Thomas Voeckler has been awarded the Vélo d’Or tro­phy after being voted the best French rider of 2011 by the pres­ti­gious Vélo magazine.

The Team Europcar leader became a national hero in France this sum­mer after he fought to defend the race leader’s yel­low jer­sey at the Tour de France. Voeckler even­tu­ally lost the jer­sey in the Alps and fin­ished fourth over­all but was admired for his panache and deter­mi­na­tion. Colnago made a unique yel­low C59 bike for Voeckler to use dur­ing his ten-day spell in the yel­low jer­sey, which stood out as much as the race leader’s jersey.

Voeckler was voted the best French rider by cycling jour­nal­ists from around the world. He secured 116 votes, beat­ing team­mate Pierre Rolland, who had 64 votes, and track rider Grégory Beaugé, who received 55 votes.

Belgium’s Philippe Gilbert won the inter­na­tional Vélo d’Or, with Peter Sagan of the Czech Republic win­ning the Vélo d’Or Espoirs for the best young rider.

Voeckler was French national cham­pion in 2010 and won eight races in 2011, start­ing his sea­son with a vic­tory at the Tour Méditerranéen in February and end­ing it with fourth at the Gran Piemonte race in Italy in October.

“When most team lead­ers don’t win a race they jus­tify it by say that the impor­tant thing is that they felt good. I don’t agree. The impor­tant thing is to win,” Voeckler told French news­pa­per L’Equipe after being awarded the Vélo d’Or Francais trophy.

Yukiya Arashiro is chas­ing suc­cess at this week­end’s Japan Cup races after an aggres­sive end of season.

The Europcar rider was in the key break­away of the Lombardia race that ended the European sea­son on October 15 and then trav­elled home to Japan for Saturday’s cri­terium and Sunday’s road race in Utsunomiya.

“I’m deter­mined to do well in the Japan Cup. It’s a big, big goal for me,” Arashiro said.

“I love rac­ing in Europe and like to be aggres­sive but the Japan Cup is my home race and so is special.”

Arashiro will ride the Japanese Cup as part of a spe­cial Japanese national team that will also include Yukihiro Doi, Takashi Miyazawa, Shinichi Fukushima and Hayato Yoshida. Other star rid­ers com­pet­ing in Japan include Ivan Basso, Damiano Cunego, Giovanni Visconti and Roman Kreuziger. Ireland’s Dan Martin won the Japan Cup in 2010, while Arashiro fin­ished ninth.

Arashiro is sat­is­fied with his 2011 sea­son with the Europcar team and was rightly praised by Ernesto Colnago at the start of Lombardia in Milan.

“I won the Asian road race title at the start of the year but unfor­tu­nately I didn’t man­age to win in Europe. It was a pity but it’s never easy to win a race. That’s cycling,” he said philosophically.

Thomas Voeckler was a spe­cial guest at the pre­sen­ta­tion of the 2012 Tour de France route in Paris after his huge suc­cess in this year’s race. After study­ing the huge map, he pre­dicted that the unortho­dox route could pro­duce a very open and aggres­sive race.

The Europcar team cap­tain was invited onto the stage dur­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion with this year’s win­ner Cadel Evans and the world’s num­ber one ranked rider Philippe Gilbert. Voeckler was acclaimed for the way he fought to defend the yel­low jer­sey dur­ing this year’s Tour de France.

The 2012 Tour de France starts in Liege, in Belgium on June 30 and ends in Paris on July 22. The race tack­les the Alps first and then the Pyrenees, with three moun­tain fin­ishes and a total of 96km of time trail­ing. Several other stages are hilly and so per­fectly suit an aggres­sive rider like Voeckler.

“It’s dif­fi­cult to make a judg­ment so imme­di­ate after the pre­sen­ta­tion but the route is really mixed and some stages will spark some big sur­prises,” Voeckler predicted.

“It’s going to cre­ate a very excit­ing race next sum­mer because it suits a lot of rid­ers. I don’t know what I can do but I’ll be there, moti­vated and in the best pos­si­ble form. It’ll be impor­tant to adopt your race tac­tics to suit the route. I like doing that. It’ll be up to the guys who aren’t good in time tri­als to go on the attack and gain time.

Voeckler held the race leader’s yel­low jer­sey for ten days before fin­ish­ing fourth over­all in Paris. He was mod­est about being able to do so well in 2012.

“After hav­ing such a great Tour this year I’ll be more con­fi­dent next year but I think I’d be pre­sump­tu­ous if I said I can fin­ish on the podium but I’ll do the best I can,” he said.

“However I won’t become depressed if I don’t fin­ish in the top ten. I think it’s more impor­tant to ride aggres­sively and be in the thick of the action. That’s my big goal for the 2012 Tour de France.”

Sven Nys is the first leader of the UCI World Cup cyclo-cross after win­ning the open­ing round of the seven-race com­pe­ti­tion in Plzen in the Czech Republic.

Incredibly, it was the Landbouwkrediet rider’s 44th career win in the World Cup and his third win of the new win­ter cyclo-cross season.

This time he beat cur­rent world cham­pion fel­low Belgian Kevin Pauwels and local hero Zdenek Stybar after he jumped across to them mid-race with a huge solo effort. The three then opened a sig­nif­i­cant gap on the rest of the field, know­ing they would fight it out for the places on the podium.

Thanks to his aggres­sion, speed and supe­rior bike han­dling abil­ity, Nys dived past Stybar and took the lead on a later cor­ner. He then used his fin­ish­ing sprint to ensure his Colnago bike was first across the line.

“I had to go hard to catch Stybar and Pauwels and it took me two laps to recover,” Nys admit­ted after his victory.

“On the last lap there was a lot of tac­ti­cal games going on. After the steps Stybar left a small gap and I dived into. I sur­prised him but it worked. I’m glad I can still pull of moves like that.”

As leader of the UCI World Cup series, Nys will wear the leader’s spe­cial white jer­sey in the sec­ond round in Tabor, again in the Czech Republic on Sunday October 23.

Sacha Modolo’s eyes lit up dur­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion of the 2012 Giro d’Italia in Milan, after race organ­is­ers included seven stages for sprint­ers and other stages that seem to per­fectly suited the tal­ented Italian’s style of racing.

The 24 year-old Colnago-CSF Inox rider had a break through sea­son in 2011, win­ning 11 races, includ­ing two stages at the Tour of Denmark, where the 2012 Giro d’Italia will start on May 5. He got his first taste of the inten­sity of the Giro d’Italia at this year’s race, fin­ish­ing in the top ten on two stages before being forced to retire from the race on stage eight.

He will be back in 2012, deter­mined to take on the other sprint­ers, includ­ing Mark Cavendish if the new world cham­pion decides to ride the Giro d’Italia.

“I like the route a lot. There are a lot of stages for sprint­ers and mixed stages too. I’ve got a lot bet­ter on the climbs and so I’ve got a good chance on some of those sprints too,” he said

Modolo has already iden­ti­fied one spe­cial stage: “I espe­cially like stage 18 to Vedelago. That’s just 20km from where and I live and so I’ll be espe­cially moti­vated to try and win that one. There are sev­eral days in the Veneto region and so I’ll hope­fully have a lot of sup­port­ers cheer­ing me on.”

Modolo is part of a gen­er­a­tion on young Italian sprint­ers that are emerg­ing into the sprint­ing spot­light. He fin­ished fourth in the Milan-San Remo one-day clas­sic in his first sea­son as a pro­fes­sional in 2010. His 11 vic­to­ries this year meant he was a key part of the Italian national team for the world cham­pi­onships in Copenhagen this year.

“There are young sprint­ers like Andrea Guardini, my team­mate Manuel Belletti and hope­fully myself, who are get­ting bet­ter and bet­ter every sea­son,” he said.

“I think we’re going to have some great sprint fin­ishes at the 2012 Giro d’Italia and in the years come as we take on the likes of Mark Cavendish. I can’t wait.”

Colnago-CSF Inox rider Domenico Pozzovivo ended his sea­son on a high and proved he can com­pete with the best clas­sics rider in the world by tak­ing sixth at il Lombardia, the final one-day clas­sic on the UCI WorldTour calendar.

The Italian was sec­ond to the top of the final climb that decided the out­come of the race, just fail­ing to get onto the wheel of even­tual race win­ner Oliver Zaugg of Switzerland.

Other rid­ers joined with Pozzovivo on the descent to the spec­tac­u­lar fin­ish in Lecco and the group fin­ished just eight sec­onds down on Zaugg.

Pozzovivo is a pure climber and won a stage at the Brixia Tour in the sum­mer but his sixth place at il Lombardia was arguably his best per­for­mance of the 2011 sea­son. He fin­ished ahead of Italian national cham­pion Giovanni Visconti and WorldTour rank­ing win­ner Philippe Gilbert.

“It was a hard race that suited my climb­ing skills but the descent and flat fin­ish is not really my thing and there wasn’t much I could do in the sprint,” Pozzovivo said at the fin­ish after being con­grat­u­lated by every­one at the Colnago-CSF Inox team.

“Lombardia is impor­tant race and it’s great to be in the thick of the action. When Zaugg attacked I just failed to get on to him but I’m still happy with my performance.”

Team Type 1 - SANOFI rider Laszlo Bodrogi stormed to a fifth place fin­ish at the season-ending Paris-Tours race on Sunday in what was the team’s last race in Europe for the 2011 season.

Team Type 1 - SANOFI gen­eral man­ager Vassili Davidenko said Bodrogi’s fin­ish was a fit­ting cap to a long sea­son of racing.

“Laszlo has been going strong all year, and he has been in his best form of the sea­son in September and October after rid­ing for France at the World Championships in the time trial,” he said. “Today he and Rubens raced their bikes very strongly against a top field of rid­ers. We’re extremely happy and look­ing for­ward to con­tin­ued suc­cess in France and around the world in 2012.”

Team Type 1 - SANOFI founder and CEO Phil Southerland said the team’s final race in Europe is an indi­ca­tor of how the 2012 sea­son will look.

“We’ve worked hard this year to build on our strengths, mov­ing up a divi­sion and expand­ing our ros­ter and sched­ule to include some of the tough­est rac­ing in the world,” Southerland said. “It is our mis­sion to spread a mes­sage of hope for peo­ple affected by dia­betes, and by com­pet­ing at Paris-Tours in France we are effec­tively demon­strat­ing the power of what good dia­betes con­trol can lead to.”

The Colnago-CSF Inox team has won the UniCredit Emilia Romagna com­pe­ti­tion in Italy after con­sis­tent per­for­mances dur­ing the 2011 sea­son in races orga­nized by GS Emilia.

The team scored a total of 20 points in the Giro di Sardegna, the Settimana Internazionale di Coppi e Bartali, the Memorial Marco Pantani, the Giro dell’Emilia and the Gran Premio Bruno Beghelli.

The Androni Giocattoli – Cipi team also scored 20 points but Colnago-CSF Inox were declared the win­ners thanks to bet­ter plac­ings in the final race, the Gran Premio Bruno Beghelli. Manuel Belletti fin­ished sec­ond in the race behind win­ner Filippo Pozzato (Katusha). The Acqua & Sapone team fin­ished third with 19 points.

During the 2011 sea­son, Belletti also won the open­ing stage of the Settimana Internazionale di Coppi e Bartali, to score total of 12 points and fin­ish third over­all in the indi­vid­ual Challenge UniCredit Emilia Romagna.

Directeur sportif Roberto Reverberi col­lected the spe­cial tro­phy on behalf of the Colnago-CSF Inox team.

Enrico Battaglin pow­ered his Colnago frame to vic­tory in Thursday’s Coppa Sabatini in a sprint finish.

The neo-pro fended off some elite com­pany that included vet­er­ans Davide Rebellin and Dani Moreno to claim his first pro­fes­sional win.

“It was a fin­ish that was suited for him. We told him to stay calm until the line and mark Visconti closely,” said sport direc­tor Colnago-CSF Inox Bruno Reverberi. “Winning with a (neo-pro) is a great sat­is­fac­tion. Everyone is sur­prised by Battaglin’s win, but not us, because we knew he was good.”