THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING
Vogels takes lead in Georgia
The U.S. pro peloton hasn’t seen much of the Navigators this spring, but the squad made a big impact in its first major road stage on home soil this year, with Henk Vogels winning stage 1 of the Tour de Georgia and taking the race leader’s jersey in the process.
Vogels emerged from a lead group of about 30 riders and beat out Schroeder Iron’s Miguel Meza at the end of the 136-mile stage from Augusta to Macon, heading east to west across the center of the state.
While the rest of the U.S. domestic teams were out in California in full force for the opening of the season, Navigators had only minimal representation; the bulk of the squad was racing in Italy, Belgium, France and the Netherlands, with the highlights including Vogels’s second-place finish at the Belgian classic Ghent-Wevelgem.
With that European racing under their belts, it was no surprise to see the Navigators gunning for the stage win, but taking the yellow leader’s jersey away from Saturn’s Nathan O’Neill was an unexpected bonus on a day that began with Vogels 10 seconds behind O’Neill in the overall. “With 10 seconds, and those [Saturn] guys riding so well, we didn’t know that we’d be able to get the jersey,” said Navigators team director Ed Beamon.
At the beginning of the day, the team that did think it had a shot to take the jersey was 7UP-Maxxis, whose Greg Henderson sat third at the beginning of the day, just four seconds behind O’Neill after Tuesday’s prologue time trial. With three mid-race bonus sprints along the rolling course, 7UP was hoping to move the sprinter into yellow by the end of the day, but things didn’t quite work out that way.
With Henderson hunting for bonuses, Saturn was content to let 7UP control the pace early on, and the team in green was at the front from the start, even on the three opening laps in downtown Savannah, which were thrown into chaos briefly with a big crash on the first of the 3.3-mile circuits.
After that, despite a few breakaway attempts, things stayed together leading up to the first sprint point, 32 miles into the race in the town of Harlem. There, 7UP had Henderson in position, but with a hard-to-pick-up sprint line, the Kiwi missed the sprint, finishing second to Saturn’s Chris Horner, with O’Neill third, picking up bonuses of 3, 2 and 1 seconds respectively.
The rolling miles between sprint No. 1 and No. 2 saw a breakaway attempt by Jelly Belly’s Derek Wilkerson, but he was reeled in well before the second sprint in Warrenton. In Warrenton, Schroeder’s Miguel Meza, gunning for the sprint leader’s jersey, took the sprint, followed by Vogels and Prime Alliance’s David Clinger. Henderson got shut out, but the worst of his problems were still to come.
Just past the feed zone at mile 78, Henderson had to pull over to the side of the road, suffering from gastrointestinal problems. 7UP dropped Chris Pic and Jason McCartney to pull him back up, but 20 miles later, Henderson was suffering again. Although he would make it back into the peloton, his chase for the jersey was effectively done.
Meanwhile, Sierra Nevada’s Nieko Biskner went off on the only breakaway on the day to gain significant time. The 20-year-old took his lead up to over six minutes, with only Belgian Jurgen Landrie (Flanders-iteamnova) taking up chase. Biskner swallowed up the 100-mile sprint in Milledgeville, with Landrie about a minute behind, and both their gaps coming down quickly.
The closing miles would see attacks by Laurens ten Dam (Dutch National) and Jonathan Erdelyi (Ofoto-Lombardi Sports), but the race came down to a fight among the big guns on the three 1.8-mile finishing circuits in Macon.
Horner and O’Neill tried to attack repeatedly, with Horner taking each of the three KOM sprints, but the hill wasn’t quite enough to spring Horner free. “It was a hard climb, but not hard enough,” Horner said. “It just needed to be a little harder.”
Instead, the race came down to a sprint finish among the 80 or so riders who made the final selection on the finishing laps. In the end, Vogels’s teammate Jeff Louder towed him to about 300 meters to go, where Vogels swung around and barely nipped the hard-charging Meza at the line. It was a good day for both, with Vogels moving into the leader’s jersey and Meza tied with Vogels in the sprint competition.
“I’m happy getting second,” Meza said. “One of my goals is to get the sprinter’s jersey, and I feel I can hang on to it.”For Vogels and Navigators, things went pretty much according to plan. “[The day’s goal was] definitely the stage win,” he said. “We were picking away at the time bonuses, just to get some time back from Saturn. We didn’t want them to take control of everything all week.”As for Saturn, they didn’t seem too upset about losing the responsibility of defending the lead. “We wanted to give it up to a team that could defend it,” said Horner, who takes over the KOM lead. “It’ll leave us free to cover moves and not have to defend.”Saturn still has four riders in the top six heading into stage 2, 124 miles from Macon to Columbus, with two sprint spots and one KOM along the course.
b>Full results below
