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Landis takes Tour of California; Pollack doubles up in Redondo Beach
The inaugural Amgen Tour of California is one for the books, and for two riders, it couldn’t have ended better. Saturday’s field-sprint winner, T-Mobile’s Olaf Pollack, narrowly edged out another tour double-stage winner, J.J. Haedo of Toyota-United, to win the final stage Sunday, a 76.5-mile circuit race in Redondo Beach. Pollack's teammate Andre Greipel rounded out the podium.
Phonak team leader Floyd Landis held on to the overall race lead he captured at the 17-mile time trial in San Jose on Wednesday. CSC’s Dave Zabriskie took second overall, 29 seconds back, with his CSC teammate Bobby Julich third, 34 seconds down. For Landis, the victory was his biggest score on North American soil, and one he called “the most satisfying win” of his career.
The week of racing also couldn’t have ended better for AEG Sports, the sports marketing company that owns and operates the tour. With estimates of over 100,000 spectators in attendance in Redondo Beach, AEG estimates that over one million fans lined the roads of California to experience the event.
“Having had more than one million fans in attendance at the Amgen Tour of California in the last week is one of the many reasons that we can declare this inaugural event a success,” said Shawn Hunter, president of AEG Sports. “With such positive feedback from the cycling governing body, the cyclists themselves, the cities we rode through, and the dedicated fans, we are now committed more than ever to being even bigger and better in 2007.”
ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL
With $1000 prize money awarded to the first rider across the start/finish at the end of laps 3, 5 7 and the final lap, the pace was expected to be fast. Before the start, Haedo's teammate and lead-out man, Tony Cruz, said the team was expecting two teams that hadn’t yet made the podium's top step, Health Net-Maxxis and Freddie Rodriguez's Davitamon-Lotto squad, to keep the field together for a field sprint.
"Those are the two teams we'll be watching the most," Cruz said. "They both need a win. Davitamon really has to win. I think they are going to be the biggest aggressor."
Cruz’s words proved to be spot-on, as Davitamon spent much of the afternoon at the front of the field, chasing down a four-man breakaway that benefited from a crash on the first lap. First to roll off the field in the opening miles was Navigators Glen Chadwick. Aaron Olsen (Prodir-Saunier Duval), Davide Frattini (Colavita Olive Oil-Sutter Home) and Scott Zwizanski (KodakGallery.com-Sierra Nevada) leapt across and formed the day’s one and only breakaway.
The formation of the break was followed almost immediately by a large pileup, said to have been caused by a loose water bottle, as the field crested the course’s one minor hill. Downed in the crash were Robbie Hunter of Phonak, Michael Barry of Discovery Channel, Andre Greipel (T-Mobile) and Phil Zajicek (Navigators Insurance), the highest-placed American non-ProTour rider in 15th. Barry and Greipel rejoined the race, while Hunter and Zajicek would abandon. Zajicek broke his wrist last month at the Tour Down Under, but initial reports are that he wasn’t seriously injured.
| 2006 Amgen Tour of California STAGE WINNERSPROLOGUE(San Francisco): Levi Leipheimer, GerolsteinerSTAGE 1(Sausalito to Santa Rosa): J.J. Haedo, Toyota-UnitedSTAGE 2(Martinez to San Jose): George Hincapie, Discovery ChannelSTAGE 3(San Jose time trial): Floyd Landis, PhonakSTAGE 4(Monterey to San Luis Obispo): J.J. Haedo, Toyota-UnitedSTAGE 5(San Luis Obispo to Santa Barbara): George Hincapie, Discovery ChannelSTAGE 6(Santa Barbara to Thousand Oaks): Olaf Pollack, T-MobileSTAGE 7 (Redondo Beach circuit race): Olaf Pollack, T-Mobile |
The worst casualty of the pileup was Saturday’s most aggressive rider Sebastian Lang (Gerolsteiner). Lang went down hard and lay still for a moment, but slowly stood up and eventually remounted his bike. An attempt to rejoin the peloton ultimately failed, and Lang was forced to leave the race.
While the field was essentially neutralized as teams radioed to assess the damage, the escapees continued to motor away, and its advantage quickly ballooned to almost eight minutes by mile 18, making Chadwick, who came in to the day 6:32 down on GC, the virtual race leader.
“The riders seemed to neutralize themselves after the crash, and then they seemed to lull themselves to sleep,” Health Net-Maxxis team director Jeff Corbett said. “It wasn’t until the break had the leader on the road that they snapped to life.”
Zwizanski said that even after the race, he didn’t know of the crash or its affect on the breakaway. “I thought I heard them saying something about a crash, but we didn’t know anything,” he said. “Nobody said anything to us. We didn’t hammer extra hard, we just went like any other breakaway.”
As for the sprint primes, Zwizanski said the breakaway riders had bigger prizes on their minds. “Ah, we just worked it out,” he said. “I think everyone kind of agreed that for any of us to have a shot was to stay smooth and work out the cash later.”
TIME TO GO TO WORK
Once the gap approached eight minutes, Chris Horner and his Davitamon-Lotto teammates moved to the front of the field on behalf of Rodriguez. Although Toyota-United, T-Mobile and Health Net-Maxxis all had motives to bring the leaders back, Davitamon was alone at the front of the field for most of the day. “On a 130km stage, there’s no way you can give a break of four more than that kind of time,” Horner said. “If the teams had played any more cat and mouse they would have stayed away. Toyota won two stages, so maybe they just didn’t feel like being at the front. Health Net hasn’t won any stages, but they haven’t been doing any leadouts either, so maybe they’re just not on form.”
Horner apparently called that one right.
“We don’t have anything better than a fourth place sprint finish this week,” Corbett conceded. “We’re not the dangerous sprint team, so the pressure goes to them. The people that have the on-form sprinters, that’s their job.”
With Davitamon driving the pace, joined by T-Mobile’s former mountain jersey wearer Bernhard Kohl, the leaders’ advantage slowly came down, from 5:16 at mile 30 to 4:20 at mile 45 and 1:05 at mile 67. It was then that CSC came to life, looking to set up Stuart O’Grady. On the final go-round, the catch was made and CSC, T-Mobile and Phonak massed at the front, the first two for their sprinters, the latter to protect its race leader.
CSC led the field as it rounded the final left-hand corner and wound up for a nearly one-kilometer sprint down a long, wide straightaway. With 500 meters remaining, T-Mobile swung to the right side of the road and delivered Pollack to his second win in two days, a wheel length ahead of Haedo.
“For me it was similar to yesterday,” said Pollack, who is enjoying a brilliant start to his season after losing much of 2005 to abdominal surgery. “CSC started its leadout train too early, and once it slowed we did our own.”
Perhaps most disappointed was Rodriguez, who finished eighth after his team spent the day setting him up for a field sprint. Rodriguez pointed to a softened up leadout train, as well as shifting problems tracing back to the day’s pileup.
“The other teams left it up to us today,” Rodriguez said. “I think we did the right thing, otherwise it was going to be hard to bring it back. Once we took the initiative, everybody else played the card that we were going to bring it back. We brought it back, and CSC did that last little effort to close the gap, but Chris Horner, being my main lead-out guy, was left a little short. I followed him from the last corner, about 10 guys back, we started moving up and passing on the left side. But he just lacked that little bit of effort after pulling all day. When I saw he didn’t have it, I looked at my right and I saw T-Mobile just flying by on the right, I swung right to get on their wheels, but from the crash the bike was bent and wouldn’t go into the 11-tooth, so I was drag racing in the 12.”
Haedo made no excuses, but did add that his 11-tooth chainring didn’t feel like it was a large enough gear. “It was a really fast sprint,” he said. “Too fast, too furious. I felt like I needed an extra gear today. In the last 150 meters I was sprinting in the 11 like it was nothing.”
With the win, Pollack took the sprints competition ahead of Haedo and Discovery Channel’s George Hincapie. Prologue winner Levi Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner) secured the king of the mountains jersey Saturday. TIAA-CREF’s Peterson was the tour’s best young rider, and Chadwick was awarded most aggressive rider on the day.
"I just attacked from 3km into it, to see what I could do,” Chadwick said. “No one was there to start with, but then three guys came across. I think that crash helped a bit. We all worked pretty good together on the road. We all shared, and at the sprints just rolled through, which is better than killing ourselves. It was a good tour for the team, and I got my mug on TV a fair bit, which is nice.”
In all, ProTour team riders captured all but two of the top 20 positions on the general classification. Health Net-Maxxis rider Nathan O’Neill was the top-placed non-ProTour rider, in fifth, 1:08 back, with Navigators Insurance’s Phil Zajicek sitting 15th, 2:32 off Landis’s winning time, until he was taken out in the first-lap crash.
At the post-race press conference, American ProTour stars Levi Leipheimer, George Hincapie and overall podium finishers Landis, Zabriskie and Julich expounded on America’s newest, and biggest, stage race. Julich called the Amgen Tour of California the “best race I’ve ever done in the U.S.”, while Leipheimer ranked his day in the golden jersey in his hometown as “one of the most memorable moments of my career.”
But the last word was saved for Landis, a resident of Temecula, in Southern California. “We came here to represent our sponsors, Phonak and iShares, and so the best way to do that is to win the race,” Landis said. “I won’t say we came here with any other objective. We have multiple goals throughout the year, such as the Tour de France, but this one came high on the list.”
Results
1. Olaf Pollack (G), T-Mobile, 2:50:27
2. José Juan Haedo(ARG), Toyota-United
3. André Greipel (G), T-Mobile
4. René Haselbacher (A), Gerolsteiner
5. Alex Candelario (USA), Jelly Belly
6. Gordon Fraser (Can), Health Net Maxxis
7. Vladimir Gusev (Rus), Discovery Channel Pro Cycling
8. Fred Rodriguez (USA), Davitamon-Lotto
9. Sergey Lagutin (UZB), Navigators Insurance
10. Stuart O'Grady (Aus), CSC
FullResults
Final overall
1. Floyd Landis (USA), Phonak, 22:46:46
2. David Zabriskie (USA), CSC, 0:29
3. Bobby Julich (USA), CSC, 0:34
4. George Hincapie (USA), Discovery Channel Pro Cycling, 0:45
5. Nathan O'Neill (Aus), Health Net Maxxis, 1:08
6. Levi Leipheimer (USA), Gerolsteiner, 1:10
7. Cadel Evans (Aus), Davitamon-Lotto, 1:29
8. Thomas Danielson (USA), Discovery Channel Pro Cycling, 1:49
9. Christian Vande Velde (USA), CSC, 1:55
10. Jason McCartney (USA), Discovery Channel Pro Cycling, 1:58
FullResults
JerseysAmgen Winners Jersey Floyd Landis, PhonakClif Bar Sprint Jersey Olaf Pollack, T-MobileCalifornia Travel and Tourism KOM Jersey Levi Leipheimer, GerolsteinerUnion Bank Best Young Rider Jersey Tom Peterson, TIAA-CREFAdobe Most Aggressive Glen Chadwick, Navigators InsuranceTeam Classification Team CSC
Results are posted. To see how the stage developed, simply CLICK HERE to open our Live Update window..
Click here for access to video featuring interviews with CSC's David Zabriskie, Bobby Julich and Jens Voigt.
