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Danielson: protected leader, or opportunist?

Published: Apr. 21, 2008

One of the most interesting moments of the Tour de Georgia’s opening stage developed midway through the race, when two former overall winners, Chris Horner and Tom Danielson, jumped into a 13-man breakaway following the second intermediate sprint.

Also in the breakaway were CSC’s Bobby Julich and Rock Racing’s Victor Hugo Peña. And while Horner is clearly in Georgia to ride for Astana team leader Levi Leipheimer, Danielson, who has been nursing a herniated L5 vertebra tracing back to the opening stage of the 2007 Vuelta España, entered the race as an unknown factor.

Danielson broke his shoulder socket during that crash at the Vuelta, requiring immediate surgery. The injury overshadowed Danielson’s back pain, and it wasn’t until after he pulled out of the Amgen Tour of California in February that an MRI that revealed that the Slipstream rider had a herniated disk.

Danielson skipped Paris-Nice in March and returned to racing at the Redlands Classic, where he finished 13th overall, 1:53 behind Rock Racing’s Santiago Botero. Danielson said he treated Redlands as a training race, adding “two to three hours” of riding to each stage, focusing on his high-end.

“[Redlands] was great power training,” Danielson said. “It was just what I needed to really turn on those zones.”

Prior to stage 1 Horner said Danielson, who won the overall in 2005 and has twice won the decisive Brasstown Bald climb, would ordinarily be considered a favorite for the overall, but given his slow start to the season was “an unknown.”

Danielson’s status remained unclear when he followed Julich and Horner into the 13-man breakaway — protected GC riders rarely jump into breakaways, particularly on an opening stage. Danielson said it was a matter of being in the right place at the right time, as well as a test of his legs.

“I was at the front when I saw Julich jump, and then Horner jumped on that,” Danielson said. “It was a crazy, short stage, and there’s no better place to be than the front. I was there and I saw it, and I jumped on those wheels. It was really a matter of five pedal strokes and I was with them. It turned into a breakaway with barely any effort, and it saved the team a lot of energy. At the time we didn’t have any guys up there, and if no one was there it would have been dangerous. It’s always better to take the race in your hands than not cover a move just because you’re riding for GC, and you’re ‘not supposed to.’”

Danielson said he rolled through and took turns at the front until he saw Horner, and then Julich, stop working.

“Astana was chasing, and it was clear it wasn’t working,” he said. “The key thing was just being there. As we’ve seen in the past, dangerous guys can go up the road and decide the race. That was the right formula — all the key teams were there. But Levi made the decision it wasn’t a good card for Astana to play.”

More than anything, Danielson said he just hopes to have a ride in Georgia that he can feel good about.

“I’ve trained really hard,” Danielson said. “My main objective is to come here and try to get close to the level, or at the level, I’ve had in the past. It was nice to see I could go across to the break so well. My back is really good and my shoulder is good. If I don’t have it, I don’t have it, but I’m mentally and physically set to do a good race.”