There goes that Floyd Landis again, winning another individual time trial on Thursday and jumping to the overall lead in the Ford Tour of Georgia bike race.
The Phonak team leader who lives in Southern California beat the field for the second year in a row, although his margin was less than in 2005. With a harrowing climb on Brasstown Bald coming up Saturday, it's up to Landis and his team to hold off last year's overall winner Tom Danielson of the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling team.
Danielson finished a minute behind Landis in 2005, but made the margin on Brasstown last year to take the overall lead and championship. This year, Danielson told CyclingNews that he has been working on his time trialing and it shows, he finished less than four seconds behind Landis on Thursday.
Another American, David Zabriskie of CSC, is right there too. He finished just 20 seconds behind Danielson. The stage's fourth place finisher was another top contender, Nathan O'Neill of Health Net, whose time is 55 second behind Landis.
Yaroslav Popovych, who wore the leader's jersey today, finished in seventh place.
Landis won February's Tour of California on the time trial (above) in mid-week, holding on to the gold jersey until the finish. The Tour de Georgia features a bald-busting climb before the end of the race, a feature that was missing in the latter stages of ToC.
In addition to the inaugural Tour of California, Landis also won the Paris-Nice stage race in France in March.
Thursday's 25-mile time trial from Chickamauga, Georgia, to Chattanooga, Tennessee, featured a 500-plus foot climb and a tricky downhill.
On Friday, the peloton bikes 119 miles through hilly North Georgia, from Dalton to Dahlonega. They're facing two Category 2 climbs, a Cat 3 and a Cat 4.
But Discovery will probably wait until Saturday to try dismantle Phonak and Landis on the 94 mile bike ride from Blairsville to Brasstown Bald, the highest point in Georgia. There are two steep mountain passes along the way, too.
Is Landis a strong enough climber to survive attacks by Discovery's Popovych, Viatcheslav Ekimov, Danielson and others directed by that wiliest of tacticians, Johan Brunyeel?
Results at CyclingNews and VeloNews.
Recent Comments