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AToC Stage 4: Cav' clips Boonen, Leipheimer keeps lead
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Even Mark Cavendish didn’t expect to win stage 5 of the Amgen Tour of California on Wednesday. “It wasn’t a stage I’d targeted,” he admitted after bringing home a furious field sprint in Clovis, just holding off Tom Boonen of Quick Step, with Saxo Bank’s J.J. Haedo in third.
The field sprint meant that there were no changes in the GC, with Levi Leipheimer of Astana keeping the yellow jersey by a 24-second margin over Columbia’s Michael Rogers.
Cavendish didn’t target the Clovis stage as one he could win because the 115.8-mile course included a succession of steep climbs — five official ones and as many others that would warrant having categories in most stage races — through the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. But his Columbia-Highroad teammates had more faith in him.
Stage 4, Merced to Clovis, 186 km (116 miles)
Winner: Mark Cavendish (Columbia-Highroad)
Leader: Levi Leipheimer (Astana)
Winner's average speed: 39.54 kph (24.57 mph)
Rabobank Best Young Rider: Robert Gesink (Rabobank)
Best Team: Team Columbia-Highroad
Herbalife Sprint Leader: Francisco Mancebo (Rock Racing) 30 points; Thor Hushovd (Cervelo TestTeam) 22 points
Amgen Couragous Award: Tyler Hamilton (Rock Racing)
California King of the Mountains Leader: Francisco Mancebo (Rock Racing)
Peloton: Eleven riders dropped out for illness or injury: Kim Kirchen (Team Columbia-High Road); Oscar Freire (Rabobank), Scott Nydam (BMC Racing Team), Jonathan Garcia (BMC), John Murphy (Ouch), Fabio Calabria (Team Type 1), Phil Southerland (Team Type 1), Bradley Huff (Jelly Belly Cycling Team), David Kemp (Fly V), Jonathan Cantwell (Fly V), Victor Hugo Pena (Rock Racing). That leaves 108 riders to start stage 5.
Up next: Stage 5's 216 km (134 miles) from Visalia to Paso Robles is the longest stage of the tour.
Michael Barry, who had helped get Cavendish back to the peloton on Tuesday after the young British sprinter was dropped on the Cat. 1 Sierra Road, was totally confident. Talking before the start on Wednesday in Merced, Barry said the team is focused on delivering its top sprinter to the line.
“Our goal is to get Cav over the climbs, and if the race is controlled I think he has a good shot of making it to the finish," said Barry. "He’s climbing better than he ever has. He rides within himself, and his progression in his climbing in the last year is remarkable.”
Barry didn’t have to pace Cavendish back to the pack Wednesday because the race was controlled by Leipheimer’s Astana team. “It was very hard the opening hour or so,” Leipheimer said. “We had to chase down a lot of attacks before we even reached the climbs.”
Astana’s Chechu Rubiera controlled the last of the breaks over the flats of the Central Valley just before the day’s only significant break developed 25 miles into the stage. Saxo Bank’s Jason McCartney, who’d already attacked twice, went for a third try, this time with Cervélo’s Serge Pauwels.
Then, halfway up the long opening climb, they were joined by a remarkable pairing: Floyd Landis of OUCH-Maxxis, who’s on his comeback from a much-publicized two-year suspension, and his former Phonak teammate Tyler Hamilton, now with Rock Racing, who is working hard to re-establish his own reputation a year after emerging from his own suspension. Hamilton’s teammate Paco Mancebo, eager to gain more points in the Best Climber competition, was also chasing.
Hamilton explained, “The goal was to make sure no one dangerous got away. Jason McCartney was third in the KOM standings, so I bridged up to him. And when I saw Paco coming, and I waited for him.”
It was a great move by the seasoned Rock Racing teammates, because at the top of the climb, Mancebo took the KOM sprint ahead of McCartney, followed by Hamilton and Pauwels. This quartet had only an eight-second gap over the 2,276-foot summit before heading into a succession of plunging downhills and stiff climbs that could have split the race apart had the Astana team decided to race as hard as they did on the opening stage of this race. Instead, Hamilton’s foursome were 1:40 clear at the sprint in the mountain town of Mariposa, and 2:45 clear at the summit of the second categorized climb at mile 41.
After Mancebo also took this KOM, he decided to go back to the peloton. If he had remained in the break, Astana would have chased the leaders because the Spanish climber was only 53 seconds behind Leipheimer on GC. So, instead of chasing, Astana continued to set a moderate pace on the difficult course, allowing Hamilton, McCartney and Pauwels to push their lead to more than six minutes at the day’s second sprint in Oakhurst at 64 miles. This was right at the foot of the day’s longest climb on Crane Valley Road.
This hill topped out at 3,650 feet elevation, where ankle-deep snow had to be cleared a few hours before the race arrived. And it was here that Columbia-High Road switched gears. The California-based team lost its senior rider Kim Kirchen on one of the descents before Oakhurst when the Luxembourger was trying to put on his rain jacket because of the cooling temperatures. He got the jacket caught in his wheel and fell heavily, breaking his right scapula and clavicle. In the same crash, a favorite to win the stage, Oscar Freire of Rabobank, fell on his chest and broke two ribs.
Losing Kirchen reduced Columbia’s chances, but Barry then stepped in to do the work of two men on the Crane Valley climb. He pulled the peloton all the way up the 6-mile ascent, riding between banks of snow near the top, to cut the breakaway’s lead to 4:30. At the same time, three Columbia teammates rode with Cavendish to make sure he stayed in the back of the group.
With the gap going down and with 46 miles of racing remaining, it was clear that the break could be caught. “Every kilometer I believed we would stay away,” Hamilton said. “McCartney is an incredibly strong, great rider to have in that break, but I knew the sprinters teams would eventually put on a chase.”
Columbia’s George Hincapie said, “We had to use our guys early to chase down the break and nobody wanted to help us.” The catch was made about three miles from the finish, where the Cervélo team of Tuesday’s winner Thor Hushovd took over the head of the field. They poured on the speed around the streets of old town Clovis, and the Norwegian looked set for a repeat victory.
But Hincapie was confident. “I kept Mark Renshaw and Cavendish right there behind the Cervélo train. I was kind of out in the wind on my own, with those guys behind me. I pulled off with about 700 meters to go,” the American said.
Cavendish said, “Renshaw got the lead-out right past the whole Cervélo team, and when he dropped me off with 220 meters to go there was only going to be one outcome.”
“It was a normal sprint, you know,” Cavendish added. Maybe it was normal for the 23-year-old Brit, but when he sat up and raised his arm in triumph, he didn’t see that Boonen was throwing his bike at the line just to his left. On crossing paths minutes after the finish, Boonen gestured to Cavendish, putting two fingers together and saying, “Three millimeters, eh?”
That was the margin of Cavendish’s first stage victory at the California race. He was first across the line in Santa Clarita last year but lost the win because the officials said he received too much help from his team car after flatting on the finish circuit. So this latest win was “massive for me and for the team,” he said.
But was this victory more important than any other, like the two stages he won at the Giro d’Italia or the four he took at the Tour de France last year? “A win for me is a win,” he said. “I am greedy that way. I like to be first across the line — not just in cycling. In everything I want to be the best.”
There’s more sunshine in the forecast for Thursday’s longest and flattest day, the 134.3-mile stage 5 across the Central Valley between Visalia and Paso Robles, just north of San Luis Obispo. The finish is flat and straight. It looks like another won made for Mr. Cavendish!
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