Cycling: Hoy and Queally Back Bid to Bring Back the Kilo

Almost 11,000 cyclists and cycling fans worldwide have signed a petition asking for the International Cycling Union to reconsider its decision to drop the one-kilometre time trial from the 2008 Olympics.

The petition will be handed to the ICU's headquarters in Switzerland today by the journalist Carlton Reid, whose website www.bikebiz.co.uk was behind the idea.

The signatures include the last two Olympic champions, the Scot Chris Hoy and his predecessor from Sydney, the Lancastrian Jason Queally.The quadruple Olympic medallist Bradley Wiggins has also signed, as have Nigel Griffiths MP, the deputy leader of the House of Commons and Peter Keen MBE, the founder of Britain's lottery-funded track cycling programme.

The decision "could severely damage the sport of track cycling, will curtail the careers of many dedicated track cyclists and could impact on public funding for track cycling in the form of either direct state funding or indirect state funding via sports governing bodies or Olympic programmes," read the petition.

Hoy yesterday echoed these sentiments on the British Cycling website. "I don't want to be remembered as the last ever Olympic kilo champion. I feel like they've cut my career in half. All the heritage and history in the event will be lost forever."

Jan Ullrich will be backed by his strongest ever team as he attempts to prevent Lance Armstrong from winning a seventh successive Tour de France. "I am at between 90-95% of my best form and improving every day," he said yesterday.

The T-Mobile squad, which was announced yesterday, includes last year's third-placed rider Andreas Kloden, and the Kazakh, Alexandr Vinokourov, who placed third in 2003. There is no place for the six-time Tour points winner Erik Zabel as the team will put its entire strength behind Ullrich, a four-time runner-up to Armstrong.

Armstrong will attempt to win his seventh Tour de France without Viatcheslav Ekimov, who is injured.

Six of the eight men who will help Armstrong along the final leg of his career were with the 33-year-old during the recent Dauphine Libere.

As a mark of the strength in depth available to Armstrong, Paolo Salvodelli, winner of this year's Giro d'Italia, has also been confirmed as a participant. He joins George Hincapie, Jose Luis Rubiera, Manuel Beltran, Benjamin Noval, Pavel Padrnos, Jose Azevedo and Yaroslav Popovych.