overall at the 2008 Romandie, third at the 2009 Tour de Suisse and third at the 2010 Paris-Nice.

He’s also capable of doing well in one-day classics, with such promising results as second at the 2009 Clásica San Sebastián behind Carlos Barredo and fifth at the 2010 Amstel Gold Race.

Rather than ride in the shadow of Basso and Nibali at Liquigas, he’ll now take them head on, especially Vuelta a España champ Nibali, who’s also targeting the Giro as his main goal for the 2011 season.

“The goals are very high because the team is keen for the Giro and they’ve asked me to win it,” Kreuziger said. “I’ll give my best to win, even though it will be difficult, but I am confident I can handle it well.”

Depending on what happens at the Giro, Kreuziger could find himself back at the Tour next season. He’s raced two grand tours in the same season the past two years and will likely race either the Tour or Vuelta following his Giro run.

Kreuziger and his new Astana teammates wrapped up its first training camp in Italy. They’re set to meet again for a longer camp in January along Spain’s Mediterranean Coast.

Horner holds forth with event organizer Hubert Otlik.

Chris Horner held forth on cyclocross, Basque headwear and the 2010 Tour de France on Friday during a San Diego fund-raiser for World Bicycle Relief.

The RadioShack stalwart joined retired Kelly Benefit Strategies pro Neil Shirley for a meet-and-greet and raffle at B&L Bikes before regaling a $200-per-plate dinner crowd at the Farmhouse Café with his tales from the road.

After breaking eight bones in 2009, Horner stayed healthy this season, and it showed. He won the Tour of the Basque Country and finished 10th in the Tour.

Horner said he had long “dreamed of the funny hat,” referring to the txapela rewarded to the winner of the Basque Country tour, a race he first did in 1997. Horner had raced the Tour of Flanders the day before, and after enduring several flights and a 1 a.m. arrival in Basque Country, his was an inauspicious debut.

“I got dropped like 30 miles into the race,” he said. “I ended up getting dropped after stage 3 and I dropped out. So I’m watching it on TV and I’m seeing (Laurent) Jalabert wear this funky hat and I was just like, “That looks cool — I want one of those!’”

Horner had high hopes for the 2010 Tour, too, but they would be dashed. He recalled that coming off Jani Brajkovic’s Critérium du Dauphiné victory, an enthusiastic RadioShack squad arrived four days ahead of the Tour to do reconnaissance runs on the cobblestones of stage 3.

“What I saw there was a really strong core group of guys and a fantastic Lance on form and just ready to go. I’m 39 now, racing 40 next year. I understand that when I see what we saw in training, that we were going to go on to having a fantastic three weeks. It was going to be stress-free. It was going to be a great race. It was going to be like clockwork. We were completely badass.”

Unfortunately, Horner added with a wide grin, those training rides were “the highlight of the Tour. … Everything really started falling apart on stage 2.”

Remembering the mass wipeout on the Stockeu, which took down nearly every top GC rider in the field, Horner said he was about 15 riders back, next to Levi Leipheimer — ”perfect spot” — when the field started the descent.

“They started going really fast, and I’m like, ‘Nope, not going to go that fast.’ I know this descent. You are not going to make it down this descent. Somebody will make it down this descent, but we are not all going to make it down.”

When the crashes began, “it was like a bomb exploded,” Horner said. Leipheimer was taken out from behind, but Horner was still somehow upright when “bikes without riders are passing by me! I kid you not. They are sliding by me and now all I’m thinking is, ‘Okay, here it comes, somebody’s going to hit me from behind and I’m going to go down just like Levi did.’”

Horner gets the funny hat to keep

The impact never came, and Horner said he picked his way through a tangle of bodies and bikes, helped Armstrong remount and located their teammates. After that, Horner said Fabian Cancellara and the lead group simply stopped racing, and the stage “went from all total chaos to all of a sudden, calmness. Imagine just absolute total chaos happening in this room and then just stepping outside to a whole another universe. That’s how that stage felt.”

When more bad luck — crashes, broken spokes, and punctures — fractured both the field and the RadioShack squad on the following day’s stage through the cobblestones of northern Belgium, Horner said he was delighted that Armstrong had lost only 50 seconds to Alberto Contador.

But Armstrong was furious. “He was like, ‘We lost the Tour,’” Horner said.

“No way,” Horner told Armstrong. “You can’t lose the Tour by 50 seconds. Just stay motivated. Keep it together. We’ve got a great squad. We’re going to make it happen, don’t worry. This 50 seconds won’t cost you the race.”

But as misfortune continued to sling arrows at the team, morale suffered, Horner said.

“Riders were getting angry at each other quicker during the race. Management wasn’t happy —nobody was doing their job. The stress level was building every stage.”

Horner said he and Brajkovic were put in the unusual position of working at the beginning of stages, protecting RadioShack’s team GC placing by marking attacking sprinters on the flats.

“When we are covering these big guys it’s incredibly difficult,” Horner said. “Jani and I, we were just dying. We were doing everything we can for the team. Everything for Lance. Everything for Klodi. Everything for Levi.”

At one point, Horner said, team director Johan Bruyneel came into the team bus and gave the team an inspiring talk.

“A good director’s meeting with all the positive things he can: ‘Let’s try and win a stage. Let’s stay focused. Let’s win the team classification. And then if we can let’s help Lance win a stage.’” Shaking with laughter at the memory, Horner added, “I was like, wait, I thought we were!”

With a disastrous Tour behind him, one might think Horner would have had enough of the bike by now. But while most pros go straight to vacation in the off-season, he said, “Me, I go to cyclocross.”

And this year, he’s gone there in a big way — Horner won Orange County’s Spooky Cross and San Diego’s Storm the Beach, and he has his eye on the national championships in his second hometown, Bend, Oregon.

“The day that ends, though,” he said, “I’m on vacation!”

Editor’s note: The San Diego fund-raisers were sponsored by three local racing clubs — the Swamis Cycling Club, the San Diego Bicycle Club and UC Cyclery-JW Flooring. Hubert Otlik of the Swamis estimated that the evening would clear at least $15,000 for World Bicycle Relief. For more on the organization, see www.worldbicyclerelief.org.

Pete Ostroski leads David Mai during the second stage.

David Mai of Portland, Maine, and Cathy Rowell of Bedford, New Hampshire, won this weekend’s Porky Gulch Classic Stage Race, an unusual, unsanctioned, season-ending event held near the base of Mount Washington in New Hampshire.

The event (which is actually more like an omnium than a stage race) comprises three stages over two days: A time trial up the first two miles of the Mount Washington Auto Road, followed by a criterium through the Story Land theme park. The final day features the Rockpile Rampage cyclocross race at Great Glen Trails, at the base of the Auto Road.

Former Porky Gulch Classic champion Peter Ostroski won the hillclimb TT in 13:15. Steve Piotrow was second and Mai was third. Rowell posted the fastest time for the women — 19:35.

At the Story Land Criterium, Ostroski had a mechanical and finished fifth while Mai took the win and Scott Brooks of Westford, Massachusetts was third. Meghan Skidmore of Randolph, New Hampshire, was the first woman.

Mai, Piotrow and Ostroski were separated by only 7 points starting the final stage. Ostroski immediately took control of the race and won going away. Mai was second to retain his overall lead and Piotrow ended up fifth, allowing Ostroski to leapfrog him in the overall standings to take second. Rowel posted the top women’s performance to take the overall win.

DENVER (VN) _ Organizers of the 2011 Quiznos Pro Challenge stage race on Thursday announced the host communities for the race, to be held next August in Colorado.

Twenty-three communities submitted bids to host the event. Those chosen to host race starts or finishes are: Breckenridge, Salida, Steamboat Springs, Aspen, Colorado Springs, Vail, Golden, Denver, Gunnison, Crested Butte and Avon. The race will cover roughly 600 miles and will primarily take place in the state’s central and northern mountains.

While specific route details were not released, the start and finish spots indicate a very mountainous route, with few sprinter stages. VeloNews was able to confirm two stage routes following the official announcement.

According to sources close to the race organization who requested to remain anonymous, the routes for stages 2 and 3 are settled.

The second stage, from Salida to Crested Butte, will travel west on Highway 50 over Monarch Pass before turning north in Gunnison for a run to the base of Crested Butte Mountain Resort. The roughly 96-mile route will finish with a 2.5-mile climb to the ski area and should result in a small group sprint.

The next day, riders will face what should be the race’s queen stage when they trek from Gunnison to Aspen via Cottonwood and Independence Passes. Both passes are over 12,000-feet elevation and the stage will include more than 8,300 feet of climbing, all of it above 8,000 feet elevation. Cottonwood Pass includes a long section of compact gravel road between Taylor Park Reservoir and the summit; the descent from Independence to Aspen is fast, narrow and technical.

Medalist Sports managing partner Jim Birrell has been traveling the state for months, identifying potential courses and training for the Leadville Trail 100. Though the race will take place almost entirely in the mountains, he did look for a number of sprint finishes to balance the racing.

“I think you’d be surprised,” said Birrell. “I have no doubt that the overall composition of the seven days is one that is going to challenge all athletes and I would hope to see a lot of lead changes. With time bonuses and what have you, I think it’s going to be a competitive race all the way to the finish in Denver.”

Garmin-Transitions climber Tom Danielson agreed. “Some of these stages could be a sprint,” he said. “Guys like Cavendish, Farrar, Petacchi, they can get over some hard climbs. In fact, they can climb better than a lot of the guys in the pro peloton over here anyway. Even though some of these stages don’t look like sprints on paper, these guys will get over the climbs and there will be sprints.”

Danielson expected the race to repalce the Vuelta a Espana on many riders’ schedules in 2011. “A lot of guys will be motivated and it falls perfectly on the calendar,” he said.

“I would say that probably all the top stage racers will go to this race, minus a few guys that will go to the Vuelta.”

The race will not venture to the state’s Four Corners region, where Durango had hoped to host a start. Boulder also missed the cut for hosting a start or finish, but Birrell hinted that the final stage, from Golden to Denver, could pass through or near Boulder.

“That stage, because of how close Golden is to Denver, gives us a lot of latitude and a lot of creativity to build a very dynamic stage,” said Birrell, who will be staking out the Golden-Denver route this weekend. “It’ll be a very iconic stage into Denver, representing a lot of the Front Range.”

Choosing the host communities was difficult said Ellen Kramer, Quiznos chief communications officer.

“We had so much interest from incredible cities across Colorado that we could hold an event of twice the duration,” Kramer said. “We worked diligently throughout the selection process to incorporate cities that provide terrain that is unique to Colorado and delivers one of the most exciting cycling events in the world. The selected cities will make excellent partners and provide a demanding course for the world’s top cyclists.”

The cities were announced at the state capitol, with representatives from the 11 communities, along with outgoing Gov. Bill Ritter, a cyclist and race supporter. Coors Classic boss Michael Aisner was on hand, as were Chris Aronhalt and Jim Birrell, managing partners of QPC promoter Medalist Sports.

Icon Lasik, a Denver-based eye surgery center, is joining the sandwich chain as a major sponsor, it was announced.

View Quiznos Pro Challenge Potential Host Cities & Stage Routes in a larger map

Editor’s Note:

The team on the podium

The UCI has slapped a ban and a fine on Team RadioShack manager Johan Bryuneel after jersey-swapping antics designed to promote Lance Armstrong’s fight against cancer at the Tour de France. The UCI on Friday banned Bruyneel for two months, from February 1 to March 31, 2011 and said the Belgian had to pay a fine of 10,000 Swiss Francs (7,300 euros).

The sanctions relate to the infringement of article 12.1.004 of the UCI regulations.

On the last stage of this year’s Tour de France, the last of Armstrong’s career, the team flouted UCI rules by turning up for the final stage to the Champs Elysees wearing black jerseys with the number ‘28′ emblazoned across it.

Armstrong, who famously battled cancer in 1998 to return to racing and win the Tour seven times consecutively, wanted as much exposure as possible for his Livestrong foundation, which estimates that 28 million people around the world are living with cancer.

However, angry race officials forced the team to change into their traditional red and gray outfits.

Armstrong persisted and after the stage the 39-year-old American and his team turned up wearing black at the podium to receive their prize for winning the teams’ classification.

“In the end, I think the fact we had to change the jerseys (before thestage) gave us some publicity,” Armstrong told France Television at the end of the stage.

Bruyneel later hit out at the UCI’s reaction, using remarks that earned him a disciplinary hearing.

In a statement issued on Friday, the UCI said: “… Mr J. Bruyneel publicly offended the UCI International Commissaires with his declarations.”

In July the UCI said that because of RadioShack’s good intentions “any fines levied as a result of this matter would be donated to the Swiss League Against Cancer.”

Armstrong's wardrobe change

The UCI on Friday also handed a two-month ban to Spaniard Carlos Barredo, who was involved in a fight with Portuguese Rui Costa following the end of the race’s stage 6 at Gueugnon.

The UCI added: “Mr C. Barredo infringed article 12.1.005 of the UCI regulations (blemishing of the image, the reputation or the interests of cycling and the UCI) during the 2010 Tour de France.”