A booming thunderstorm cleared out the humid, 95-degree air above Philadelphia Friday night, making way for cooler, breezy weather at this weekend’s climax of the Commerce Bank Triple Crown of Cycling. Also Friday evening, Giant Bicycles hosted a dinner at Maggiano’s Little Italy restaurant, where the mighty T-Mobile team’s general manager Bob Stapleton introduced the eight men and six women who are seeking to give their team a perfect record in this year’s Triple Crown.

Already this past week, Austrian Bernhard Eisel and German Ina Teutenberg have notched up victories in Lancaster and Reading, Pennsylvania. But they will have a much harder time conquering their respective events in Philadelphia: the 156-mile Philadelphia International Championship and 57.6-mile Liberty Classic on Sunday.

It’s Europe versus the Americas in both events, which will be watched by a crowd numbering in the tens of thousands and seen live by a television audience in the Philadelphia region. In the men’s race, T-Mobile and fellow UCI ProTour team CSC face off against the top American, Canadian, Colombian and Mexican teams in what is the only hors-catégorie pro men’s one-day race on this side of the Atlantic, while the powerful German-based Nürnberger and T-Mobile squads will again try to dominate the top women’s classic in the U.S.

Five former winners in men’s race
It’s always difficult to predict the outcome of the Philly championship race. That is even more true this year because the pressure of controlling the six hours of racing falls on the two European teams — especially T-Mobile, which fields two former race winners, defending champion Greg Henderson of New Zealand (who was with Health Net last year) and Denmark’s Jakob Piil (who was with CSC when he won this race eight years ago).

Two other former race winners are on the Toyota-United team: American Chris Wherry, who won with Health Net in 2005, and Aussie Henk Vogels, who rode for Mercury-Viatel when he won in 2000. The other former winner is Canadian Mark Walters, now with Kodak Gallery-Sierra Nevada, who was with Navigators Insurance in his winning year of 2002.

Victory in the Philly race’s 22 editions has gone to 11 Americans, four Italians, and one each by riders from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Great Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain. Remarkably, there has never been a repeat winner. That will make it tough for Henderson, despite his being backed by the event’s strongest team.

However, beside former Philly winners Henderson and Piil, T-Mobile can also count on the very hot Eisel, who’s shooting for his Triple Crown hat trick, and the two very fast British sprinters, Mark Cavendish and Roger Hammond. Cavendish is fresh off two stage wins at Spain’s Tour of Catalonia and vying for a place on his team’s Tour de France squad despite being only 22 and in his first pro season.

Clearly, with five potential winners, T-Mobile will attempt to put one of them in any substantial breakaway, rather than being forced to ride tempo at the head of the pack to control all of the attacks. In contrast, CSC has only one likely winner in its Argentinean sprinter J.J. Haedo, who is supported by four young Danes and two Aussies, Matt Goss and Luke Roberts. But like T-Mobile, CSC will try to insert fast finishers Lars Bak or Goss into the breakaways.

In the event of a mass-sprint finish, CSC and T-Mobile hold nearly all the aces, while the only domestic team in with a chance is Navigators, whose Russian sprinter Oleg Grishkin has the speed and stamina coming off a spring campaign in Europe. Toyota would have been a challenger, but its Cuban sprinter Ivan Dominguez is out of action, leaving the team’s chances in the legs of Serbian champ Ivan Stevic and former U.S. champ Wherry.

Because of the unusual situation of their having no genuine mass-sprint contenders, the North American teams will have to be much more aggressive than usual — especially since there is no longer the consolation prize of U.S. pro champion to be won. That title is now contested in South Carolina in the fall.

In the event of a successful breakaway, most of the domestic squads have legitimate contenders. The most likely to be on the final podium are (in alphabetical order) Alejandro Borrajo (Rite Aid), Charles Dionne (Colavita-Sutter Home), Sergei Lagutin (Navigators), Kayle Leogrande (Rock Racing), Danny Pate (Slipstream-Chipotle), Rory Sutherland (Health Net-Maxxis), Svein Tuft (Symmetrics) and former winner Walters (Kodak).

The 156-mile (251km) course for the Philadelphia International Championship is a familiar one: three parade laps around the flat Benjamin Franklin Parkway, followed by 10 laps of the 14.4-mile (23.2km) circuit north on Kelly Drive to Manayunk (where the biggest crowds will watch the likely 165 starters pounding up the half-mile Wall with its 17-percent pitch) and back to the Parkway via the short climbs over Strawberry Meadows and Lemon Hill, and concluding with three laps of a 3.1-mile (5km) loop over Lemon Hill.

The main contenders for the King of the Wall title are three Colombians Cesar Grajales (Jittery Joe’s), Gregorio Ladino (Tecos-Trek) and Javier Zapata (Caico).

Germans seek another Liberty title
The concurrent 57.6-mile (92.7km) women’s Liberty Classic completes four laps of the main circuit, taking in the Manayunk Wall each lap. In its 11-year history, the race has seen only five different winners, two of whom will be in this Sunday’s race, while another will be driving the T-Mobile team car.

The driver is the German team’s manager Petra Rossner, who won the event seven times between 1996 and 2004, while her team leader is Ina Teutenberg, who won here in 2005. The main challenger will be another German, defending champion Regina Schleicher of Team Nürnberger.

While Teutenberg was racing and winning the two Triple Crown criteriums in Pennsylvania this past week, Schleicher and most of Teutenberg’s teammates were at Canada’s Grand Tour du Montréal. T-Mobile’s top Australian, Oenone Wood, won two stages and the overall title, and is a strong contender Sunday should Teutenberg not make it into the winning group.

Besides Rossner, Teutenberg and Schleicher (who will be backed by teammate Trixi Worrack on Sunday), the only two other former winners of the Liberty Classic were Canadians Clara Hughes and Lynne Bessette, both of whom have quit international racing.

Amazingly, no Americans have won this race. If that situation is to change the riders most likely to do it are sprinters Brooke Miller (Team Tibco), veteran Laura Van Gilder (Cheerwine), U.S. criterium champion Theresa Cliff Ryan (Verducci-Breakaway), Tina Pic (Colavita), Lauren Franges (Team Lipton), Katheryn Curi (Webcor) and Sarah Caravella (Aaron’s).