Road and Track Bicycle Racing News

Monday, November 22, 2004

Ghent Six Day
Mon Nov 22 17:58:20 2004
Final Start List

With Frank Vandenbroucke having scratched, Matthew Gilmore was left without a partner.

But today Patrick Sercu, the organizer and himself a prodigious Six-Day winner, announced that 
former Olympic Champion, Robert Bartko from Germany would partner Gilmore. Bartko, partnered with 
Guido Fulst, pulled off a spectacular final night surge to win the last Berlin Six-day.

Another small change, and one which will not matter unless you are watching the event live is 
that the Villa-Stocher and Liska-Zabka pairs have switched numbers with Villa-Stocher now slated 
to wear number 6 instead of number 8 as originally intended.

The startlist otherwise is believed to be final as of today.

           1 	Matthew Gilmore (Bel) - Robert Bartko       (Ger)	
           2 	Scott McGrory   (Aus) - Luke Roberts        (Aus) 	
           3 	Bruno Risi      (Swi) - Kurt Betschart      (Swi) 	
           4 	Robert Slippens (Ned) - Danny Stam          (Ned) 	
           5 	Franco Marvulli (Swi) - Alex.Aeschbach      (Swi)	
           6 	Marco Villa     (Ita) - Franz Stocher       (Aut) 	
           7 	Andreas Kappes  (Ger) - Gerd Dörich         (Ger) 	
           8 	Martin Liska    (Slk) - Jozef Zabka         (Slk) 	
           9 	M.Pronk         (Hol) - Wouter V. Mechelen  (Bel) 	
          10 	Jimmy Madsen    (Den) - Robert Hayles       (Gbr)	
          11 	Iljo Keisse     (Ger) - Andreas Beikirch    (Ger) 	
          12 	Steven de Neef  (Zaf) - J-P. Van Zyl        (Zaf) 	
          13 	Robert Downing  (Gbr) - Russell Downing     (Gbr)

Source : SixDay Staff 

Phonak : Still unsure of Pro Tour status
Mon Nov 22 16:27:19 2004

French AG2R and Belgian Mr.Bookmaker squads also hopeful of inclusion - 
Decision promised November 30

The Swiss Phonak team was hoping to have a definite answer today (Monday) from the UCI on their inclusion 
or otherwise in the new UCI Pro Tour which is to commence next year. But at the hearing this morning in 
Switzerland the UCI indicated that it would notify them on November 30 just ahead of the publication of 
the final list of selected teams.

There were originally eighteen teams to compete in the Pro Tour series, but that was subsequently increased 
to twenty and the original published listing included Phonak.

But three prominent Phonak riders have failed drug tests in recent months and the UCI withdrew the 
invitation to Phonak to participate and it was from this decision that they were appealing today.

There are then three candidates for the single opening for a place in the Pro Tour team roster and both
the French AG2R and Belgian Mr.Bookmaker squads are hopeful.

Knowledgeable insiders feel that Phonak will be reinstated which leaves AG2R and Mr.Bookmaker out in the 
cold unless the UCI again increase the number of teams participating to twentytwo which some observers 
believe they will do. This will keep all the teams which sought a place happy and do something to ease 
the criticism that has been levelled against the UCI since it unveiled the Pro Tour.

The organizers of the Tours of Italy, France and Spain, however, have still not agreed to permit their 
events to be part of the Pro Tour which must be a crushing blow to the UCI since in addition to the three 
flagship national tours, the three dissenting promotors also organize numerous other classic races which 
the UCI had originally counted on including in the Pro Tour event roster.

Source : drastically rewritten by SixDay from the AFP release

Armstrong's LiveStrong Bands a Rip-Off?
Mon Nov 22 09:17:58 2004

It's better to give when not being deceived

Six-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong has already shown he can dominate the world of cycling. 
Now the cancer survivor is setting his sights on the world of charitable giving.

His breakaway move was marketing a $1 yellow elastic wristband with LIVESTRONG imprinted on it. He has sold 
23 million of the bands over the last six months and is still selling more than 100,000 a day. The wristbands 
have raised about $22 million for his cancer research and education foundation, almost double what the charity 
raised in the previous four years.

The wristbands, the same color as the leader's jersey in the Tour de France, show Armstrong has an uncanny 
ability to make charitable giving a hip fashion statement. But is the money he is raising being used wisely? 
Is it going for worthwhile causes? As the holiday season approaches, these are the types of questions consumers 
are asking as they are deluged with requests for money from charitable groups.

Getting answers is a lot easier than it used to be, thanks to the availability of charity tax filings online, 
but it still involves some work. Charity watchdogs can be a good resource, but their analysis is not always 
accurate and some of them tend to review only the biggest, national nonprofits. Those consumers who really want 
to know if their money is being put to good use need to do some digging on their own.

"It can get very complex," said Jamie Katz, chief of the attorney general's public charities division. "You 
need to look at more than one set of financial documents to understand where money for services is really going."

One benchmark for every charity is how much money it is raising and how much of that money is actually going to 
the causes the charity supports.

In its most recent Internal Revenue Service filing, which doesn't include the wristband contributions, the 
Lance Armstrong Foundation of Austin, Texas, reported raising nearly $8.8 million and spending $10.5 million. 
Of the $10.5 million in expenditures, nearly 81 percent went for program services, including research grants 
for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital.

By contrast, the Firefighters Charitable Foundation of Westerly, R.I., raised more money overall but spent 
relatively little of it on the charity's stated purpose, helping volunteer fire departments and victims of 
fires and disasters.

Of the $10.7 million the Firefighters foundation raised and spent last year, 86 percent, or $9.2 million, 
went to professional telemarketers who solicited funds in 45 states. Only 12 percent of of the money raised, 
or $1.3 million, went for program services. Administrative costs were minimal.

Don Silver, a spokesman for the charity, said the organization is trying to funnel more money to programming, 
but fund-raising and telemarketers are very expensive. "That's the industry," he said. He said the foundation 
stopped soliciting in Massachusetts earlier this year, but he didn't know why.

Although every charity watchdog group gave failing marks to the Firefighters foundation for its low program 
expenditures, there is no rule of thumb on what level of spending is appropriate for every charity.

The Better Business Bureau, which rates charities at Give.org, recommends that at least 65 percent of total 
expenses go for programs and no more than 35 percent for fund-raising. The American Institute of Philanthropy, 
which rates charities at Charitywatch.org, says nonprofits should devote at least 60 percent of their 
expenditures for programming.

Charity Navigator and Guidestar, charity watchdogs created by businessmen frustrated with the lack of reliable 
information available to donors, use more customized yardsticks because they believe fund-raising and 
administrative expenses can vary dramatically from one nonprofit sector to the next.

Suzanne Coffman, a Guidestar spokeswoman, said the median program expenditure for food banks in its massive 
database is 94 percent, but it's 68 percent for art museums and just under 60 percent for charities that 
sponsor arthritis research.

Fund-raising efficiency can also vary dramatically. The median cost of raising a dollar for all charities 
surveyed by Charity Navigator is 10 cents, but the median is just 2 cents for food banks and 24 cents for 
public broadcasting stations.

The charity watchdogs all have different philosophies. Give.org and Charitywatch.org rate a limited number of 
national charities. Give.org only tells where a charity deviates from its "standards for charity accountability," 
while Charitywatch hands out letter grades and boasts that it digs deep, ferreting out whether a charity is 
lumping the cost of fund-raising letters in with its program expenditures.

"It's not what they say they are spending, but what they are actually spending," said Daniel Borochoff, president 
of the American Institute of Philanthropy, which produces Charitywatch. "It's far too easy for a group to fudge 
the numbers to look good."

The 10-year-old Guidestar.org provides free access to the IRS Form 990s charities are required to file, but it 
charges $150 a month or $79 a day to gain access to its reports on individual charities. The reports offer 
detailed information on a charity's finances and how it compares to nonprofits with similar profiles, but they 
are probably not worth the expense for the occasional donor.

Charity Navigator, founded in 2001, is the newcomer to the group and the most aggressive. At Charitynavigator.org, 
it evaluates more than 3,000 charities, including many local ones, strictly on a financial basis. It gives them 
zero to four stars based on how efficiently they raise and spend money and their long-term financial health.

Morgan Memorial Goodwill Industries here in Boston received two stars from Charity Navigator, even though 86.5 
percent of its expenditures went for program services and only 4 percent for fund-raising. What brought 
Morgan Memorial's rating down was slumping revenue growth, primarily due to cuts in government grants.

"Revenue isn't always the best way to measure a nonprofit," said Joanne Hilferty, the president and chief executive 
of Morgan Memorial, noting that the charity managed to expand its programs despite the revenue cutbacks.

Even watchdogs make mistakes. On its website, Charity Navigator is decrying the Wang Center for the Performing Arts 
for paying chief executive Josiah Spaulding Jr. $524,917 while spending less than 60 percent of the money it 
raises on programs.

Charity Navigator ranks Spaulding number one on its top-10 list of highly paid chief executives at low-rated 
charities, noting his salary accounts for nearly 10 percent of the Wang's overall expenses.

Yet Charity Navigator failed to take into account that the Wang oversees and raises money for three related 
charities. The three charities are incorporated and file tax forms separately for liability reasons, but operate 
as arms of the Wang Center.

On a consolidated basis, the four Wang-related charities don't look like underperformers. They devoted 74 percent 
of their expenditures to programming and Spaulding's salary, while still very high (only 2 percent of charities 
surveyed by Charity Navigator paid more), represented just under 4 percent of the Wang's total expenditures.

Source : Boston Globe

Men Only
Mon Nov 22 08:27:49 2004

Here's Holland's Peter Van Petegem who has won the Pascale and Ronde back to back

Source : Six Day staff; Photo Courtesy : Cyclisme féminin (French) 

Ladies Only
Mon Nov 22 07:19:03 2004

Here's where Elizabeth Emery calls Home

She says she'd love to ''here'' from you

Here she is at the 2001 New York Womens Sports Challenge :
Elizabeth Emery
Source : Six Day staff

Happy Birthday - Men
Mon Nov 22 07:00:55 2004

Giuseppe Olmo (1911) Italy - Died March 5, 1992.
2nd 1936 Giro d'Italia (1st Gino Bartali, Italy)
3rd 1935 Giro d'Italia (1st Vasco Bergamaschi, Italy; 2nd Giuseppe Martano, Italy)
1st 1935 Milan-San Remo Classic
1st 1938 Milan-San Remo Classic

Emil Kijewski (1911) Germany - Died January 23, 1989
2nd 1937 World Championship Road Race (1st Eloi Meulenberg, Belgium)

Fabio Parra (1959) Colombia
3rd 1988 Tour de France  (1st Pedro Delgado, Spain; 2nd Steven Rooks, Holland)
2nd 1989 Vuelta a Espana (1st Pedro Delgado, Spain)

Source : Six Day staff 

Happy Birthday - Women
Mon Nov 22 06:45:06 2004

Sorry, None today

But the Mystery woman yesterday is Susanne Ljungskog
Susanne Ljungskog
Now Guess who this easy one is - Email your Answer (Answer tomorrow)
Mystery Woman
Source : Six Day staff

Today's Menu
Mon Nov 22 00:36:45 2004

Monday, November 22, 2004 Main Events: 

MEN: 
Stage Races      : None

Single Day races : None

Six Day, Track   : None
             
WOMEN :  
Stage Races      : None
       
Single Day races : None

Source : UCI

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