THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING
Stage 7: Sprinters have their day as Leipheimer cruises to Tour of California title
Shoreline Drive in Long Beach may not be the Champs-Élysées, but just as the Tour de France traditionally ends with a sprinters’ showdown, so the 2007 Amgen Tour of California climaxed Sunday afternoon with a spectacular mass charge to the line. And just as a surprising winner often takes the Tour’s final stage, so Cuban Ivan Dominguez shocked the heavy hitters of the UCI ProTour and give the stage 7 victory to his domestic American team, Toyota-United.
There was no doubt about his beating Rabobank’s stage 1 winner Graeme Brown, with T-Mobile’s Gerald Ciolek in third, followed in order by Liquigas’s Luca Paolini, Gerolsteiner’s Robert Förster, Crédit Agricole’s Thor Hushovd and Predictor-Lotto’s Fred Rodriguez — a line-up worthy of a Tour de France sprint finish.
While Dominguez was the surprise package of a cool, overcast day in this sprawling oceanside city, there was never a doubt that Discovery Channel’s Levi Leipheimer would keep the Amgen yellow jersey.
"This was one of the most satisfying wins of my career because CSC and all the other teams put a lot of pressure on us. I don’t know if any other team could have done it besides Discovery Channel," said the 33-year-old California resident.
That was the good news for Discovery. The bad news was that after surgery Sunday morning on the broken radius bone of his left forearm, it was announced that George Hincapie would be out of racing for six to eight weeks — effectively making him a non-starter for the spring classics, including Paris-Roubaix.
Hincapie, however, played a major role in Leipheimer’s California victory. When Leipheimer fell on the stage 1 finishing circuit in his hometown of Santa Rosa, Hincapie showed his commitment by stopping and helping him chase the group of only 40 riders that avoided the mass pileup. Because more than two-thirds of the field was held up, the chief commissaire decided that neither Leipheimer nor 80 others affected would lose the minute or so they conceded to the leaders.
Also to benefit from that controversial decision was Discovery’s Jason McCartney, who finally placed an excellent third overall. All four CSC riders who finished in the top six on GC — runner-up Jens Voigt, Bobby Julich, Stuart O’Grady and Christian Vande Velde — were in front of the crash in Santa Rosa.
Given a "second chance." Leipheimer raced brilliantly to the final win, which included taking the week’s two time trials and being the catalyst of the winning breakaway over Sierra Road into San José on stage 3. Discovery was severely tested that day as well as on stage 6 on Saturday, where Hincapie had his crash.
"Levi led from start to finish," McCartney commented, "but there was a lot of sweat left on the road, and a little bit of blood."
Sprint finale
"I was just following wheels," said Dominguez shortly after winning the final stage. "I was following Brown’s wheel the last three laps, and he took me all the way to the finish. I was feeling good all day. I was having bad legs all week, so today I feel much better."
The pace was not particularly high on such a wide, straight circuit of 7.75 miles covered 10 times. A seven-man break that formed at the end of the first lap never had more than a three-minute lead, despite the efforts in particular of Slipstream-Chipotle’s Danny Pate, who was voted the week’s mist aggressive rider, and the Australians Adam Hansen (T-Mobile), Karl Menzies (Health Net-Maxxis) and Sean Sullivan (Toyota United). Also in the move were Health Net’s Tim Johnson, Slipstream’s Steven Cozza and Priority Health’s Ben Jacques-Mayne.
The seven leaders were absorbed one by one on the head-wind section on the back side of the circuit, with Menzies the last to be caught, two miles from the line. Then it was the turn of the sprinters. CSC (for overall points champion J.J. Haedo), Rabobank (for Brown), T-Mobile (for Ciolek) and Predictor-Lotto (for Fred Rodriguez) did most of the leading out back with the wind from the far turn.
Rodriguez was hoping it would be his day after a near-crash stopped him from challenging Haedo in the dying meters of Saturday’s stage.
"I had amazing legs," he said. "But I needed today to be a fast stage, and it turned out to be really slow, which doesn’t suit my kind of sprint. The finish was the kind of conditions I like but there were just too many fresh guys. It was basically a lottery at the end.
"I was on Haedo’s wheel behind [Paolo] Bettini with 300 meters to go and the lead-out just died and everyone came from behind. So we got swarmed. We tried to come out to the right but it was too late."
Asked how he compared the Long Beach finale with the Tour finish on the Champs-Élysées, Rodriguez said, "It was wide [like Paris] but the problem is the riders were so fresh. It was a fun circuit. Probably needed to add two hours to it to make it more of a race for me."
This year the Amgen Tour of California was a race for Levi Leipheimer. Maybe he’ll be able to repeat this kind of form in France in five months time, just like the winner of the inaugural Tour of California did last year.
VeloNews senior writer Neal Rogers contributed to this report.
Click here to bring up our live update window. Mobile users can click here to follow the action using their mobile-device browsers.
Results
Top 10
1. Ivan Dominguez (Cub), Toyota United, 147.7km in 2:39:28
2. Graeme Brown (Aus), Rabobank, s.t.
3. Gerald Ciolek (G), T-Mobile, s.t.
4. Luca Paolini (I), Liquigas-Bianchi, s.t.
5. Robert Förster (G), Gerolsteiner, s.t.
6. Thor Hushovd (Nor), Crédit Agricole, s.t.
7. Fred Rodriguez (USA), Predictor-Lotto, s.t.
8. Henk Vogels (Aus), Toyota United, s.t.
9. Brice Jones (USA), Jelly Belly, s.t.
10. Juan José Haedo(Arg), CSC, s.t.
Final overall
1. Levi Leipheimer (USA), Discovery Channel, 24:57:24
2. Jens Voigt (G), CSC, at 0:21
3. Jason McCartney (USA), Discovery Channel, at0:54
4. Bobby Julich (USA), CSC, at 1:06
5. Stuart O'Grady (Aus), at CSC, 1:16
6. Christian Vande Velde (USA), at CSC, 1:24
7. Michael Rogers (Aus), T-Mobile, at 1:32
8. Ben Day (Aus), Navigators Insurance, at 1:38
9. Franco Pellizotti (I), Liquigas-Bianchi, at 1:41
10. Ryder Hesjedal (Can), Health Net-Maxxis, at 1:57
Jerseys
Mountains: Christophe Laurent (F), Crédit Agricole
Points: Juan José Haedo (Arg), Team CSC
Young rider: Robert Gesink (Ned) Rabobank
Team: CSC
Photo Gallery
