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At some point on Saturday, the Discovery Channel cyclists must have been wondering how many challengers they had to contain to win the Amgen Tour of California for Levi Leipheimer.
While they kept Team CSC's 2nd place Jens Voigt neutralized on the 105-mile stage from Santa Barbara to Santa Clarita, his 5th place teammate Stuart O'Grady jumped onto a breakaway and nearly stole the race.
The Australian rider on Team CSC was 1:20 behind Leipheimer in the General Classification on Saturday morning, and suddenly he and eight other riders in the breakaway had a 3-minute gap on the peloton.
With about 40 miles to go, Discovery's George Hincapie, who crashed early in the stage and injured his wrist, came to the front of the peloton and started driving. He was joined principally by Tom Danielson and Ivan Basso. Leipheimer sat behind his teammates, and Voight, his teammate Bobby Julich (4th place overall), and the rest of the racers sat back to see if Discovery could catch up.
The hard work by Discovery pulled O'Grady into a virtual tie with Leipheimer with about 16 miles to go to the finish. CyclingNews noted that O'Grady and another rider took such hard pulls on the breakaway that it split apart, which damaged its effectiveness to stay ahead of Discovery.
With HealthNet coming to the front to help Discovery, the break was caught on the streets of Santa Clarita with less than two miles left. Then the effort immediately went to setting up for a sprint finish.
Argentine sprinter J.J. Haedo crossed the line first, taking his second stage win for Team CSC. That matches his success on the Toyota United team last year, when he won two stages at the Tour of California.
One more stage to go, and if Leipheimer holds onto his lead he'll have the golden jersey from the beginning to the end of this 2nd Tour of California.
The final stage on Sunday is a 77-mile flat circuit race in Long Beach, comprising 10 laps. It starts at 1 p.m. (PT) and is expected to finish at 3:46 p.m. Versus is scheduled to carry the race from 2 – 4 p.m. (PT) (5-7 p.m. ET).
The top 10 in overall standings are:
1. Levi Leipheimer (USA), Discovery Channel
2. Jens Voigt (G), CSC — 21 seconds behind
3. Jason McCartney (USA), Discovery Channel — 54 seconds
4. Bobby Julich (USA), CSC — 1:06
5. Stuart O'Grady (Aus), CSC — 1:16
6. Christian Vande Velde (USA), CSC — 1:24
7. Michael Rogers (Aus), T-Mobile — 1:32
8. Ben Day (Aus), Navigators Insurance — 1:38
9. Franco Pellizotti (I), Liquigas-Bianchi — 1:41
10. Ryder Hesjedal (Can), Health Net-Maxxis — 1:57
More results at VeloNews and CyclingNews.
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