Basso signs for Discovery

Ivan Basso will be riding with the Discovery Channel team in the coming 2007 season, Johan Bruyneel, the team's director announced today. Basso has signed a two-season contract with Tailwind Sports, which owns the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team.

"We are excited about Ivan joining the team," Bruyneel said, "and we're looking forward to having him at Discovery Channel's training camp in Austin on December 3."

Bill Stapleton, General Manager of the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team, has grown to know Ivan as a chief rival of seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong. "On behalf of Tailwind Sports, Capital Sports & Entertainment and all of our sponsors, I am very excited to have Ivan as a part of the Team", said Stapleton. "During Lance's final Tour's Ivan pushed Lance to a new level and we expect great things from him in 2007."

The Italian Cycling Federation on 27 October 2006 dropped an inquiry into Basso's alleged involvement in the Spanish "Operacion Puerto" investigation following the Italian Olympic Committee's decision clearing him.

Ivan Basso has now been cleared by his country's top governing sports organizations which examined more than 500 pages of documents and determined on the merits that not only is there no proof of any involvement in illegal practices, but there is no justification for bringing a disciplinary proceeding against Basso.

Billy Campbell, President of Discovery Networks U.S. commented on the signing, stating "Discovery Communications is proud to welcome Ivan Basso to the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team. Team Discovery is a truly world class organization with deep international focus. He is a tremendous talent who only enhances an already strong roster. We look forward to a successful and winning 2007 for the entire Discovery Channel team."

What I wish I had known about marriage

Kristin Armstrong, the ex-wife of cyclist Lance Armstrong, believes that too many women leave their true selves behind at the altar. Here's the wedding day advice she wishes someone had given her.
By Kristin Armstrong

The greatest conspiracy in modern history is not Watergate or the shooting of JFK; it's something far more ingrained and insidious in the way it distorts the truth. The conspiracy is marriage. It's not that I don't respect the institution and the belief I've cherished since childhood of what such a union could be. One heartbreaking and publicly failed marriage later, I actually revere marriage more at age 34 than I did as a blushing bride of 26.

The problem is that when a young woman announces her engagement, everyone is quick to roll out the matrimonial red carpet by throwing showers and obsessing over wedding day plans. This helps a bride prepare for the reality of marriage about as much as nine months of baby showers and nursery decorating prepare a gestating woman for the awesome task of raising a child: not at all.

Perhaps we are all guilty of holding on too tightly to our own Cinderella stories, thinking that the glass slipper of the perfect marriage will conform to us uniquely. Engagement, like pregnancy, is a fleeting and hopeful time, and those who have gone before hesitate to disrupt this dream with a dose of reality. So we carry a young woman toward the threshold of her new identity as wife and mother and abruptly drop her off at the curb, peeling out on two wheels with a honk and a wave and a wish for good luck.

Here is the truth as I see it: Marriage has the potential to erode the very fiber of your identity. If you aren't careful, it can tempt you to become a "yes woman" for the sake of salvaging your romantic dream. It can lure you into a pattern of pleasing that will turn you into someone you'll hardly recognize and probably won't like. I am warning you because I only wish someone had warned me.

The incredible disappearing woman
Ten years ago I never would have expected my life to turn out quite the way it did. At 24 I had bought my first house and was working for a high-tech company in Austin, Texas. I had adopted a dog named Jake from the pound and drove a cute little green Miata that I paid for in full. I was career-minded and single-minded. I was also headstrong and naive; I treasured my self-sufficiency so much that I scoffed at women who gave up their jobs, stayed home to take care of children or relied on men for anything.

Then I fell in love. I met Lance Armstrong, the Texas cyclist who was battling testicular cancer, at a press conference I'd planned for his foundation's first cancer fund-raiser. Soon I was joyfully sporting an engagement ring with a hefty rock the size of my dilated pupil in a darkroom. I was so enamored with my new stature as part of a couple that I paid more attention to my left hand than to readying my heart for the journey ahead. I quit my job, rented out my house, gave my dog to an old boyfriend, sold my car and moved to France so Lance could reenter the world of professional cycling.

We got married and promptly had three children—a son and then twin daughters—who were breast-fed, toted between countries and utterly adored by their devoted, full-time, stay-at-home mommy. (So much for my scoffing.)My memories tell the real story. I remember being a bride of two weeks, writing thank-you notes and pondering the strange ache in my heart as I grieved for my old name and independent self. And postpartum me in 1999, weeping for apparently no reason in the middle of the night as I sat on a sofa-size maxi-pad and rocked my crying newborn, Luke, while feeling utterly and terrifyingly alone.

If you ask me today what I truly love, I can easily tell you I love God, my family, my friends, fireworks displays, a good red wine, staying up late with a mystery novel, a sweaty run, painting abstract art, indulging my organizational compulsions, laughing until no sound comes out and taking my time. If you had asked me when I was married what I loved, I would have automatically told you the things that I loved about my husband: the confident, easy way he traveled between countries adapting to cultures and languages, or the way he could fearlessly MSH (our acronym for "Make shit happen," something we both excel at), or the little-known fact that he is a good photographer. I forgot my own list (and I'm a list girl!). Making him happy became my happy.

So this once-devout Catholic stopped going to church because it was inconvenient. Between my husband's seven-day training schedule and the impossibility of my attending solo with twin infants and a rowdy toddler in a cathedral with a Latin mass and no nursery, I gave up. I quit reading late into the night because the light was bothersome to a tired athlete who needed sleep. I put all the energy and skills that made me a good manager and account executive into errands, planning and mothering. But the beauty of a wife is not found in those things. The beauty of a wife is in her being, not in her doing. During those years I perfected my doing and neglected my being. I remember the day that revelation first hit me: I made a joke to Lance about being opinionated, and he looked at me, sincerely confused: "You?"

Getting back the real me
If I were to do things over again, I wouldn't have thrown myself so irrevocably into my new life. I would have guarded the things that made me feel like me —the places, the friends —and above all I would have spoken up about my needs. Instead, I will leave you with a lesson about how a woman can hold on to the bright, hard flame of who she is.

If your husband asks what you think, tell him. If you have a preference, voice it. If you have a question, ask it. If you want to cry, bawl. If you need help, raise your hand and jump up and down. I spent five years juggling kids, travel, cooking, smoothing. I never once said that I couldn't do it on my own, or that I was just plain tired. I became a prisoner to my own inability to say uncle when life squeezed me too hard. The warden was pride, and I remained in maximum security.The time may come when you realize that the only way to restore the meaning to your marriage is to get back the real you. It requires warrior-size courage to take a stand against the miscommunication, deception and emotional distance that breed in the shadows of inauthenticity. You will have to boldly step up to the line and speak from your heart. You will have to own your words (spoken and unspoken), your actions (done and undone) and the consequences of both. If I ever marry again, I will have cue cards prepared with "Yes, I do know what I want," "Make me laugh and I'll get over it" and "I need you, please help me."

I know that one day my daughters will face these same challenges. At age four they are already starting to form their own dreams of a handsome prince on a white horse. Without destroying the beautiful elements of their innocence, I long to prevent them from a disappointment like mine —so with each step between now and then, I vow to myself and to them to be real. I hope that as they watch me painstakingly reclaim my hard-earned authenticity, they will manage to guard their own. And when they do decide to wed, they will bring to their marriages the greatest gift of all: a unique and unshakable sense of self.

Lance : NY marathon is hardest challenge yet

Lance Armstrong completed the New York marathon just three seconds shy of his intended target of three hours.

The 35-year-old American, the record seven-time winner of the Tour de France, then admitted it was the most demanding event he has ever endured. "That was without a doubt the hardest physical thing I've ever done," an exhausted Armstrong said after participating with some 38,000 other runners.

"In 20 years of pro sports, endurance sports, from triathlons to cycling, all the Tours, even the worst days in the Tours, nothing was as hard as that and nothing left me feeling the way I feel now in terms of just sheer fatigue and soreness."

Armstrong said ahead of the race he was under no illusions about coming in with the head of the field. A former professional triathlete before focusing uniquely on cycling, Armstrong - who retired last year - decided the streets of Manhattan would be his next challenge and also give him a chance to raise money for cancer charities.

Armstrong, who beat cancer after being diagnosed in 1996 and went on to rewrite the record book for the world's biggest bike race, took along three veteran running greats to help him complete the race -- his debut at the distance.

Despite his retirement from cycling he still risked distracting attention from the main marathon itself, with a dedicated television camera -- dubbed the Lance-cam -- covering him throughout the race. Asked if he would consider racing at the distance again, he was equivocal. "The answer right now is no, I'll never be back, but I reserve the right to change my mind in a month," he said.

Armstrong, wearing a green top smiled and waved to supporters lining the streets in the early stages of the route but started showing the strain and grimacing beyond the 20-mile mark. He was flanked by retired distance legends Alberto Salazar, Joan Benoit Samuelson and Hicham El Guerrouj, taken on as pace setters to help him make the distance.

Another race, another challenge

Lance Armstrong is set to run the New York City Marathon on Sunday, but the seven-time Tour de France winner is finding competition off the bike to be a big pain in the shins. "I'm icing my shins right now," Armstrong said Tuesday in a phone interview. "I've been riding the bike lately because of these nagging little injuries."

Although he hasn't turned in a practice run longer than 16 miles, he's confident he'll overcome those painful shin splints and complete the 26.2-mile course in about three hours, a pace just under seven minutes a mile. "I've been able to average six-minute miles for 10 miles," he says. "But they say the 20-mile mark is just halfway."

Armstrong, 35, wanted to run the Oct. 22 Chicago Marathon, but scheduling conflicts forced him to switch to New York. Sponsor Nike has made his appearance there into a major media event, complete with a 10-story-high billboard in Times Square promoting its "Run With Lance" program that benefits the anti-cancer Lance Armstrong Foundation. His race number, 1002, represents Oct. 2, 1996, the day he was diagnosed with cancer. Before he became a cycling legend, Armstrong was a world-class triathlete. He has also competed in and won several off-road run-bike events, but he's never tackled the marathon distance."I've been getting pretty good advice from the experts," he says. "These injuries have been pretty frustrating, though." One of those experts is ex-wife Kristin Richard, who took up marathons after their divorce in 2003.

She's now a columnist for Runner's World magazine and posted an impressive time of 3 hours, 35 minutes in the 2005 Chicago Marathon. That time qualified her for the prestigious 2006 Boston Marathon, which she finished in 3:44.36. She won't be running in New York City. "It is kind of funny that she's giving me tips about an athletic event," he says. "She asks me a lot of questions about my training. But I listen to Kristin. I listen to her a lot more than people may think. We have a very good relationship."

This October was the tenth anniversary of Armstrong's cancer diagnosis. He said the day itself was pretty uneventful, but it meant a lot to him. "That morning was a simple morning in my life – in the sense that when I woke up, I had my kids that day, I took them to school, fed them breakfast. It was not exactly a wild morning," he said. "I just took the day to reflect on what it means to be a cancer survivor, how quickly, yet how long ten years has taken, and then that night we had a get-together with friends."

"It's interesting, I guess ten years ago I didn't think I would be in this place. I didn't think I would be sitting here. I didn't think the burden of cancer would be what it still is in this country or all over the world. I look forward to ten more years fighting the disease and trying to make a difference."

Is Lance Armstrong missing professional cycling?
The former Tour de France champion said he didn't watch a minute of this year's race. "I am 35 years old," he said. "I know that my time has come and gone in cycling. It's time to do other things and time to focus on the issue of cancer and other little goals and objectives, like running a marathon, being a father – the things that the sport of cycling and the tour would take me away from. No. No. Never again."