Ending his quiet spring, American Christian Vande Velde of the Garmin-Slipstream pro cycling team won Stage 4 of the Paris-Nice bicycle race on Wednesday.
The Illinois cyclist joined a breakaway early in the 107-mile race from Vichy to St. Etienne and attacked on the sixth, and final climb of the day to ride away to a solo victory.
It was just what he needed, after crashing in the opening time trial and losing more than two minutes in Tuesday's rainy stage. Team manager Jonathan Vaughters said:
“Psychologically, he works so much on confidence and morale. It is so easy for him to begin to doubt (himself). … It's an incredible win foreshadowing what can happen later this season. He has shown that he is a very strong rider. Now we will see a different Christian Vande Velde.”
Frenchman Sylvain Chavenal held onto his overall leader's jersey, in spite of an attack by Astana's Alberto Contador who tried to win it back.
Vande Velde
After a series of wins and high finishes in his break-out year of 2008, Vande Velde finished 27th overall in the Amgen Tour of California last month. Part of that might be due to helping teammate David Zabriskie retain his overall podium finish in that race.
But facing six category-3 climbs on Wednesday in France, Vande Velde joined a breakaway of seven cyclists early in the race and pushed the pace.
He attacked the remnants of that group on the slopes of Côte de Rochetaillée with about 11 miles to go, then battled to stay ahead of a chase group of four. He finished 14 seconds ahead of France's Jonathan Hivert (Skil-Shimano).
Battle for yellow
Meanwhile, Contador tried to put some time on Chavenal to win back the yellow jersey. Apparently Team Astana was “caught napping” on Tuesday's stage, which left Contador isolated at a crucial point in the stage.
On Wednesday, Contador attacked on that final hill and beat Chavenal across the line by about 19 seconds. That moved him into fourth place, 36 seconds behind the leader. Even though he was the race, Vande Velde is in 34th place overall, 3:02 behind the leader.
Top 10 overall
1 Sylvain Chavanel (Fra) Quick Step
2 Juan Manuel Garate (Spa) Rabobank 6 second behind
3 Juan Antonio Flecha (Spa) Rabobank 36 seconds behind
4 Alberto Contador (Spa) Astana same
5 Kevin Seeldrayers (Bel) Quick Step 37 seconds
6 Luis-Leon Sanchez (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne 45 seconds
7 David Millar (GBr) Garmin – Slipstream 50 seconds
8 Antonio Colom (Spa) Team Katusha 55 seconds
9 Vladimir Karpets (Rus) Team Katusha 57 seconds
10 Jens Voigt (Ger) Team Saxo Bank 1.03 seconds
More results and race report at CyclingNews.
Photo above from Garmin Slipstream at flickr.com
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