Cycling is on the menu as the 15th Asian Games kick off Friday in Doha, Qatar.

The games officially begin with opening ceremonies choreographed by David Atkins, artistic director for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. By the time the Asian showcase ends on December 15, the 16-day games in this Arabian Gulf country will have brought together 10,500 athletes.

The 39 sports range from traditional pursuits such as athletics, swimming and baseball to more obscure ones such as the Indian rural pastime of kabaddi and the centuries-old Malay ball game of sepak takraw, which is similar to volleyball but played with the feet.

China led the overall medal race in 2002 with 308, followed by South Korea with 260 and Japan with 190. China, which has brought 647 athletes to Doha, is confident of winning the medal race again.

''Being No. 1 is for certain,'' team spokesman Zhang Haifeng said.

Cycling events include road races for men and women on Sunday and Monday; individual time trials for both men and women on Tuesday; and a men’s team time trial on Wednesday.

The mass-start events will be contested along the palm-lined Corniche waterfront in central Doha. The ancient fishing town of Al-Khor, 57km north of Doha, will host the individual and team time trials.

Track racing will take place December 9-14 on a temporary velodrome built on the indoor soccer pitch at the 73,000-square-meter ASPIRE indoor sports complex.

For more information, see the Asian Games website. —The Associated Press

Teams confirming for '07 Amgen Tour
Three UCI ProTour teams have confirmed plans to send riders to the Amgen Tour of California February 18-25.

Discovery Channel, Team CSC, and Predictor-Lotto are the first of the expected 16 professional teams to sign on for the second edition of the stage race, which was attended by more than 1.3 million spectators earlier this year.

The 650-mile, eight-stage race begins with a time trial in San Francisco and ends a week later in Long Beach.

None of the confirmed teams, however, have indicated which riders will be coming to the California race. Discovery recently signed 2006 Giro d'Italia winner Ivan Basso, and the California race could provide an early opportunity for the Italian to race for the first time since June of this year.

The inaugural edition of the Tour of California marked the start of what should have been a remarkable season for American Floyd Landis. Landis won in California and then went on to win Paris-Nice, the Tour de Georgia and the Tour de France.

"The level of competition returning for the second annual Amgen Tour of California rivals any race in the world and proves that cyclists and fans alike are hungry for this caliber of racing in America," said Shawn Hunter, president of AEG Sports. "We are excited to welcome many of the best teams in cycling back to California to compete on another world-class course."

Discovery director Johan Bruyneel, who said he was "very impressed with the organization and the crowds" in the tour’s first year, added that he and the team "are excited to come back again in 2007."

Bjarne Riis, director of Team CSC, also is looking forward to returning to Calfornia.

"The Amgen Tour of California is an event that complements our style of racing – we like to ride aggressively and the course allows for that," he said. "Last year we proved our strength in this race as the first-place team overall, and we are looking forward to another challenging race in 2007."

Predictor-Lotto, formerly Davitamon-Lotto, finished third overall in the 2006 Amgen tour, bolstered by Cadel Evans's seventh place overall. "We are excited to be returning to the Amgen Tour of California in 2007," said Marc Sergeant, team manager of Predictor-Lotto. "We look forward to another exhilarating week of cycling in California in February."

For more information about the race, see www.amgentourofcalifornia.com.

Ullrich unlikely for Tinkoff
Jan Ullrich is not likely to join the Tinkoff cycling team, the team's manager said Thursday.

"Our main sponsor Oleg Tinkoff is a huge fan of Jan and that is why he wants to sign him, but I don't think he (Ullrich) is interested," manager Omar Piscina said. "It has been more than a month since we spoke."

The new Italian-Russian team, bankrolled by Russian millionaire Tinkov, had expressed interest in signing the 1997 Tour de France winner earlier this month, reportedly offered Ullrich an annual salary of 3.8 million euros to ride for them next season.

Ullrich said Monday on his Web site that he was "in discussion with certain teams and certain sponsors," but Piscina dismissed suggestions that these included Tinkoff.

"Ullrich's comments must be referring to other teams. He can't be talking about us given the length of time that has passed since our discussions," he said. "We've signed (Tyler) Hamilton and that'll probably be it."

The 33-year-old Ullrich was barred from this year's Tour and fired by T-Mobile after being linked to a Spanish doping investigation. The German is also under investigation in Switzerland and Germany but denies any wrongdoing.

Tinkoff signed Hamilton, who recently completed a two-year doping ban, to a one-year contract last week. The American has also been linked to the probe in Spain but denies involvement.

"It's 99 percent sure that we won't be adding to our roster of 17 riders," Tinkoff spokesman Danilo Vigano said. —AP with Agence France Presse