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Leipheimer extends Amgen Tour lead with superb TT victory
Seconds after Discovery Channel’s Levi Leipheimer hurtled across the finish line in Solvang to win Friday’s time-trial stage of the Amgen Tour of California, he repeatedly punched the air and let out a guttural scream of excitement. The thousands of fans lining the finishing straight roared their approval for his stunning performance, realizing that it virtually wraps up his overall victory in the eight-day race.
"That was one of my best time trials ever," Leipheimer told VeloNews on his way to the podium. "It was really windy and normally that’s not my thing. But all week I’ve just been telling myself, ‘Forget about the negatives and just win.’ And it worked."
Besides his mental imagery, several other factors contributed to Leipheimer’s 18-second stage win over runner-up Jens Voigt of CCS, who now trails the American by 21 seconds overall..
The first factor was this winter’s switch from Gerolsteiner to Discovery, which has brought the Santa Rosa, California, resident much stronger support. That strength was demonstrated Friday by his American teammates Jason McCartney and George Hincapie finishing third and fifth in the time trial, while Italian colleague Ivan Basso was in ninth.
Another factor was having seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong cheering him on from the following car alongside team director Johan Bruyneel.
But perhaps the greatest influence on Leipheimer’s time-trial performance was his visit in November to the wind tunnel in San Diego.
"I wanted to get in there early and train in that position over the winter," he said. "It’s quite a bit different."
The new position is not quite as radical as that of 2006 California winner Floyd Landis. "But that’s because of the rules," Leipheimer explained. "I can only have my bars as high as the saddle. But for me it works out perfect. It’s actually very comfortable. I can’t say why, but it’s fast. That’s what a wind tunnel’s for."
Leipheimer added that discovering his new position was a little lucky.
"We were in the tunnel playing around and I almost left, I almost stepped off the bike to finish," he said. "And someone suggested trying something, and it was like, ‘Wow, that’s low, that’s a low drag.’ And right from that moment my motivation has been very good."
That motivation combined with the new position was particularly helpful on the opening half of the demanding 14.54-mile course on Friday. After two short hills leaving Solvang, a Danish-themed town 50 miles west of Santa Barbara, there was a succession of long straightaways across open fields and past vineyards featured in the movie "Sideways." Here, battling a howling head/crosswind, Leipheimer raced with his nose nestling on his knuckles.
That low-down body position enabled the lightweight Leipheimer to stay rock solid on the road, in contrast to his ride in the 2006 Tour of California time trial at San José, when he was blown all over the road and conceded 76 seconds to Landis. Twelve months later, Leipheimer said, "I tried to stay just one with my bike, to stay as straight as possible and keep the pressure on.
"The first half of the course was either cross/head or direct head wind and it was hard mentally because I wasn’t going very fast, the speed wasn’t high. But that’s really where the time difference was made — there and on the hill."
The official halfway time split in the town of Los Olivos confirmed Leipheimer’s feelings about his ride: He was the fastest of the 127 riders, four seconds up on second-placed Voigt. Then came the course’s main climb, about a mile long, where a huge crowd saw the race leader ride powerfully through a series of curves before sprinting over the summit in his big ring.
"I had a 54 as I wanted to keep my cadence up on the head-wind section," Leipheimer said.
While the Discovery man was flying, even clipping a bush with a shoulder on one of the turns, chief rival Voigt was starting to struggle. The 35-year-old German was going wide on the curves along Ballard Canyon Road on the return trip to Solvang, and his upper body started to rock more pronouncedly as he tried to milk every last ounce of energy from his big body.
"I don’t think I could have done any more," said Voigt after losing an extra 14 seconds in the final seven miles. "I could have saved three, five seconds if I would have taken more risks in the corners, but not 18 seconds. He was just better than me. He beat me square and fair.
"I’m second overall, which is better than last year, so I should be happy with that. But then again, when you are just there for the win, and you miss it really close, of course you would prefer it to be the other way around."
After watching Leipheimer finish, Voigt shook hands and congratulated the American. Leipheimer gracefully accepted the praise, saying to Voigt, "Now we’re on my turf, it’s my turn." He was referring to last year’s Tour of Germany, where Voigt won the time trial on his home turf and won the overall, with Leipheimer in second.
As for CSC, which had five riders in the top 10 Friday, the Danish squad hasn’t conceded this race quite yet. There’s still Saturday’s 105.4-mile stage 6 from Santa Barbara to Santa Clarita, which features four stiff climbs, and Sunday’s circuit race in Long Beach.
"We’ll decide tomorrow morning or tonight in the meeting what we’re going to do," Voigt told VeloNews on Friday night. "If we are going to turn this thing around, it’s got to be something bold, where you really go from the beginning, left, right, center, attack all over the place. It’s got to be something really hard, like unleashing hell on everybody."
But with victory in sight, the race leader and his hard-working Discovery teammates aren’t going to concede — especially after defending the jersey all week. As Leipheimer said following his second TT victory in six days: "My major motivation today was I did not want to go to the dinner table and tell my teammates I couldn’t defend the lead after all the work they did."
With those words, Leipheimer sounded just like Armstrong. And he wouldn’t let himself get beaten by someone like Jens Voigt, would he?
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Amgen Tour of California
Stage 5
Top 10
1. Levi Leipheimer (USA), Discovery, 29:40.44
2. Jens Voigt (G), CSC, at 0:18
3. Jason McCartney (USA), at 0:24
4. Fabian Cancellara (Swi), CSC, at 0:37
5. George Hincapie (USA), Discovery, at 0:40
6. Bobby Julich (USA), CSC, at 0:41
7. Christian Vande Velde (USA), CSC, at 0:56
8. Stuart O'Grady (Aus), CSC, at 0:59
9. Ivan Basso (I), Discovery Channel, at 1:02.57
10. Ben Jacques-Maynes (USA), Priority Health, at 1:14.17
Overall
1. Levi Leipheimer (USA), Discovery Channel, 18:21:52
2. Jens Voigt (G), CSC, at 0:21
3. Jason McCartney (USA), Discovery Channel, at 0:54
4. Bobby Julich (USA), CSC, at 1:06
5. Stuart O'Grady (Aus), CSC, at 1:20
6. Christian Vande Velde (USA), CSC, at 1:24
7. Michael Rogers (Aus), T-Mobile, at 1:34
8. Ben Day (Aus), Navigators, at 1:38
9. Franco Pellizotti (I), Liquigas, at 1:41
10. Ryder Hesjedal (Can), Health Net -Maxxis, at 1:57
