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Cav' motors to Missouri win
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Mark Cavendish (Columbia-HTC) survived a chaotic finale to win stage 1 of the 2009 Tour of Missouri on Monday in St. Louis.
Cavendish's train was derailed in the final kilometer, and a pair of crashes threw additional monkey wrenches into the works, but he managed to close the deal anyway, finishing ahead of J.J. Haedo (Saxo Bank) and Thor Hushovd (Cervélo TestTeam).
With Cavendish on his wheel, Columbia's George Hincapie hit a pothole hard at about 600m to go, and although he kept it upright, he hurt his right knee. Cavendish saw that, told him to ease off, and jumped onto Hushovd's wheel.
Hushovd started the sprint, and Cavendish finished it off. The slightly uphill, headwind sprint favored him, Cavendish said.
"Instead of using my normal 53x11, I used a 12 or 13," he said.
Defending champion Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Slipstream) was among those to hit the deck in the final-kilometer crash. He finished dead last, behind Hushovd's leadout man Heinrich Haussler, who also went down. Vande Velde learned afterward that he had broken a bone in his right hand, but plans to continue in the race, without a cast.
How it got started
The early action in the 75-mile circuit race came courtesy of Tomas Vaitkus (Astana), Chris Anker Sorensen (Saxo Bank) and Moises Aldape (Team Type 1), who took off early but never gained much more than a minute over the bunch on the fast, technical 7.5-mile circuit through downtown.
"The break was good for me, because it’s not easy to beat Cavendish in a sprint," said Aldape through a translator. "So it was advantageous for my team to try to be in the move and not leave it to the sprint."
Ironically, Aldape earned the sprint jersey for his day's breakaway efforts; he also scooped up enough time bonuses to slot into second overall.
Back in the peloton, Columbia drove the group all day, with help from Cervélo.
Matt Crane (Jelly Belly) tried his luck as the trio was retrieved with two laps remaining, but got even less of a leash and was reeled back in with plenty of time for the bunch to start setting up a mass dash to the line.
It wasn't exactly a textbook Columbia leadout, however. A crash with 750 meters to go broke the rhythm as the pack went wide and hot into the final turn.
Cavendish said Columbia tried to take control of the finish "when Cervélo came up and tried to give us a hard time ... It ended up that we were jumbled up and collaborated really."
Then, with about 150 meters to go, Tom Zirbel (Bissell) tangled with Cervélo's Haussler, who was drifting back after setting up Hushovd.
"I was sprinting with my head down," Zirbel said, explaining that a gap had opened in front of him and he was closing it down. Zirbel had road rash and reported sore ribs, but didn't think he broke anything.
Cavendish stayed tucked on Hushovd's wheel and launched a late sprint.
"The headwind uphill finish plays to my advantage," Cavendish said. "Bigger guys like Thor tend to hammer a bigger gear, so I could get a good jump."
While ProTour teams took the top four spots — Liquigas' Francesco Chicchi took fourth — North American teams got their guys into the top 10. Martin Gilbert put his Canadian squad Planet Energy up on the GC board with fifth, Lucas Sebastian Haedo followed brother J.J. in for sixth, Tony Cruz (BMC) came seventh and Alex Candelario (Kelly Benefit Strategies) took eighth.
"It’s difficult to get on Columbia and actually have a shot at the sprint," Candelario said. "It costs a lot of energy just to get up there. Our team is definitely on the up and up, especially after last weekend.
"We’re looking forward to this week. I think it’s going to be a lot of hard racing. Our team is really suited to that, then we’ve got Dave and I for some sprint action. I’m looking forward to it."
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