The final preparations for the Giro d'Italia have swung into gear for the Linda McCartney Pro Cycling Team. They are in Switzerland for a week's hard racing against some of the sport's biggest names.

Sunday's Grand Prix of Gippengen was raced off over a hard circuit that fully tested the big international field, but Sean Yates was delighted with the team's performance.

"Everybody pulled together, and that was one of our best rides at a one-day race this season," reported the happy team manager.

Matt Stephens showed that his great early season form is returning at the perfect time, as his aggression took him into the lead for the day's best climber prize. Only when the consistently excellent Stefan Wesemann of Telekom took off with Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, Stefano Garzelli and Laurent Dufaux to dispute the finish did Matt get muscled out of the money. Ben Brooks also showed that he is coming good at the right time, as he stayed at Max Sciandri's side as a faithful domestique from first to last.

Wesemann won the sprint with Garzelli, Dufaux and Armstrong close behind. All the McCartney hitters were in the rapidly closing main field.

The team had Monday off, and are now facing up to one of their biggest races of the year, the Tour of Romandie, starting on the Italian border in Locarno on Tuesday. It's a race that Linda McCartney's Olympic Champion Pascal Richard has won before, back in 1994. He is fired-up to do well in front of his devoted home following. The team will be Pascal Richard, Max Sciandri, Matt Stephens, Ben Brooks, David McKenzie, Tayeb Braikia, Bjornar Vestol and Maurizio De Pasquale. Results...

Matt De Canio impressed greatly in the two French Cup races he contested last week, and will rejoin the team after the Giro. He has returned to the USA for the National Collegiate Championships and to build up some more endurance training. Ciaran Power has been awarded a well-earned rest to hone his form for the big start in Rome on May 13th, and he has taken the opportunity to go for a mid-Spring training camp in the nearby Pyrenees. He is being expertly looked after by the well-known English cycling hoteliers, Nick and Jan Flanagan at their Pyrenean Pursuits base near Massat. Ciaran reports: "I've been doing six-hour rides, with some big cols, but I need to if I'm not going to put on weight with all the fantastic veggie stuff they've been filling me up with!"

Back in Britain, the Linda McCartney-WCU development squad went head-to-head with the GB Performance Plan set-up at the Twickenham CC's under-23 road race. James Griffiths and Tom Barras were the best performers, Tom instigating the day's main break and James chasing hard at the end to get up to 7th place.