Another (not Lance, not Levi) American cyclist wins

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Garmin-Slipstream’s Christian Vande Velde won the fourth stage of the well-stocked Paris-Nice stage race Wednesday. Vande Velde, who is from Lemont, Ill., and who finished fourth at last year’s Tour de France, had taken a hard fall in the race’s opening prologue, a fall that knocked Vande Velde out of overall leader’s competition almost immediately. But he attacked Wednesday’s mountainous course almost from the start.

Meanwhile, Astana’s Alberto Contador, who won the opening prologue, remains poised to pounce in the remaining stages of a race that often mimics the Alps stages of the Tour de France.

Contador’s American teammate, Levi Leipheimer, who won last month’s Amgen Tour of California, had to miss this race to heal a broken bone he suffered during that win, and Astana’s third key rider, Lance Armstrong, is training in southern France in preparation for his next race, March 21 in the Milan-San Remo classic. Armstrong used Twitter today to talk about being called on for his 23rd doping control test of the year.

-- Diane Pucin