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5/14/2012
Argos-Shimano rider John Degenkolb dominated the three-day Tour de Picardie stage race in France over the weekend, winning two stages and taking the overall victory on his Felt F1 team bike. The 23-year-old German sprinter is on a hot streak, having also won two stages at the Four Days of Dunkirk the week before.
Degenkolb opened up the May 11-13 Tour of Picardie with a win in the 166.5km stage from Clermont to Braine. He credited his Argos-Shimano teammates for controlling the race, chasing down a breakaway group, and setting him up for the sprint finale.
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5/13/2012
The Felt Ötztal X-Bionic team had a successful outing at Round 3 of the World Cup Cross-Country Series in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, scoring podium finishes in the Men’s Eliminator Sprint race and the Women’s XC race.
Australian Paul van der Ploeg (pictured, left) got things off to a strong start, posting the fastest qualifying time among pro men in the Eliminator event. He advanced to the finals and finished second behind Swiss rider Sepp Freiburghaus. It was the second podium appearance in as many races for “The Thunder from Down Under.”
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5/7/2012
New Mexico — Kristin Armstrong turned in a dominating performance at the SRAM Tour of the Gila stage race in New Mexico, winning the overall classification by nearly 7 minutes. The Exergy team captain won four of five stages in the May 2-6 stage race, outclassing the competition in both road and TT events. Armstrong, a 2008 Olympic gold medalist, led the five-day race from start to finish. She came out swinging on Stage 1, a 151km race from Silver City to Mogollan, when she attacked on the final climb to Mogollon on her Felt F1 team bike. She rode solo to the line, gaining 2:18 on second-place Carmen Small.
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5/7/2012
France — Argos-Shimano sprinter John Degenkolb scored his first two wins of the 2012 season at the Four Days of Dunkirk stage race in France. The 23-year-old German won Stages 1 and 2 of the May 4-8 race on his Felt F1 team bike, continuing his rise through the ranks as one of the sport's top young sprinters. Degenkolb’s first win of the week came in the 170km Stage 2 from Dunkirk to Nord-pas-del-Calais. He joined an elite selection of 10 riders in the hilly closing kilometers, then blasted ahead at the finish line for the win. The German then repeated in the following day’s 180km race, extending his lead in the General Classification.
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4/30/2012
Hachimantai, Japan -- Yukihiro Doi of the Felt-sponsored Argos-Shimano team is the new national road champion in Japan. The 28-year-old rode his Felt F1 team bike to victory at last weekend’s championship race in the northern part of Japan’s Honshu region.
Yukihiro has been racing in the European peloton since 2005. Last year, while racing for the Skil-Shimano team, he became the first Japanese rider to finish the Vuelta a España, one of the season’s three grand tours.
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4/25/2012
New Orleans -- Felt-sponsored triathlete Mirinda Carfrae finished a strong third at the April 23 weather-shortened Oschner Ironman 70.3 in New Orleans. High winds cancelled the swim portion of the race, so Carfrae and the rest of the elite women’s field started with a 2-mile run.
Coming into T1 at the end of the opening run, Carfrae was part of a large lead group. On the 52-mile bike ride, American Sarah Piampiano gained a 1:55 gap over Heather Wurtele in second, with a large group including Carfrae more than 5 minutes back.
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4/24/2012
Monterey, California — Morgan Schmitt and Matt Cooke of Team Exergy took two of three podium spots at the Sea Otter Stage Race in California. The two put their stamp on the four-day race in the Stage 2 road race, finishing first (Cooke) and second (Schmitt) on their Felt F1 team bikes.
The following day’s TT saw three Exergy riders finish in the top-10: Schmitt was fifth, Logan Loader was sixth and Andres Diaz was seventh. That put Schmitt second in general classification, 15 seconds behind race leader Andy Jacques-Maynes.
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4/6/2012
France — The early-season successes of the Argos-Shimano team did not go unnoticed by Tour de France organizers, who on Friday granted the Felt-sponsored team an invitation to the world’s most prestigious grand tour. Argos-Shimano was one of four teams granted a wildcard invitation to the three-week stage race in July.
“It is a great reward for the hard work of all the cyclists and the entire staff, as well as for our partners’ faith in this ambitious cycling project,” said the team’s general manager Iwan Spekenbrink.
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4/6/2012
Melbourne, Australia — Canadian Zach Bell scored a silver medal in the omnium event at the 2012 UCI Track World Championships. Bell rode his Felt TK1 to his second career silver medal at Worlds, following his second-place finish in the same event in 2009.
Bell waged a tight battle with Australian Glenn O-Shea in the two-day, six-event omnium competition. Bell was sitting second at the end of the first day, and moved into a first-place tie with O’Shea after the fifth of six competitions.
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4/4/2012
Belgium — German sprinter Marcel Kittel gave his team its first win under its new moniker, Argos-Shimano, with a huge victory at Wednesday’s 100th edition of the Scheldeprijs race in Belgium. Kittel blasted past some of the best sprinters in the world, including American Tyler Farrar and Dutchman Theo Bos, on his Felt F1 team bike to take the win.
Kittel is having a breakout season. The 23-year-old joined an impressive list of former Sheldeprijs winners including current world champion Mark Cavendish, who won it last year, plus Farrar, Alessandro Petacchi and Tom Boonen.
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