Paolo Bettini: Difference between revisions

Bartoli fell heavily on a knee in 1999 and Bettini was freed to race for himself.<ref name="Vélo, France, December 2006">''[[Le Vélo|Vélo]]'', France, December 2006</ref> He won [[Liège–Bastogne–Liège]] in 2000 – treating himself to a €100,000 [[Porsche]]<ref name="Cycling Weekly, UK, May 2002" /> – and a flat stage of that year's Tour de France, from [[Agen]] to [[Dax, Landes|Dax]]. He won the 2001 [[Züri-Metzgete]] after a few months without wins, beating [[Jan Ullrich]] in the sprint to the finish. His success led to a feud with Bartoli. It culminated in the 2001 world championship in [[Lisbon]], [[Portugal]], where Bartoli refused to lead Bettini to a flying start in the sprint finish and the Spaniard, [[Óscar Freire]], won instead.