Cuban cyclist Ivan Dominguez won Stage 1 of the Tour de Georgia in a bunch sprint on Monday.
While Rock Racing, High Road and Gerolsteiner battled for position at the front of the peloton, the “Cuban Missile” slipped past their sprinters and rocketed across the finish line.
Jelly Belly's Matt Rice Nicholas Sanderson and Gerolsteiner's Robert Forster finished second and third on the 70-mile stage from Tybee Island to Savannah.
Leader
As the first stage winner, Dominguez will wear the Tour de Georgia leader's jersey going into Stage 2, a 117-mile race on Tuesday from Statesboro to Augusta.
The 6th annual Tour de Georgia started with a leisurely pace up Tybee Island. The peloton headed across the causeway to Savannah where Greg Henderson of Team High Road took the first intermediate sprint.
The peloton continued a fast, but relatively uncontested, pace through the Georgia low country, looped around, and headed back toward the finish in Savannah.
Break
A six-man breakaway developed with less than 30 miles to go, and the peloton gave them a minute gap with 20 miles left in the race. The six — Garrett Peltonen (Bissell), Scott Nydam (BMC), Christian Meier (Symmetrics), Bernard Van Ulden (Jelly Belly), Ivan Stevic (Toyota United) and Frank Pipp (Health Net) — were caught however as the peloton neared Savannah.
On the run-in to town, Rock Racing took control of the peloton, apparently trying to put their sprinter Freddy Rodriguez in a position to win. The High Road team took over the train as they tried to place Henderson, then Gerolsteiner appeared in the lead with Forster.
It was Dominguez who powered to the front at the finish line, however.
The 31-year-old opened last year's inaugural Tour of Missouri in similar fashion by winning the opening stage. He also won a second Tour of Missouri stage last year, as well as a stage at the 2007 Tour of California.
Other blogs:
HealthNet's Matt Cooke is filing race posts for GamJams.net. He talks about his front wheel getting destroyed and arriving after the finish.
SpareCycles has a great photo of a triumphant Dominguez crossing the finish line. (It's good to see the SpareCycles blogger in Georgia as he widens his race coverage from California.)
Top 10 overall:
1. Ivan Dominguez (CUB), Toyota-United
2. Nicholas Sanderson (Aus), Jelly Belly, same time
3. Greg Henderson (NZl), Team High Road, ditto
4. Tyler Farrar (USA), Slipstream-Chipotle,ditto
5. Robert Forster (G), Gerolsteiner, ditto
6. Ivan Stevic (SRB), Toyota-United, ditto
7. Christian Meier (CAN), Symmetrics, ditto
8. Garrett Peltonen (USA), Bissell, ditto
9. Richard England (Aus), Bissell, ditto
10. Sergey Kudentsov (Rus), Marco Polo, ditto
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