TOUR OF CALIFORNIA: LEIPHEIMER GOES WIRE-TO-WIRE.Byline: ROBERT MORALES Staff Writer LONG BEACH -- Levi Leipheimer was going to win the second Amgen Tour of California The Amgen Tour of California is a professional cycling stage race on the UCI America Tour and USA Cycling Professional Tour that made its debut on February 19, 2006. Sponsored by the biotechnology company Amgen, the eight-day race covers between 650-700 miles (1,045 - 1,126 km). unless he crashed during the seventh and final stage, a 77.5-mile jaunt consisting of 10circuit laps through shoreline streets on a partly cloudy Partly Cloudy is an industrial band based in Hollywood, California. Band members
Leipheimer was protected by his Team Discovery Channel teammates, as they hung back in the peloton
The peloton (from French, literally meaning ball and related to the English word platoon), field, bunch or most of the stage. But the sprint leaders were eventually caught by the pack, and that was all that was needed for Leipheimer to emerge with the overall championship. Although he again temporarily lost the virtual lead during the stage, Leipheimer held the yellow leader jersey during the entire eight-day tour, beginning with the prologue in San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden . Leipheimer, of Santa Rosa Santa Rosa, city, Argentina Santa Rosa, city (1991 pop. 80,629), capital of La Pampa prov., central Argentina. It is a modern city and road junction surrounded by a rich agricultural and cattle-raising area. , finished with an overall time of 24 hours, 57 minutes and 24seconds over the 639.5-mile course. Germany's Jens Voigt Jens Voigt (born September 17, 1971) is a German professional road bicycle racer. Voigt is known as an affable cyclist with a propensity to attack whenever he can, and for his positive racing attitude. , of Team Computer Sciences Corporation, was second. He finished 21 seconds behind Leipheimer.Jason McCartney For the professional cyclist, see . Jason McCartney (born March 14, 1974) is a former Australian rules footballer and 2002 Bali bombing survivor. AFL career McCartney began his career at the Collingwood Football Club amid a huge reputation from his junior football days. of the U.S. was third, 54 seconds back. Ivan Dominguez, who resides in Agoura Hills, and Team Toyota United won Sunday's stage as he zoomed past a heavy cluster of riders, crossing the finish line in two hours, 39 minutes and 28seconds. A total of 99riders crossed the finish almost simultaneously and all were credited with the same time. "This year's race was extremely competitive," said Leipheimer, who has three top-10 Tour de France Tour de France World's most prestigious and difficult bicycle race. Staged for three weeks each July—usually in some 20 daylong stages—the Tour typically comprises 20 professional teams of nine riders each and covers some 3,600 km (2,235 miles) of flat and finishes. "CSC and the other teams really put a lot of pressure on us and without that level of competition, this victory would not be as satisfying. "It is really one of my most satisfying victories. We really had to fight hard. I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. of any other team that could have done it except for Team Discovery Channel." Leipheimer, 33, wouldn't go so far as to say this was the best win of his career, but he came close. "It was maybe my most satisfying," he said. "But to be fair to the Dauphine dau·phine n. The wife of a dauphin. [French, feminine of dauphin; see dauphin.] Libere last year, that is a race with a lot of history. A lot of great champions have won it before. I don't know if I can call this my biggest victory. But I'll tell you what, I have a wall at home with some jerseys on it. And this is definitely going to go on that wall." Leipheimer won the 2006 Dauphine Libere, an eight-stage event in France used as a warm- up to the Tour de France, one of the three Grand Tours in the sport of road cycling. Leipheimer talked about Team Discovery Channel's plan of attack heading into Sunday. "We wanted to come out and be aggressive," said Leipheimer, who entered the day with a 21-second lead. "It wasn't going to be a parade lap around the circuit today. We counted on the other teams wanting to win the stage and we saw that there were a number of teams that came in front. "We just tried to keep the gap close so that it was manageable." At one point, a small group of leaders was as much as 2:30ahead of the peloton that included every member of Team Discovery Channel, which was missing George Hincapie. He broke his left arm in a crash with teammate Tony Cruz during Saturday's sixth stage from Santa Barbara to Santa Clarita. Cruz finished 45th Sunday and 103rd overall, 31 minutes and 48 seconds behind Leipheimer. Voigt did not attend the post-race news conference because he had to catch a flight back home. But McCartney echoed Leipheimer's sentiments regarding the competitive nature of the eight-day event. "From start to finish Levi held the lead, but there was a lot of sweat on the road, and a bit of blood," said McCartney, of Coralville, Iowa. As for Sunday's stage winner, Dominguez described the wild finish in front of thousands of screaming fans. "With four laps to go, I came to (the back of) Brown's wheel," Dominguez said of second-place finisher Graeme Brown of Australia and Team Rabobank. "I knew he wanted to win. So I stayed there. The crowd was huge. The one in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of was huge, but I live here in L.A., so for me this one was really huge." Dominguez, a native of Havana, Cuba, was speaking of the New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. Cycling Championships, which he won in 2002. CSC finished with the best overall team performance. With a combined time of 74 hours, 54minutes, 41 seconds, it was 2:19 better than Team Discovery Channel. "We are happy to win the team classification," CSC team member Bobby Julich said. "We always want to be the No. 1 team in the world." Julich, 35, is from Corpus Christi, Texas Corpus Christi is a coastal city and the county seat of Nueces CountyGR6 in the U.S. state of Texas. It is part of the region known as South Texas. . He was fourth overall, 1:06 behind Leipheimer. Three of the top four overall finishers were from the U.S. robert.morales@presstelegram.com (562) 499-1338 CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Levi Leipheimer, center, of the Discovery Team, goes through a turn during the second lap of the seventh and final stage Sunday in Long Beach. Kevin Chang/Staff Photographer |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion