May 12, 2006 – In her first competition since her fall and consequent shoulder dislocation at the Commonwealth Games in February 2006, Lyne Bessette feels ready to attack at the upcoming Tour de l’Aude, one of the most important stage races on the women’s road calendar.

Injured while training for the Melbourne Commonwealth Games mountain bike competition, the athlete from Knowlton, Quebec says she feels only some slight stiffness in her arm. “As soon as I got back from Melbourne I was on my trainer. As a result, I haven’t missed a lot of training time,” Bessette explained in an interview with Sportcom yesterday. “When Eric (Van den Eynde, her coach) came back from the World Track Championships we began working on a training plan together. Its certain that the other girls have more racing miles in their legs, but I think that my team is ready and waiting to have me come back and race.”

Judith Arndt and Kimberly Bruckner, two teammates on Bessette’s T-Mobile Team, will be riders to watch during the Tour, as each of them finished second and third in the race in 2004. “They have been riding really well lately; we’ll see what we can do; we have some good cards in our hand.” Bessette also noted that Amber Neben and Trixi Worrack are ones to watch in addition to the large contingent of Australian riders.

“As for myself, I will be giving it my all and we shall see. There are a lot of mountains this year,” said Bessett. This year marks her eight time participating at the Tour de l’Aude.

Eleven profession teams and eight national teams will take part in the Tour de l’Aude which includes ten stages from May 12-21 in the Aude region of France.