Last weeks newsflashes in a row. - Tour Down Under to be sprintgalore in January. Organisation assured of spectacle now Greipel, Farrar and Cavendish will all be present. - Matti Breschel's spring in danger. An old injury to Breschel's knee is playing up again. The new Rabo-Dane has decided to undergo an operation as soon as possible and is expected to be out for three months.

- Peter Wrolich quits cycling. He rode ten years for Gerolsteiner and the last two years for Milram. It is his intention to stay active within cycling.
- Sarah Düster to Nederland Bloeit. Sarah is relishing to be on the same team as the number one in the World Ranking, Marianne Vos. She now copies the step from Cervélo like her Swiss team mates Schwager and Aubry did.

- Olympic dream for Clara Hughes. She stood on the highest step possible during the Winter Olympic Games 2006 in Turin after she won the 5K on skates. Now Hughes is set to make the transition back to the bike for the 2012 Summer Olympics where she wants to shine for Canada on the team-pursuit (track) and the individual time trial on the road.
- Another blow for Alejandro Valverde at Swiss courts. The appeal by the Murcian against the Italian CONI-ban from cycling has been turned down. He now only has a running case against his worldwide suspension.

- Davide Rebellin's suspension ends in April 2011. The classics-specialist wants to ride for two more years, and according to Rebellin, he is in contact with several teams. The Italian has done 30.000km last year in training, as if it was a normal season.
- Luciano Pagliarini is saying goodbye to active competition. The Brazilian sprinter, who rode for Scott-Marcondes Cesar-São José dos Campos last year, saw his negotiations with Movistar fail. The 32-year-old will now turn his ergergy towards the Brazilian Cycling Federation as a coach for the track team in the run up to the Olympics 2016 in his home country.

- Varnese-Neri is assured of riding Giro 2011, as was revealed by Angelo Zomegnan in Catania. The team's main star, Giovanni Visconti, was very pleased with the news. "It feel like we just had our first win of the season." Quite a remarkable announcement for a wildcard though, as only four ProTour teams have been announced by the UCI so far.
- Paolo Bettini, Italy's National coach, has inspected the WC track for 2011 in Denmark last week. While Italy has both Petacchi and Bennati suited ideally for this kind of track, in the eyes of Bettini there's only Petacchi to consider as "he's won races over the 250km mark before."

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Links: André Greipel, Tyler Farrar, Mark Cavendish, Matti Breschel, Peter Wrolich, Sarah Düster, Patricia Schwager, Emilie Aubry, Marianne Vos, Clara Hughes, Alejandro Valverde Belmonte, Davide Rebellin, Luciano André Pagliarini Mendonca, Giovanni Visconti, Paolo Bettini, Alessandro Petacchi, Daniele Bennati