Between all the parties, gift baskets, and seemingly endless bowls of candies, maintaining a steady weight can be a real challenge at this time of year. Well the folks over at Active.com decided to help a little with a list of ten things readers can do to help ward off the post-holiday bulge. Sadly, not one of the suggestions includes downing a whole pecan-pie, or even grazing on appetizers for five straight hours. Instead Active.com suggests an approach that includes substituting lower calorie options when available, never skipping a meal, and getting enough sleep. OK, so they don’t sound like as much fun as some of the other options out there, but as far as we know, nobody has figured out a way to loose weight by eating….just yet.

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Posted by David at 3:19 PM | Permalink

The Landis camp got a moral boost today when the testosterone-related doping case against Spanish rider Inigo Landaluze (Euskaltel), was dismissed by the Court of Arbitation for Sports (CAS). The Court sided with the Landaluze saying that his test, which was analyzed by the same Chatenay-Malabry lab that handled the Landis sample, showed analytical-irregularities. This of course is welcome news to Floyd Landis who is claiming there were testing irregularities associated with his samples. Whether Landis will receive a similar verdict in the legal arena remains to be seen, however his appeals process could very likely take him before the same court that handed down the favorable arbitration judgment for Landaluze.

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Posted by David at 5:42 PM | Permalink

Well, it official. The UCI announced they have awarded Team Astana a Pro Tour license for the next four years. In a short statement the UCI said that Astana received the Pro Tour license because they had provided the required documents within the time frame set by the UCI.

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Posted by David at 10:07 AM | Permalink

The Team Astana Fan Page, an unofficial site with eerily accurate coverage of team news, is reporting that Astana was granted a Pro Tour license today. With little information to go on right now, we are working under the assumption that this is the same Pro Tour license which was take from Active Bay just yesterday. While it’s not shocking to see a team of Astana’s caliber receive a Pro Tour license, the news came unexpectedly early as the UCI itself said that it would revisit Astana’s application on December 20th. Perhaps even more confusing is an alleged statement by UCI Chairman Pat McQuaid where he said that Astana had no chance of receiving a Pro Tour license after their initial rejection. More to come….

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Posted by David at 2:26 PM | Permalink

The UCI today announced that it would award a Pro Tour license, made available by Phonak’s somewhat unexpected departure, to Unibet. Team Unibet beat out Barloworld and Astana for the licence, though the UCI said it would re-examine Astana’s application on December 20th due to technical difficulties the team had with their application. In other Pro Tour licensing business, Active Bay had its license revoked, and the UCI announced several license extensions for the following teams:

Caisse d’Epargne – through 2010
T-Mobile - 2010
Saunier Duval / Prodir - 2010
Gerolsteiner - 2010
Milram - 2009

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Posted by David at 5:38 PM | Permalink