This inaugural Amgen Tour of California is in the books now. Let's hope it forecasts great things for US cyclists this coming season.
Floyd Landis (Phonak), left, carried his 29-second lead from Wednesday's individual time trial all the way through the remaining stages to the overall win on Sunday. He's joined on the podium by David Zabriskie and Bobby Julich (both of Team CSC), who finished second and third.
Just behind, in 4th place, is George Hincapie (Discovery). The long-time teammate of Lance Armstrong found his sprinters' legs twice to win bunch sprints at the end of stages in this Tour. He wore the green Sprint competition jersey the last couple of days, losing it to Olaf Pollack (T-Mobile) when the German sprinter won his second stage in two days on Sunday in Redondo Beach.
Levi Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner) won the opening prologue and wore the leader's jersey for two days. He ends up with the King of the Mountain jersey.
Tom Peterson (TIAA-CREF) won Best Young Rider competition. He wore this jersey going into Sunday's 76-mile finale in Redondo Beach and proved his mettle when he finished the 10-lap circuit in spite of crashing early in the race.
Other US finishers in the top 10 overall standings include:
Leipheimer, 6;
Tom Danielson (Discovery), 8;
Christian Vandevelde (CSC), 9;
Jason McCarthy (Discovery), 10.
As for the Tour of California, it cracked an estimated 1 million fans on Saturday, according to AEG sports, the owners of the race. It shows there's plenty of interest in cycling in the US. Maybe that will encourage more sponsors to invest in the sport.
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