The week in review

The United States Anti-Doping Agency charged seven-time Tour de France Lance Armstrong with doping and banned him from all competition, claiming 2009 and 2010 blood samples from the Texan were “consistent with blood manipulation including EPO use and/or blood transfusions.” Armstrong denied the charges.

Catharine Pendrel and Max Plaxton retained their national mountain bike cross-country titles at St. Felicien on Saturday. Pendrel took her fourth consecutive gold, answering an attack by Marie-Helene Premont, who came second. Emily Batty was third. Plaxton’s repeat championship denied Geoff Kabush an eighth national title. Smithers, BC’s Craig Richey (Raleigh) finished seventh.

Rory Sutherland (UnitedHealthcare) won the overall title at the 2012 Tour de Beauce that concluded on Sunday in Saint-Georges, Quebec. He was followed by Canadians Hugo Houle (SpiderTech p/b C10) in second and Christian Meier (Team Canada) in third.

It was a busy week for Cycling Canada Cyclisme as the national organization named Olympic mountain bike and women’s road cycling pools before unveiling the track cyclists who will compete in London. Tara Whitten and Zach Bell will lead the way on the boards of London.

While his brother Frank bounced back from a shoulder injury that forced him out of the Giro with a fine performance at the Tour de Suisse, Andy Schleck announced that a cracked pelvis suffered at the Criterium Dauphiné will require him to miss the Tour de France.

The City of Vancouver announced that they’ll be getting a BIXI public bike-share program in 2013. The fleet will be maintained and run by a Portland, Oregon company and have stations downtown and along the Broadway corridor.

Rui Costa of Movistar withstood a sharp attack by Frank Schleck on the hors categorie Glaubenberg climb during the last stage of the Tour de Suisse to win the 76th edition of the WorldTour stage race. Rui Costa becomes the race’s first Portuguese winner. Interestingly, 2010 winner Frank Schleck (Radioshack-Nissan) and last year’s champion Levi Leipheimer (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) came runner up and third respectively. Costa might be familiar to Canadian cycling fans, for he won last year’s Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal.