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Down but not out: Leipheimer leads Amgen Tour despite crash
Brown proves fastest finisher in Santa Rosa
For the second year in a row, American Levi Leipheimer took the podium of the Amgen Tour of California as the race leader in his hometown of Santa Rosa. This year, however, it wasn’t under circumstances the Discovery Channel rider would have chosen.
Australian sprinter Graeme Brown (Rabobank) won Monday's Stage 1 after Leipheimer went down in a 50-rider pile-up with two 3-mile laps of a downtown finishing circuit remaining in the 156.4km stage.
While Brown edged a fast-closing Greg Henderson (T-Mobile) by mere centimeters with Allan Davis (Discovery Channel) third, rounding out an all-Southern Hemisphere podium, Leipheimer was picking himself up off the deck and chasing to save his overall lead. He finished with a group that crossed the line more than a minute down on the front group of about 40 riders, which would ordinarily have cost him the overall lead. But the race commissaires ultimately decided to grant all finishers the same time, keeping the Discovery rider in the yellow jersey.
Typically, crashes that occur within the final 3km result in an automatic same-time designation; this ruling was based solely on the commissaires’ discretion. Had the original finishing results stood, Priority Health’s Ben Jacques-Maynes would have taken the jersey based on his finish in the front group.
Jacques-Maynes had no comment, but his team manager Mark Olson said the team would respect the commissaires’ decision.
"Ben rode in good position, and that kept him out of that crash," Olson said. "Now he’s being penalized. I applaud Ben for riding with the best in the world, and it would have been a tremendous reward for us and our sponsors, but at the end of the day, it’s a tough call. And I’m not the type that’s going to go hammer on the commissaires.
"A lot of guys went down in that crash, and we could have just as easily been on the wrong side of that. As hard as it is to swallow, it’s part of racing."
Only about 40 riders escaped unscathed from the huge pile-up, which brought the rest of the race to a complete standstill. Huge crowds had packed the finishing circuit to cheer on their hometown rider, and when the yellow jersey went down the collective gasp was audible.
Leipheimer quickly regrouped and took up the chase with the assistance of teammate and national road champion George Hincapie. But their chase group, about 30 riders strong, could not close the 60-second gap as Quick Step and T-Mobile riders drove the lead bunch. Behind Leipheimer’s group was a third group, a further 30 seconds down. And behind them, the tattered splinters of the field limped home individually or in small groups. The casualties included Ivan Basso (Discovery), who may have injured his left knee, and second-placed Jason Donald (Slipstream-Chipotle), the revelation of Sunday's prologue.
After the dust cleared and all the bloodied riders had crossed the line, the general-classification podium remained unchanged, with Leipheimer followed by Donald and Jacques-Maynes.
Two of the day’s competitions were decided before the finish. Slipstream’s Thomas Peterson took the King of the Mountains jersey. Sitting in second place after the prologue, Peterson managed to take second in the both KOM sprints of the day, each time behind Quick Step-Innergetic’s Jurgen Van De Walle. The sprint jersey went to Discovery’s Allan Davis, who handily snatched up the first two sprints.
How it played out
After an unusual day of domestic riders upsetting ProTour racers in the prologue, the peloton’s balance of power returned to normal soon after the race rolled away from its sunny start in the San Francisco Bay town of Sausalito. With the Golden Gate Bridge across the bay behind him, world champion Paolo Bettini was mobbed by fans from the moment he stepped out of his team bus until he rolled away from the start. Hundreds of fans milled around the team-bus area, giving the event the feel of a mid-sized European race.
But the Amgen Tour is very much an American race, and the Discovery Channel team got things under way by leading the peloton north, up through some tight winding hills under dark tree canopies before rolling onto the Pacific Coast Highway and into a wailing headwind.
As this was the first road race for many riders this season, there was a lot of pulling over to adjust brake pads, brake calipers, computer fork mounts and more.
While fate had smiled on domestic team Priority Health during yesterday’s prologue, it cursed the young pro squad throughout the first stage, beginning before the day’s first real climb just a few miles in. Brian Sheedy, the surprise winner of yesterday’s KOM jersey in the team’s Tour of California debut, flatted at the bottom of the ascent to the Mt. Tam KOM. It would be the first of at least seven flats for the team, which also suffered multiple crashes, one badly injured rider and six riders who were permanently dropped from the main field before the peloton entered Santa Rosa. And the worst was still to come.
As riders ascended the hill towards Mt. Tam, riders cleared the forest for a cloudless view of San Francisco Bay to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Priority Health’s Sheedy, wearing the climber’s jersey, finally rejoined the peloton with five miles to go to the KOM as Discovery continued to drive the pace past scores of spectators, many in club team kit.
Quick Step’s Van De Walle took the KOM, whose remote location atop a peak in the Muir Woods National Monument proved no obstacle to the hundreds of fans packing the mossy rocks between the tall pines. Many were there to cheer for Peterson, the top under-23 rider at last year’s race, who nabbed second ahead of Gerolsteiner’s Oliver Zaugg. Coming into the day second in KOM points, Peterson looked good going into the day’s final KOM climb at mile 65.
Although suffering the occasional flat, the ProTour riders in attendance seemed to be enjoying themselves. Bettini often lounged comfortably at the back — even pushing other riders up the KOM hill — and T-Mobile, Quick Step and CSC riders pulled over for nature breaks just kilometers before the first of three bonus sprints sandwiched between the day’s two KOM climbs.
With Discovery setting tempo for most of the day into the stiff wind, life was largely good for Tour de France stars such as Stuart O’Grady, Fabian Cancellara and Bobby Julich (CSC), and Thor Hushovd (Crédit Agricole).
Flying down the ensuing descent, the action began. Four ProTour riders went clear, joined by two Slipstream-Chipotle men. Down alongside the water, Priority Health’s Ken Omer crashed, taking down teammate Emile Abraham and CSC’s Christian Vande Velde. Vande Velde wasn’t seriously injured, and used the opportunity to take a nature break, but Abraham lay on the ground, receiving medical attention, before getting on a new bike and starting to chase.
Ahead, the break was caught and the peloton sat up. Despite the raging wind, Colavita’s Alejandro Acton decided to have a go alone, and quickly established a 20-second gap. At 21 miles in he had half a minute on the field. Slipstream had other plans, and hit the front.
At the first sprint Davis crossed the line ahead of teammate Hincapie and Health Net-Maxxis’s Karl Menzies. Then Davis took the second sprint, this time ahead of Hilton Clarke (Navigators) and Acton.
As the race wound north along Pacific Coast Highway, echelons began to form in the cross/headwinds, and a few of the young USA Cycling development riders were dispatched.
Colavita then sent another rider on a solo mission, this time Davide Frattini, who held his gap until the third and final sprint, where the remaining points were taken by Acton and Discovery’s Brian Vandborg.
Barreling along just feet from the Pacific’s crashing waves, Frattini held his lead for another few miles. But as the route turned inland and sharply up, Discovery put Basso on the front and Frattini was brought to heel.
Heading up the steep, single-lane climb, riders stood to muscle their smallest gears at its steepest pitch, about 1.5km from the KOM. Crowds packed the hillside, some dressed as pirates or frogs, and seemingly all clanging bells.
Surrounded by ProTour riders, Peterson heard his team director Vaughters over the radio.
"I heard in my ear, ‘If you think you can attack and get the KOM, go for it,’" Peterson said. "So I went a little harder and a few guys came with me."
Those few guys were Van De Walle — who netted the jersey awarded the most aggressive rider for his near-constant activity on or off the front — T-Mobile’s Adam Hansen and Rabobank’s Theo Eltink. The quartet kept its momentum over the top of the hill, where Van De Walle again bested Peterson. Their aggression shelled a few dozen riders on the climb.
Coming down the other side, BMC’s first-year pro Scott Nydam and CSC’s Dave Zabriskie went down. The CSC rider hit his head on the pavement, and went to the hospital. He was later released after X-rays found no serious damage.
Back off the front, the four leaders inched their advantage up to nearly a minute as the race plunged through vineyards and headed inland. But with about 20km to go, the break was caught and most of the dropped riders rejoined.
Coming into Santa Rosa, T-Mobile and Discovery took up positions at the front. As the race screamed into town in front of thousands of noisy fans, T-Mobile strung out the field single file, bringing the pace up to 60kph on the straights. Occasionally Quick Step and CSC riders would take a turn to keep the pace dialed. Despite only a few minutes of recovery in the pack, Quick Step’s Van De Walle again went to work, this time on the front for Bettini.
Then, as it began the second lap, the peloton exploded.
T-Mobile’s Gerald Ciolek — the promising 20-year-old who beat veteran German sprinter Erik Zabel at the 2005 German national championships — hit one of the numerous traffic dots on the course. Sitting about six riders from the front, Ciolek’s hand slipped off his bars as his wheel jerked sideways. His falling body took out Quick Step’s Matteo Tosatto to his right, and the pair caused a huge high-speed pile-up.
Predictor-Lotto’s three-time U.S. national champion, Freddie Rodriguez, managed to skirt the mayhem.
"I keep going back to the analogy of NASCAR," said Rodriguez, who finished fifth. "When you see the big ball of fire and smoke and come out the other side, that was me. My teammates on both sides were just crashing."
Those teammates were fellow American Chris Horner and Nick Gates. The Australian remounted to finish but later went to the hospital.
As those left upright stormed towards the finish, Brown grabbed the wheel of teammate Matt Hayman with 1km to go.
"I just said to him, ‘Be first out of the corner,’ and that’s exactly what he did," Brown said. "I hit out just before the crest of the hill, and it worked well."
T-Mobile’s Henderson, who lost the sprint by perhaps 4cm, was in good spirits after the finish, joking around with Brown, a long-time friend.
"Someone clipped my handlebars with about 250m to go and Brownie got a little gap there," Henderson said. "So I had a good gap to close. I got up to his wheel and started to come around but ran out of room."
The aftermath
The crash wasn’t what had riders, managers and fans talking after the race. Instead it was the commissaires’ failure to neutralize the finishing circuit while the race was ongoing, and then to give all finishers the same time despite the large gaps.
Some were diplomatic. Others, like Jacques-Maynes, who effectively saw the yellow jersey taken away by the decision, had no official comment. A few were a bit more vocal.
"To me, it doesn’t matter who gains or who loses — the rules are clear," said T-Mobile general manager Bob Stapleton about the 3km-to-go UCI rule and the crash that occurred well outside that cutoff point. "I don’t know what their process was, but it looks a little like hometown favoritism."
Race director Jim Birrell said it was a tough call to make.
You just race to make sure that no one is hurt," he said. "You want to make sure everyone can get back up on their bike, and that we don’t cause an accident while we’re trying to help the accident."
Birrell said he and the commissaires declined to neutralize the race when they felt they could get the injured riders — and the on-course ambulance — up and away before the leaders came back through the start/finish.
For his part, Leipheimer was conciliatory.
"Obviously the decision is good for me, but I think most of the riders would be happy with it," he said. "We come on to these circuits, there are metal blocks on the course, there’s not much space, the sprinters are fighting, the GC guys have to stay at the front. They don’t want me there and I don’t want to be there. It’s dangerous. You don’t see these circuits at the Tour de France, the Tour of Italy, and there is a reason for that."
Leipheimer also said he was sad that Zabriskie had crashed out, as he considered the CSC man the favorite for the overall.
CSC boss Bjarne Riis was not with the team in Santa Rosa. But team representatives questioned what kind of precedent the decision would set.
"Will this rule be applied every time there is a crash?" said Team CSC press manager Brian Nygaard. "People might crash tomorrow. Will the results be neutralized? There is a reason why the rules exist as they are. No one should benefit from a crash, that’s not what we are saying, but the rules should make sense to everyone."
Slipstream director Vaughters took the middle road. "I can see both sides," he said. "On one side, that’s bike racing. If you’re at the front, you’re at the front, and if you’re not, you’re not, and crashes happen. On the other side, that was a pretty extreme case. Over the half the field went down. It’s kind of like when 80 guys miss the time cut, they let them keep racing. I can see both sides."
In the end, it is not the opinions of racers or managers that matter, but the call of the officials. And so, on Tuesday, most of the field will return to race, with 15 of the top 20 GC spots held by ProTour racers.
Stage 2 will take riders away from Santa Rosa on a 116-mile jaunt that includes a few thousand feet of climbing before a long, flat run-in to Sacramento. VeloNews.com’s live coverage will begin a few minutes before the race starts at 10 a.m. PST.
VeloNews senior writer Neal Rogers contributed to this stage report.
Amgen Tour of California
Stage 1 top 10
1. Graeme Brown (Aus), Rabobank, 97 miles in 4:17.19
2. Greg Henderson (NZL), T-Mobile
3. Allan Davis (Aus), Discovery Channel
4. Thor Hushovd (Nor), Credit Agricole
5. Fred Rodriguez (USA), Predictor-Lotto
6. Stuart O’Grady (Aus), CSC
7. Peter Wrolich (Aut), Gerolsteiner
8. J.J. Haedo (Arg), CSC
9. Sébastien Hinault (F), Credit Agricole
10. David Vitoria (Swi), BMC, all same time
Overall classification
1. Levi Leipheimer (USA), Discovery Channel, 4:22.08
2. Jason Donald (USA), Slipstream-Chipotle, at 0:01
3. Ben Jacques-Maynes (USA), Priority Health, at 0:05
4. Fabian Cancellara (Swi), CSC, at 0:06
5. George Hincapie (USA), Discovery
6. Adam Hansen (Aus), T-Mobile, all s.t.
7. Mauricio Alberto Ardila Cano (Col), Rabobank, at 0:07
8. Ben Day (Aus), Navigators, at 0:08
9. Ryder Hesjedal (Can), Health Net-Maxxis, at 0:09
10. Michael Rogers (Aus), T-Mobile, s.t.
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