THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING
Wegmann sprints to victory in San Francisco
Fabian Wegmann’s first trip to the United States was capped on Sunday afternoon with a tidy profit earned near San Francisco’s Financial District. The 25-year-old German, who rides for Levi Leipheimer’s Gerolsteiner squad, won the 108-mile Barclays Global Investors Grand Prix after catching John Lieswyn (Health Net-Maxxis) and Jason McCartney (Discovery Channel) in the final two miles, then outsprinting the two Americans for the $15,000 winner’s purse.
While the sun finally broke through the famous San Francisco fog in time to shine on Wegmann as he sped across the finish line on the Embarcadero, adjacent to Pier 1 on the San Francisco Bay, conditions for most of the four-and-a-half-hour race were cool and blustery. Lieswyn, who came heartbreakingly close to winning his final professional race, said the wind played a big factor in a race that saw many of the favorites come up short.
The race began at 10 a.m. with three 1.3-mile parade laps, followed by nine long laps (8.8 miles) and five finishing laps (5 miles). The major obstacles, as always, were the Fillmore and Taylor street climbs, short but steep enough that even Wegmann, the race winner, was forced to weave back and forth in slow, painful efforts to get to the top.
After a few early attacks, Discovery Channel rider Michael Creed initiated the first serious action at the 20-mile mark. Near the end of a tough season in which he suffered through a bout with Epstein-Barr syndrome and was dropped from his Discovery team for next year, Creed said he was feeling good and wanted to send a message that the illness is behind him.
“I started feeling better in the last month, and I knew I was good for about three hours today,” Creed said. And that’s about how long he lasted as he collected King of the Mountains points in a long solo breakaway that lasted for nearly 50 miles.
While Creed bobbed and weaved over the peaks and valleys of San Francisco’s neighborhoods, including the Italian-flavored North Beach and tony Russian Hill area, the shuffling of riders behind him saw some interesting developments. Eventually a group of about 30 riders settled into the chase, and as everyone behind that group started losing time, it became clearer with every passing lap that they were out of contention. Some of the riders who didn’t make the cut included 2001 winner George Hincapie (Discovery Channel); 2003 winner Chris Horner (Saunier Duval-Prodir); recent Tour of Germany winner Levi Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner); two-time Tour de France podium finisher Ivan Basso (CSC); and two-time San Francisco winner Charles Dionne (Webcor Builders).
Still in the hunt in the chase group were current USPRO champion Chris Wherry (Health Net-Maxxis); three-time USPRO champion Fred Rodriguez, riding for a composite U.S. national team; Danny Pate (Jelly Belly-Pool Gel); Mark McCormack (Colavita-Sutter Home); Gerolsteiner riders Wegmann and Andrea Moletta; plus Lieswyn, McCartney and others.
“There was not a lot of cohesion in that group of 30,” Lieswyn said. “Discovery, I think, was waiting to try and get Hincapie back up there. But knowing it was my last race, I certainly wasn’t saving anything.”
With that in mind, Lieswyn joined a group of four that peeled away to reel in Creed with 42 miles to go. The new lead group consisted of Discovery riders Creed, Ryder Hesjedal and McCartney, along with Lieswyn and New Zealander Glen Mitchell (Kodak-Sierra Nevada). At that point, Lieswyn said, “Discovery didn’t have the numbers to bring Hincapie back up.”
Lieswyn and McCartney, former teammates at Health Net and training partners in Iowa, know each other well. Lieswyn has helped the younger McCartney win races before, and in his estimation the first-year Discovery rider was the strongest in the break. Indeed, as the leaders passed over the hills and battled the wicked wind in the ensuing laps, Creed and Hesjedal were left behind, and Mitchell began suffering on the climbs.
By the time they hit the last 25 miles, consisting of five shorter 5-mile laps that included the Taylor climb, but not the Fillmore climb, Lieswyn and McCartney had something new to worry about. The two Gerolsteiner riders, Wegmann and Moletta, had launched an attack of their own.
“Normally I would not have attacked so early, but the lead group was gaining time and we had to go,” Wegmann said.
The plan was for Moletta to do the dirty work and pull Wegmann to the leaders so the German could be fresher for the finish. And Wegmann, who has raced at European classics known for their barrage of climbs — races such as Liège-Bastogne-Liège in Belgium and the Amstel Gold race in the Netherlands — said he had never experienced hills like Fillmore and Taylor. To keep a little fuel in the tank, he employed the tactic of zigzagging up the climbs
“I wanted to save the energy,” Wegmann said. “We had to go more than 20 times up the hills and you have to save some energy for the last time. We have some steep hills [in Europe], but not like these.”
Lieswyn, who said the huge crowds on the climbs were so loud that at times his eardrums hurt, agreed. “Make no mistake,” Lieswyn said. “These are the steepest hills that we race in America.”
Lieswyn, desperately clinging to the hopes of scoring the biggest win of his career in his final professional race, hit the Embarcadero with McCartney holding onto a 35-second gap over the two Gerolsteiner riders with two laps, 10 miles, to go. At one lap to go, that gap was holding steady, but Wegmann poured it on over the last five miles.
“I was surprised that [Wegmann] came up so quickly, because Jason and I were setting a good tempo,” Lieswyn said.
The young German caught the leaders at the top of the final climb up Taylor Street and immediately launched a counterattack. Lieswyn chased it down, and the three rocketed down Broadway toward the finish on the Embarcadero. In years past, the finish came after a short circuit near Pier 1, but this year it was a right-hand turn onto the finishing straight and a fast, flat tailwind stretch to the line.
In the three-man sprint, Wegmann made the first move, and it was decisive. “Fabian jumped first, and he jumped hard,” Lieswyn said. “There simply wasn’t enough left to make it up.”
It’s been a good year for the blond Wegmann. A fourth-year pro from the town of Freiburg, he is seen as one of the top young talents in Germany. His accomplishments this year include wins at the German race GP Schwarzwald. His next major objective comes later this month in Madrid, where he will work for Erik Zabel as a part of the German team at the world road championships. And with the Barclays Global Investors company reportedly signing on to sponsor the San Francisco GP for another two years, there’s a good chance he’ll make his second trip to America to defend his title next September.
Top 10 results
1. Fabian Wegmann (G), Gerolsteiner, 4:27:20
2. John Lieswyn, Health Net-Maxxis, same time
3. Jason McCartney, Discovery Channel, s.t.
4. Andrea Moletta (I), at 0:27
5. Glen Mitchell (NZ), Kodak-Sierra Nevada, at 1:58
6. Mike Sayers, Health Net-Maxxis, at 2:56
7. Mark McCormack, Colavita-Sutter Home, at 3:12
8. Luke Roberts (Aus), s.t.
9. Danny Pate, Jelly Belly-Pool Gel, at 3:21
10. Dominique Perras (Can), Kodak-Sierra Nevada, at 3:41
