The Giro d'Italia started on this day six times: 1961, 1967, 1968, 1971, 1977 and 1978. Jacques Anquetil, who had become the first Frenchman to win a Giro the year before, went to the race as the favourite in 1961; but he faced stiff competition from Arnaldo Pambianco who had finished in 7th place at the 1960 Tour de France. He fought hard to leave him behind and took the General Classification leadership in Stage 10 but, somehow, Pambianco stayed with him all the way until Stage 14 - where...Read Full Story

A Spanish court has sentenced doping doctor Eufemiano Fuentes for breaking public health laws by giving some of the world’s top cyclists blood transfusions and banned drugs to improve performance. Shocked anti-doping agencies, worldwide, reacted angrily to the light sentencing and the judge’s refusal to hand over more than 100 bags of frozen blood to anti-doping agencies so that they could identify the cheating cyclists, athletes and, possibly, football players, who used the services of...Read Full Story

April Macie, the American stand-up comedian, said on a visit to the Howard Stern Show that Lance Armstrong, the disgraced professional cyclist, once asked her to perform a lewd sex act on him. Macie, who’s a regular visitor on the shock jock’s show, claimed that she and a friend had been partying with Armstrong at an L.A. club before going back to his room at the Peninsula hotel for an after party. When she made the mistake of paying a visit to the bathroom, Macie was in for a bit of a shock...Read Full Story

Stefano Garzelli (image credit: Sebastián García CC BY-SA 3.0) The Giro d'Italia started on this date five times - 1909 (see below), 1981, 1982, 1995 and 2000. In 1981, the race consisted of 22 stages and covered 3,895km. The winner was Giovanni Battaglin who had also won the amateur version of the race nine years earlier and would go on to win the Vuelta a Espana five months later, one of only three men to have won both races in a single season. The 1982 edition was again 22 stages, but it...Read Full Story

Eufemiano Fuentes was convicted over his role in supplying blood transfusions to cyclists. STORY HIGHLIGHTS Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes handed one-year suspended prison sentence Fuentes banned from medicine for four years by Madrid court Judge rules that blood bags and samples will not be handed over Anti-Drug Agencies could launch appeal Monday (CNN) -- Eufemiano Fuentes, the man alleged to have masterminded one of the world's largest sports doping operations, was found guilty of...Read Full Story