Virginia Berasategui of Spain has won the Wildflower Triathlon in a dominant performance. Virginia who switched to SRAM this year won the Long Distance race ahead of Leanda Cave and Erika Csomor.

Virginia the 2003 ITU long course World Champion, 2004 and 2005 Ironman Lanzarote winner and Ironman Germany 70.3, 2007 and 2008 Champion smashed the field in 4:35:00, with runner-up Leanda Cave 5 minutes and 13 second back at the finish.

After her 6th placing last year in Hawaii Virginia will be among the favourites this year at the Ironman World Championship in Kona.

Fabian Wegmann at Mliram’s 1st training camp in December
SRAM Red riders have swept the podium at Germany’s Frankfurt City Loop (formally Rund um Henninger Turm). Milram star Fabian Wegmann won what is traditionally Germany’s biggest race in front of Karsten Kroon (Saxo Bank) and Christian Knees completed Milrams great day with 3rd place. This is a great win for Wegmann in his German Champions jersey, in front of a huge home crowd and a dominant performance by Germany’s only Pro Tour team.
Frankfurt City Loop- 190.8km
Results

1 Fabian Wegmann (Ger) Team Milram …

So much happened here in beautiful Silver City,NM, over the past week at the SRAM Tour of the Gila that no number of posts could capture it all. A beautiful and interesting place with friendly people to say the least.

I conducted lots of interviews and the collection of us SRAMmies took lots of pics. Here is a small collection of some pictures that can hopefully tell some of the story. We were extremely proud to sponsor the 2009 version of this race. SRAM looks forward to at least two more years of returning to …

The SRAM Tour of the Gila continued Saturday with a challenging one mile criterium which was won with a textbook sprint finish by SRAM Force-equipped Land Rover Orbea’s twenty-year old Roman Van Uden. Van Uden said the rider in front of him moved over and opened up a straight line to the finish, which he took full advantage of with a perfect two-handed salute to the 5,000+ Silver City crowd as he crossed the line. Van Uden was swarmed by the press and the youngster was obviously in great spirits in what was certainly a …

After throwing me out of the ‘official’ team area team OUCH leader Rory Sutherland took a few minutes to chat before the stage three time trial at the SRAM Tour of the Gila. Rory covers a range of subjects including the fact that he no longer gets into breakaway because they hurt too much, but he defines it more clearly than that. Sutherland is a big rider at 6′ 2″ with a ton of class and speed. He is originally from Barton, Cranberra, Australia, and currently sits in 12th on GC.

The SRAM Tour of the Gila continued its relentless uphill course on Friday with a 16.15 mile TT that began with a punishing four mile climb into a headwind. Leipheimer’s aggressive aero tuck, supreme climbing skills, and world class TT speed were more than enough to give him the win.

Levi averaged an incredible 29.5 mph and finished in 32:59, setting a new course record. Mellow Johnny’s teammate Lance Armstrong finished third, 1:23 back at 34:22.

The race continues Saturday with a Criterium in downtown Silver City.

The SRAM-equipped Webcor Women’s team has come to the SRAM Tour of the Gila with winning on their mind. Yesterday Gina Grainger (check out the video) took the sprint win with time to celebrate and teammate Katheryn Mattis sits in second overall in the GC. They take a few moments to talk to me maybe 30 minutes before their TT start on Friday. This team has already made some strong impressions in this race and they remain super motivated, look forward to seeing their continued great results through this race and the entire season.

Snuck behind the Mellow Johnny’s curtain and took some footage of Lance on his new TT bike warming up for the 16+ mile SRAM Tour of the Gila TT. Nothing earthshaking here but just cool to see the guy doing his thing. Lance finished third and reportedly has lost more than 5 pounds since the Tour of California. He looks super strong and is starting to approach his ideal racing weight…

Got to the time trial stage of the SRAM Tour of the Gila a little early and caught up with a few of our athletes and teams, here is an interview with Kelly Bennefit’s Alex Candelario, who talks about his crash where he blew a tire on the wicked descent yesterday and went down hard. The Kelly team brought Candelario all the back to the front after losing two minutes, and sprinted for seventh on the stage. Cando seemed a little disappointed but crashing hard, chasing back, and sprinting against some of the heavy hitters here …

Today’s stage was aggressive from the gun according to SRAM’s David Zimberoff, who was in SRAM NRS Support car #1 just behind the Pro leaders (driven by Ben Raby). Four riders, including SRAM RED-equipped Floyd Landis (OUCH), got away on the backside of the 80 mile loop and drove to a lead of nearly three minutes. Apparently Floyd was going so fast down the second technical descent the entire field, less three riders, were unable to stay on his wheel. The Mellow Johnny and Bissell squads kept it all in check and pulled the remnants of the escapees back within …