Here's the Levi Leipheimer breakaway on Sierra Road hill. That's Leipheimer in front, followed by another American, Chris Horner, of Predictor-Lotto. The Rabobank rider next to him is Robert Gesink; CSC's Jens Voigt and Discovery's Jason McCartney trail. Photo by The Electrician at flickr.com.
Good team tactics — and awesome climbing chops — helped to save the day for Levi Leipheimer and the Discovery Channel team at the Amgen Tour of California on Wednesday.
Team CSC's Jens Voigt won the 94-mile stage between Stockton and San Jose, as the sole survivor of a 17-man breakaway that attacked at the start and led the peloton across the Central Valley.
Now the challenge for Leipheimer and the Discovery Channel team is how to hold off Voigt — a mere three seconds behind in the overall standings — and his powerful Team CSC, ranked the best in the world.
Discovery rider in breakaway
Fortunately on Wednesday, Discovery had put Jason McCartney in the breakaway. He was there to help Leipheimer in the final miles as the overall race leader bridged across from the peloton to the disintegrating breakaway on the slopes of the 4-mile-long Sierra Road hill, the toughest in this year's race.
So the team tactics put McCartney in that breakaway, but it was all Leipheimer's strength and conditioning to jump from the peloton on the climb, dragging American cyclist Chris Horner (Predictor-Lotto) and a couple of others with him.
Finish
Coming into San Jose, Leipheimer and McCartney led the small group followed by about 20 chasers, which included Italian World Champion road racer Paolo Bettini.
In the final mile, Leipheimer, Voigt and Horner jockeyed for position, with Voigt powering away from the others to finish first.
Although he didn't win, Horner didn't do himself any harm by Wednesday's ride, as he climbed into 4th place, 16 seconds behind Leipheimer.
Next stage
The stage win raised Germany's Voigt from 14th to 2nd, just 3 seconds behind Leipheimer. The cyclist who makes his home in Santa Rosa will have to be alert on Thursday to keep Voigt at bay during the 133-mile along the scenic Pacific Coast from Seaside to San Luis Obispo.
Tour tracker
The best news from Wednesday's race is that it looks like Adobe has the kinks worked out of the Tour Tracker at the Amgen Tour of California website. It just wasn't happening the first three stages, but on Wednesday the audio and video were coming through.
This is very cool technology, which offers live video from the route as well as audio commentary from Joe Silva and Robbie Ventura from a press room and Chris Gutowsky who is out on the course.
The one drawback is that video takes up the whole browser window, so it's pixelated and partially obscured by data fields with leading riders, route maps, elevations, etc. I'd like the option of putting the video by itself in a small window. I wrote about Tour Tracker and other ways to watch the Tour at “Live online Tour of California video, course maps, and updates.”
The Top 10 overall:
1. Levi Leipheimer (USA) Discovery Channel
2. Jens Voigt (Ger) Team CSC — 3 seconds behind
3. Rory Sutherland (Aus) Health Net — 15 seconds
4. Christopher Horner (USA) Predictor-Lotto — 16 seconds
5. Mauricio Alberto Ardila Cano (Col) Rabobank — 17 seconds
6. Ben Day (Aus) Navigators — 18 seconds
7. Ryder Hesjedal (Can) Health Net — 19 seconds
8. Michael Rogers (Aus) T-Mobile
9. Sergey Lagutin (Uzb) Navigators — 20 seconds
10. Stuart O'Grady (Aus) CSC
Some other notable US riders:
13. Bobby Julich (CSC) — 24 seconds
14. Chris Baldwin (Toyota) — 24 seconds
16. Christian Vandevelde (Team CSC) — 27 seconds
20. Jason McCartney (Discovery) — 29 seconds
41. George Hincapie (Discovery) — 3:15
48. Fred Rodriguez (Predictor-Lotto) — 3:27
68. Jason Donald (Slipstream) — 3:50
75. Tom Danielson (Discovery) — 10.11
King of Mountain: Thomas Peterson (USA) Slistream
Sprint: Allan Davis (Aus) Discovery
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