Well the Etoile de Bességes wasn't any fantastic race for us. We'd hoped that Cancellara could have done something on a few stages, but he's preparing for the Flander's Classics, so his form is far from the top right now. As I didn't participate in the race I don't have that much knowledge about, so I'm just gonna throw out the GC here, for you to study. Kroon managed a decent 6th place, but we were never really close at getting any stage victories.
GC:
1 Cyril Dessel AG2R PREVOYANCE 13h23'33
2 Kim Kirchen T-MOBILE TEAM + 8
3 Thomas Voeckler BOUYGUES TELECOM + 25
4 Marco Marcato TEAM LPR + 41
5 José E. Gut. Cataluña TEAM LPR s.t.
6 Karsten Kroon TEAM CSC s.t.
7 Amael Moinard COFIDIS + 1'02
8 José Luis Arrieta AG2R PREVOYANCE s.t.
9 Rik Verbrugghe COFIDIS s.t.
10 Nicolas Vogondy AGRITUBEL s.t.
11 Bert De Waele LANDBOUWKREDIET - TONISSTEINER s.t.
12 Laurent Brochard BOUYGUES TELECOM + 1'11
13 Stephane Augé COFIDIS + 1'17
14 Massimo Giunti MICHE + 1'21
15 Pierrick Fédrigo BOUYGUES TELECOM + 1'23
16 Alexandre Pichot BOUYGUES TELECOM s.t.
17 Anthony Geslin BOUYGUES TELECOM s.t.
18 Erwin Thijs UNIBET.COM s.t.
19 Geert Steurs PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
20 Bert Grabsch T-MOBILE TEAM s.t.
After almost one month’s preparation we arrived in California. As explained earlier, we’re here with a very strong team and our goal is to get one man on the podium and get one or more stages victories.
The Route of this year’s Tour of California
The Team: Jens Voigt, Bobby Julich, David Zabriskie, Christian Vandevelde, Juan José Haedo, Kasper Klostergaard, Nicki Sørensen and Inigo Cuesta.
Today’s prologue was a very short 5 km route through the streets of San Fransisco. As Voigt was already in a pretty decent condition, we counted on him to bring home a good result and maybe even a leader’s jersey.
The first real contender on route was Discovery’s Vladimir Gusev who clocked a provisional best time on 5’46”. But it was barely edged out short thereafter by T-Mobile’s Bert Grabsch who was just a fraction of a second faster than the young russian. Grabsch’s time stood unbeaten for a long time before german sensation Stefan Schumacher demolished his time by clocking a time that was 4 seconds faster. My guys didn’t do very well at first. I was especially dissapointed in Zabriskie as he only managed 32nd fastest time on the day. Also Bobby Julich was quite dissapointing finishing 25th at the end of the day. Voigt did better however as he rode a very fast prologue to clock 3rd best time behind his two fellow germans, just a fraction of a second slower than Grabsch.
A few of the interesting riders participating in this edition of Tour of California
Schumacher ended up winning the prologue, to wear the leader’s jersey on tomorrow’s first stage from Sausalito to Santa Rosa. I’m also looking a bit forward to the mass sprints of this race, not only because we’ve brought Haedo here, but also because of Team Adria Mobil’s young super talent Marko Kump, who we will be looking to sign in July.
Prologue:
1 Stefan Schumacher GEROLSTEINER 5'42
2 Bert Grabsch T-MOBILE TEAM + 4
3 Jens Voigt TEAM CSC s.t.
4 Vladimir Gusev DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t.
5 Sebastien Rosseler QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC + 5
6 Jason McCartney DISCOVERY CHANNEL + 6
7 Chad Hartley BMC Racing Team s.t.
8 Brian Vandborg DISCOVERY CHANNEL + 7
9 Tom Danielson DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t.
10 Jimmy Engoulvent CREDIT AGRICOLE s.t.
11 Rick Flens RABOBANK s.t.
12 Vincenzo Nibali LIQUIGAS s.t.
13 Jurgen Van den Broeck PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
14 Manuel Quinziato LIQUIGAS s.t.
15 Gregory Henderson T-MOBILE TEAM + 8
16 Christophe Kern CREDIT AGRICOLE s.t.
17 Marc De Maar RABOBANK s.t.
18 Leif Hoste PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
19 Magnus Backstedt LIQUIGAS s.t.
20 Christian Vandevelde TEAM CSC + 9
Edited by niconico on 10-07-2007 20:37
Stage 1 of the Tour of California was a quite hilly stage. The riders took off from Sausalito on the 161 km long route to Santa Rosa. The attack of the day contained som quite interesting riders. Six riders attacked, and these riders were, Bettini (QST), Olsen (TMO), Day (NIC), Van Hecke (PRL), Hauser (ERG) and Munro (DRP). Munro and Hause dropped off immediately, but did manage rejoin the group after an intense fight on the descents and the flat.
The four-man front group with World Champion Paolo Bettini & the persuders
After 60 km, with just over 100 to go, the breakaway had built up a lead of 7’00”. But from this point the peloton upped the pace to gain some time before the last climb, which is situated some 40 km from the finish. Gerolsteiner controlled the pack on the flat leading up to the climb, to defend Schumacher’s lead. As the peloton hit the climb, the breakaway had a lead of only 1’30” over the pack, and from this point we and Liguigas took over to set a hard pace on the climb, in the hope of dropping some GC contenders.
Gerolsteiner on the flat, Liquigas and CSC on the climb. Nibali set a high pace
With 3 km to the top the group containing Bettini was reeled in and with about one km to the Nicki Sørensen (CSC) and Boogerd (RAB) attacked to try and get the King of the Mountain’s jersey. Boogerd won the sprint, with Nicki climbing the top just ahead of former Fleche Wallone-winner Mario Aerts (PRL).
Boogerd edging out Nicki and Aerts to claim the King of the Mountain’s jersey
The pace that we and Liquigas set on the climb resulted in a 24-man group breaking of the pack, containing all of the GC favourites. Unfortuneately we only had 2 men in the group: Voigt and Nicki. Also Stefan Schumacher, Michael Rasmussen, Tom Danielson and Linus Gerdemann was there.
Eventough the pack caught up with the 24 riders ahead, there never any doubt that the stage victory would go to one the guys in the 24-man group. Voigt and Nicki got themselves in a good position, but unfortuneately, the group also counted Luca Paolini, who only had a little problem in edging out Vladimir Gusev who finished second ahead of Voigt, to win the leader’s jersey, With Voigt moving to second in the GC.
Paolini claims victory on stage 1 ahead of Gusev, who wins the yellow jersey from Schumacher
Stage Result:
1 Luca Paolini LIQUIGAS 3h52'50
2 Vladimir Gusev DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t. 3 Jens Voigt TEAM CSC s.t.
4 Rémi Pauriol CREDIT AGRICOLE s.t.
5 Enrico Gasparotto LIQUIGAS s.t. 6 Nicki Sørensen TEAM CSC s.t.
7 Thorwald Veneberg RABOBANK s.t.
8 Stefan Schumacher GEROLSTEINER s.t.
9 Filippo Pozzato LIQUIGAS s.t.
10 Alexandre Moos BMC Racing Team s.t. 47 Juan José Haedo TEAM CSC s.t.
66 Iñigo Cuesta TEAM CSC s.t.
74 David Zabriskie TEAM CSC s.t.
83 Bobby Julich TEAM CSC s.t.
85 Christian Vandevelde TEAM CSC s.t.
123 Kasper Klostergaard TEAM CSC 3’30“
GC:
1 Vladimir Gusev DISCOVERY CHANNEL 3h58'24 2 Jens Voigt TEAM CSC + 4
3 Stefan Schumacher GEROLSTEINER + 8
4 Luca Paolini LIQUIGAS + 11
5 Paolo Bettini QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
6 Bert Grabsch T-MOBILE TEAM + 12
7 Sébastien Rosseler QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC + 13
8 Chad Hartley BMC Racing Team + 14
9 Jason McCartney DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t.
10 Tom Danielson DISCOVERY CHANNEL + 15 22 Christian Vandevelde TEAM CSC + 17
25 Bobby Julich TEAM CSC +18
38 David Zabriskie TEAM CSC +20
94 Iñigo Cuesta TEAM CSC + 33
99 Nicki Sørensen TEAM CSC + 35
100 Juan José Haedo TEAM CSC + 37
108 Kasper Klostergaard TEAM CSC + 3'55"
So at bit lumpy stage at the beginning, but then it will be more or less completely flat the last part, so no doubt we will have a mass sprint finish, if the pack can control any opportunists that might try their luck troughout the day. The plan today was to keep Voigt out of problems and then try and get JJ Haedo up front to participate in the mass sprint.
Right after the start in Santa Rosa, Dave tried to follow the first breakaway of the day. But some of the riders in the breakaway, perhaps Dave himself, was considered to dangerous to let go, so the pack reeled the breakaway riders back in after a short chase.
Ingels (PRL) however did manage to stay ahead when the others were reeled in and he hit today’s first climb with a gap of 1’30” to the pack. Nicki, who is 2nd in the KOM classement attacked on the climb to win the jersey from Boogerd and very shortly after Nicki joined up with Ingels and the two of them rode together to the top, with Nicki taking all 15 points, to take the KOM jersey from Michael Boogerd. Right after the top, Nicki dropped back to the pack to do his job protecting Voigt.
Nicki together with Ingels on the 2nd catogory climb. Nicki wins the KOM jersey from Boogerd
On the climb, there was a group containing, Flens (RAB), McLachlan (DRP), Milne (Hearth) and Creed (SLP), who got away from the pack and after passing Nicki on the way down, they joined up with Ingels, to form the breakaway of the day. There gap to the pack topped at 7 minutes. At this point there were still 110 unraced km to cover for the breakaway riders. Discovery began setting the pace in the pack to reel the five guys in to defend Vladimir Gusev’s leader jersey.
The breakaway were held in a short leash by Team Discovery Channel
With 80 km to go the breakaway just over 4 minutes to the pack, but 10 km later Flens tried to make it to Sacramento by himself by riding away from his breakaway companions. Right after there was also an attack from the peloton. It was T-Mobile’s Marcus Burghardt who got away from the peloton to chase down the group chasing Flens. After 10 km on his own, Burghardt joined up with the four other guys, just to see Milne and Creed getting dropped after a few minutes. At this point the Burghardt group had a 45 seconds gap to the pack.
Burghardt and Flens riding solo in hope of doing something big
With 55 to go Burghardt almost singlehandedly reeled in Flens, to drop McLachland from the group making it a trio. But with a gap of only 40” to the pack, Burghardt tries to go at it alone one more time, and he also gets rid off Ingels and Flens, who are then reeled in by the pack only a few minutes later.
Burghardt however didn’t give up and the german fought well building his gap to 1’05” with 30 km to the finishing line in the the capital of California. But from this point he really hit the wall and just 10 km after he was reeled in and dropped by the pack shortly after, to finish the day 4’00” behind the winner.
Now the race for the stage begun and eventhough JJ didn’t have the best of days, he still tried to catch a wheel to set himself up with a chance of winning. And he really positioned himself well, finding the wheel of Gerolsteiner’s Heinrich Haussler. But it exhausted him a lot holding on to the german’s wheel, so he didn’t really had what it took, to outsprint Haussler, who claimed victory today, beating Bettini and Pozzato. Bettini took over as GC leader, by taking the 12 bonus seconds on the line. JJ finished 4th on the and Voigt fell to 3rd in the GC as a result of Bettini’s result.
JJ positioned himself well, but didn’t have the legs to finish the job
A pretty good day for us, winning the KOM jersey with Nicki and getting Voigt through safely.
Stage Result:
1 Heinrich Haussler GEROLSTEINER 4h41'30
2 Paolo Bettini QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
3 Filippo Pozzato LIQUIGAS s.t. 4 Juan José Haedo TEAM CSC s.t.
5 Kyle Gritters HEALTH NET - MAXXIS s.t.
6 Kirk O'Bee HEALTH NET - MAXXIS s.t.
7 Gregory Henderson T-MOBILE TEAM s.t.
8 Fabian Wegmann GEROLSTEINER s.t.
9 Chad Hartley BMC Racing Team s.t.
10 Luca Paolini LIQUIGAS s.t. 54 Nicki Sørensen TEAM CSC s.t.
55 Christian Vandevelde TEAM CSC s.t.
56 Kasper Klostergaard TEAM CSC s.t.
57 Bobby Julich TEAM CSC s.t.
58 Iñigo Cuesta TEAM CSC s.t.
59 David Zabriskie TEAM CSC s.t.
60 Jens Voigt TEAM CSC s.t.
GC:
1 Paolo Bettini QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC 8h39'53
2 Vladimir Gusev DISCOVERY CHANNEL + 1 3 Jens Voigt TEAM CSC + 5
4 Heinrich Haussler GEROLSTEINER + 7
5 Stefan Schumacher GEROLSTEINER + 9
6 Filippo Pozzato LIQUIGAS + 12
7 Luca Paolini LIQUIGAS s.t.
8 Bert Grabsch T-MOBILE TEAM + 13
9 Sébastien Rosseler QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC + 14
10 Chad Hartley BMC Racing Team + 15 23 Christian Vandevelde TEAM CSC +18
24 Bobby Julich TEAM CSC + 19
38 David Zabriskie TEAM CSC +21
88 Iñigo Cuesta TEAM CSC +34
91 Nicki Sørensen TEAM CSC + 36
92 Juan José Haedo TEAM CSC + 38
97 Kasper Klostergaard TEAM CSC + 3'56
A quite mountainess terrain today and the organisers has even made the last climb, which tops with about 25 km to the finishing line in San José, a 1st category climb, eventhough it’s only 10 km long a not very steep, about 5% in average slope.
But what a stage this turned out to be. All of the favourites for the GC lost any chance of recovery, as a big group of 13 riders, including our own KOM jersey wearer Nicki Sørensen, who has done really well in California, the last three days. There was a lot of attacking from the start, but Nicki didn’t go until 30 km of the stage was raced, as we actually didn’t intend to participate in any breakaways. But as a lot of teams, we felt that we had to go join the party too, to not be left as the big losers of today.
The strong 13-man break, left all the work to be done by Quickstep to defend Bettini’s overall lead
The 13-man breakaway contained besides Nicki: Proni (QSI), Garcia (BMC), Rolland (C.A), Hoste (PRL), Zerzan (ERG), Power (NIC), Ordowski (GST), Bileka (DSC), Howes (SLP), Veneberg (RAB) and Munro (DRP). Proni didn’t work however, as he Bettini was the overall leader. All of the strongest were in the breakaway, and therefor Quickstep had to work all day to reel the breakaway in, but the just couldn’t do it alone, and as noone helped them, it was bound to go wrong for the peloton and the favourites.
As the 13-man group hit the final 1st category climb, they had a lead of more than 10 minutes to the pack, and from this point there were just 10 km to the top and 35 km to go. The breakaway was gonna make it, and the winner of this entire race was to be settled – not today – but between the now 12 riders, as Hoste wos dropped earlier on the day. Nicki was looking really strong and he was no doubt the best climber in the group, but Bileka and Proni were not to be underestimated. Anyway we told Nicki to attack with 3 km to the top, as he was now our only chance for taking the GC, so he did and he immediately built up a good lead to the three guys following him. These guys were, Proni, Bileka and Veneberg. As Nicki reached the top he had just over a minuted to the guys chasing and with 25 km to go he was in with a shot of making this.
Nicki going for it all as he is heading towards San José, COME ON NICKI!!
It was fantastic to be in the car with Bjarne and Dan, following Nicki on the descent. We were literally screaming in his radio. “Efter motorcyklen!” (After the motorbike!), we were screaming in danish, as Nicki is from Denmark. He were held in a tight leash, but I knew the whole time he was gonna make it. When they reached the flat leading to the finishing line, Proni got away from the others to chase down Nicki, but Nicki was fighting, and he was really going strong out there. With 10 km to go he had 45” to Proni. But the gap came down and came down, kilometre by kilometre. But Nicki was resilient and no one was gonna catch him today, so on the last 3 km he really turned up the power and gave it his last effort, to just hold Proni behind him. Nicki won the stage and leader’s jersey, but he only has a 2 seconds lead over Allesandro Proni. What a performance. We were screaming at Nicki on the radio in the car as he crossed the line. We had been up there with the best on all of the stages, and today we finally won.
Nicki using his danish fighting genes to take the win by just holding off Allesandro Proni.
Voigt attacked with some of the other favourites on the last climb, but still finished more than 10 minutes after Nicki. He lost some time to Boogerd and van den Broeck however. Team plans are totally changed now. Now it’s all about protecting Nicki, who has a hard day ahead of him tomorrow, with the kind of performance he has done today. We had some champagne to celebrate at dinner, but those skinny riders can’t take too much alcohol, so we only allowed them a half glass each, and then it was off to bed.
Stage Result: 1 Nicki Sørensen TEAM CSC 3h42'03
2 Alessandro Proni QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
3 Mateusz Mroz CCC POLSAT POLKOWICE + 2'08
4 Ciaran Power NAVIGATORS INSURANCE s.t.
5 Volodimyr Bileka DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t.
6 Casey Munro DRAPAC PORSCHE s.t.
7 Thorwald Veneberg RABOBANK s.t.
8 Jonathan Garcia BMC Racing Team s.t.
9 Alex Howes TEAM SLIPSTREAM s.t.
10 Pierre Rolland CREDIT AGRICOLE s.t.
11 Pavel Zerzan ERGOMO s.t.
12 Volker Ordowski GEROLSTEINER + 3'20
13 Leif Hoste PREDICTOR - LOTTO + 7'58
14 Michael Boogerd RABOBANK + 8'50
15 Alexandre Moos BMC Racing Team + 9'34
16 Jurgen Van den Broeck PREDICTOR - LOTTO + 10'05 17 Jens Voigt TEAM CSC + 10'28
18 Paolo Bettini QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
19 Stefan Schumacher GEROLSTEINER s.t.
20 Manuel Beltran LIQUIGAS s.t. 41 David Zabriskie TEAM CSC + 12'04
42 Christian Vandevelde TEAM CSC s.t.
44 Bobby Julich TEAM CSC + 13'11
46 Juan José Haedo TEAM CSC + 14'20
55 Iñigo Cuesta TEAM CSC s.t.
78 Kasper Klostergaard TEAM CSC s.t.
GC: 1 Nicki Sørensen TEAM CSC 12h22'12
2 Alessandro Proni QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC + 2
3 Volodimyr Bileka DISCOVERY CHANNEL + 2'11
4 Mateusz Mroz CCC POLSAT POLKOWICE + 2'13
5 Ciaran Power NAVIGATORS INSURANCE + 2'14
6 Jonathan Garcia BMC Racing Team s.t.
7 Thorwald Veneberg RABOBANK + 2'24
8 Pierre Rolland CREDIT AGRICOLE + 2'26
9 Alex Howes TEAM SLIPSTREAM + 5'47
10 Volker Ordowski GEROLSTEINER + 7'03
11 Leif Hoste PREDICTOR - LOTTO + 7'53
12 Michael Boogerd RABOBANK + 9'01
13 Alexandre Moos BMC Racing Team + 9'43
14 Jurgen Van den Broeck PREDICTOR - LOTTO + 10'05
15 Paolo Bettini QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC + 10'12 16 Jens Voigt TEAM CSC + 10'17
17 Stefan Schumacher GEROLSTEINER + 10'21
18 Filippo Pozzato LIQUIGAS + 10'24
19 Vincenzo Nibali LIQUIGAS + 10'28
20 Tom Danielson DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t. 38 Christian Vandevelde TEAM CSC + 12'06
40 David Zabriskie TEAM CSC + 12'09
42 Bobby Julich TEAM CSC + 13'14
92 Iñigo Cuesta TEAM CSC + 14'38
94 Juan José Haedo TEAM CSC + 14'42
101 Kasper Klostergaard TEAM CSC + 18'00
A very hilly stage over 200 km from Seaside to San Luis Obispo. The plan is simple, protect Nicki and defend the leader’s jersey, besides that we don’t have any ambitions for today, and if a breakaway should ride away with non-dangerous riders for the GC, we won’t hesitate to let them fight it out for the stage victory.
And this was exactly what happened. Three riders got away, Burghardt (TMO), Moninger (BMC) and Kozontchouk (RAB). Moninger was best in the GC of these riders, 14’29” off Nicki Sørensen. So all we had to do was to hold the front in the pack and not let them win by more than 15 minutes. But that wasn’t going to happen anyway.
CSC having an easy day while the opportunists had a go at it
Kozonthchouk never caught up with Burghardt and Moninger, but Burghardt was also dropped pretty quickly by Moninger who tried to go the last 95 km alone. At this point his gap was 11’30” to the pack.
The we decided to increase the pace a bit not to risk Voigt’s chances of still making the top 10 in the final GC. We didn’t ride too hard however and with 60 km to go Moninger had 8’ to the pack. With 50 km to go Kozontchouk was reeled in by the pack and from here the pack had 5’18” to Burghardt and Moninger to 6’30”. But it wasn’t fast enough for Team Discovery Channel, Rabobank and Quickstep, who then took over the chase take away any hope for Moninger.
Moninger riding solo ahead of Burghardt, who couldn’t stay with him in the lumpy terrain in the 4th stage
With 25 km to go it was all over for Moninger and the pack was back on level terms with all of the breakaway riders. As the finish was a quite steep but short climb, Jens and Nicki had some ambitions about making a good result, so they rode to the front of the pack, with Christian Vandevelde leading them to the front.
And Jens was really strong and he attacked immediately after the road started to rise and he never looked back. He bursted off rapidly, to be the only rider who finished ahead of the peloton to claim victory on the day. Another great result for us, as we managed to defende the leader’s jersey ahead of tomorrow’s all-deciding TT, where Nicki will fight it out with Proni for the overall win.
Voigt gets something out of his good form to win the 4th stage after a fantastic attack
Stage Result: 1 Jens Voigt TEAM CSC 5h16'46
2 Leif Hoste PREDICTOR - LOTTO + 27
3 Heinrich Haussler GEROLSTEINER s.t.
4 Filippo Pozzato LIQUIGAS s.t.
5 Thorwald Veneberg RABOBANK s.t.
6 Paolo Bettini QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
7 Ciaran Power NAVIGATORS INSURANCE s.t.
8 Matteo Tosatto QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t. 9 Nicki Sørensen TEAM CSC s.t.
10 Luca Paolini LIQUIGAS s.t. 50 Christian Vandevelde TEAM CSC s.t.
51 David Zabriskie TEAM CSC s.t.
55 Iñigo Cuesta TEAM CSC s.t.
61 Bobby Julich TEAM CSC s.t.
80 Juan José Haedo TEAM CSC s.t.
130 Kasper Klostergaard TEAM CSC + 9'27
GC: 1 Nicki Sørensen TEAM CSC 17h39'25
2 Alessandro Proni QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC + 2
3 Volodimyr Bileka DISCOVERY CHANNEL + 2'11
4 Mateusz Mroz CCC POLSAT POLKOWICE + 2'13
5 Ciaran Power NAVIGATORS INSURANCE + 2'14
6 Jonathan Garcia BMC Racing Team s.t.
7 Thorwald Veneberg RABOBANK + 2'24
8 Pierre Rolland CREDIT AGRICOLE + 2'26
9 Alex Howes TEAM SLIPSTREAM + 5'47
10 Volker Ordowski GEROLSTEINER + 7'03 13 Jens Voigt TEAM CSC + 9'30
35 Christian Vandevelde TEAM CSC + 12'06
37 David Zabriskie TEAM CSC + 12'09
39 Bobby Julich TEAM CSC + 13'14
77 Iñigo Cuesta TEAM CSC + 14'38
79 Juan José Haedo TEAM CSC + 14'42
121 Kasper Klostergaard TEAM CSC + 27'00
5 star
