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American ProTour team leaders set to square off in Georgia
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The Dodge Tour de Georgia, the biggest stage race of the 2005 domestic road-racing season — with what is arguably the most competitive field in North American history — is set to begin Tuesday morning in Augusta, Georgia.
Marked by appearances from American ProTour team leaders Bobby Julich (CSC), Floyd Landis (Phonak), Levi Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner) and defending champion Lance Armstrong (Discovery Channel), the race will again serve as an early season stage racing test, with the state of Georgia as the backdrop.
It’s no overstatement to describe Lance Armstrong’s decision to return to the Dodge Tour de Georgia as monumental. Beyond the phenomenal media attention the six-time Tour de France winner’s retirement announcement has generated, the Texan’s participation makes him the hands-down favorite for the overall classification.
In just its third year, the Tour de Georgia has grown into the most important week on the North American calendar. Armstrong’s participation in 2004, along with CSC’s Julich and Jens Voigt and Italian superstar Mario Cipollini, brought the race international exposure. And when Health Net-Maxxis sprinter Gord Fraser twice won ahead of Cipollini last year, and then-domestic pro Chris Horner finished third - behind Voigt and Armstrong - it was a confirmation for many in the North American peloton that the qualitative gap between domestic and European racing was shrinking.
Cipollini’s Liquigas-Bianchi team will not participate in the race this year. Horner’s Saunier Duval-Prodir team arrives in Georgia with another charismatic Italian superstar, the retiring Andrea Tafi, in Cipollini’s place. Saunier Duval will, however, have to do without Horner, the 2003 race winner, who is recovering from a hairline fracture in his hip.
Much was made Monday about Armstrong’s announcement that he will retire following a defense of his title at the 2005 Tour de France. As for the task at hand – defending his title at the Tour de Georgia – Armstrong said he felt his fitness was on par with 12 months ago, when he won the race 24 seconds ahead of Voigt.
“I feel fine right now,” Armstrong said at his pre-race conference. “I was a little unsure about this race last year, and it ended up being successful. I would put my feeling, the sensations on the bike, at about the same place they were 12 months ago. Of course all of that isn’t much until you get in the race and actually test it against the other guys, so we’ll see. I’m excited to race, it’s a great race, it’s a great field, and I’d like to try and win again. Last year I was guarded when I said I didn’t know if I could win, and I’ll say that again.”
Armstrong is likeliest to see competition from Julich, the Olympic time trial bronze medalist and the winner of both Paris-Nice and Criterium International earlier this year. American teammates Dave Zabriskie and Christian Vande Velde will ride in support of Julich, who finished fourth in Georgia last year. Coming off a successful early season, some have questioned whether Julich can continue to hold his form through April, knowing that a break must come before he heads to the Tour de France in July.
“People don't really realize how hard it is for us to live in Europe eight months a year away from our family and friends,” Julich said of the American pros living in Europe. “To come back to America for a little break and a little rest as well… to continue our training in a race of this caliber, I think it definitely helps us. Just coming back to recharge the batteries helps. It gives us more motivation to finish the second part of our season.”
In addition to Julich, Armstrong’s former U.S. Postal teammates Landis and Leipheimer would surely love to beat their former team captain on American soil.
“This is a very special moment, with all of us leading these [ProTour] teams, I don't think you've seen that ever before,” Leiphemier said. “The fact that we're all here in Georgia and we're all motivated to race, it says a lot about the Tour de Georgia and American cycling. For me, I'm actually very proud to be a part of that.”
Both Landis and Leiphemier will ride as team leaders at the Tour de France this summer, and are expected to mount serious challenges in Georgia beginning Thursday morning, the day of the challenging 18.6-mile Rome time trial, which climbs over Mt. Alto, offering up more than 1000 feet of elevation gain. Last year’s top-three finishers after Mt. Alto held their respective positions through the end of the tour.
The race opens with a pair of relatively flat stages, a 128.9-mile stretch from Augusta to Macon, followed by a rolling 122.7-mile jaunt from Fayetteville to Rome, which will again end with the difficult finishing circuits that saw Cipollini dropped and Armstrong win a bunch sprint in 2004. Unlike last year, the Rome time trial will take place the following day, eliminating the possibility of another double-day winner, as Armstrong was last year when he beat Voigt in the time trial.
The general classification is expected to take shape after the stage 3 time trial, and those at the top of the GC will have to fight to protect their position over two very challenging days in the mountains. The first of two mountain stages, Stage 4, begins in Dalton, among the lush Appalachian Mountains, where riders will begin a steady climb up toward the ominous North Georgia Mountains lurking in the east. Before finishing 133 miles later in the gold rush mountain village of Dahlonega, the riders will have crossed five mountain passes, including the famed Three Gaps of Woody Gap, Neel’s Gap and Wolfpen Gap.
“I’ve never seen a stage like that,” Armstrong said last year after the stage from Dalton to Dahlonega. “The climbs weren’t very hard, but with the undulations early on, it was never flat. Every time you turned a corner there was another hill, another little half-mile hill. After about fifty of them, it was like, ‘That’s enough of this.’ At one point, [former world champion Mario Cipollini] came up to me and said, ‘I’ve never seen a course like this,’ and I said, ‘I know, me neither.’ It was very tough. Very tough.”
Stage 5 on Saturday, April 23, should once again present one of the more extreme days in North American stage racing when the tour heads from the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Gainesville and heads north, deeper into the mountains to its finish high atop Brasstown Bald Mountain. This 115-mile stage will separate the pack after a grueling day in the saddle and four mountain passes including the fabled Unicoi Gap and Hogpen Gap.
After riders speed down Hogpen Gap at speeds in excess of 65 miles an hour, those teams still intact will work to deliver their climbers to the base of Brasstown Bald Mountain. While considered a short climb of only 3.5 miles, intense pitch changes of up to 21 percent and wicked switchbacks make Georgia’s highest peak one of the most feared climbs in North America.
After 530 miles of racing, the sixth and final stage begins along the northeast border of Georgia in Blairsville. The route heads south into Metro Atlanta for a tough finishing circuit finale in Alpharetta after which a new race champion will don the Dodge Tour de Georgia winner’s jersey.
While three of the four ProTour team leaders are expected to occupy the final podium, there are other riders that may come to the fore. Should Armstrong find himself lacking after the time trial, all eyes will be on Armstrong’s young teammate Tom Danielson, a renowned climber who has reportedly been surpassing Armstrong’s own personal records on climbs outside of their European home in Gerona, Spain.
Also expected to make some noise is Aussie time-trial specialist Nathan O’Neill (Navigators Insurance), who now makes his home in Georgia and was disappointed to miss the race last year due to knee surgery 10 days before the start. “I am motivated,” O’Neill said. “I hope to at the least win a stage, and perhaps figure in the final GC.” O’Neill will find support from teammates Chris Baldwin and last year’s Brasstown Bald stage winner Cesar Grajales, and with three cards to play, Navigators could be a team to watch for.
Looking to upset the applecart is the domestic Health Net-Maxxis squad, which saw Fraser take the sprint jersey while Jason McCartney, now with Discovery, took the KOM title last year. With an on-form Chris Wherry, as well as super-climbers Justin England and Scott Moninger, the team will have plenty of options in the mountains, while Fraser will be flanked by sprinters Ivan Dominguez and Greg Henderson on the race’s three flat finishes.
“If we can even come close to what we did last year, we'd be very happy,” Fraser said. “It was a pleasant surprise last year. At this level, you have to take whatever you can get, and we got more than we thought we would get.”
In addition to the jerseys for the race leader, King of the Mountains and sprint points, the Dodge Tour de Georgia will again present the G.E. best young rider jersey to the highest-placed rider under 23 years old.
Returning with the French ProTour team Crédit Agricole is 2003’s best young rider Saul Raisin. A native of Dalton, Georgia, Raisin, 21, hopes to find himself among the top riders of the Tour, period.
“The Dodge Tour de Georgia is the ultimate test of endurance in the U.S.,” Raisin said, “and the ProTour teams know it. I think I am living proof that bigger races in the US help young guys get over to Europe. After the 2003 Tour de Georgia I did well in Europe, and ended up making my way up to the ProTour team this year.”
Taking the best young rider’s jersey in 2004 was bittersweet for American Kevin Bouchard-Hall, whose TIAA-CREF-U23 national teammate Craig Lewis was seriously injured during the time trial when he was struck by a vehicle on the course. Bouchard-Hall returns to the Tour de Georgia with the U23 national team, although his 23rd birthday is just three weeks before the start of the race, taking him out of the running for the best young rider jersey.
Craig, however, returns to the race with TIAA-CREF, recovered and ready to claim the prize many thought was rightfully his. And though 23-year-old Will Frischkorn will lead the developmental TIAA-CREF squad, there are a handful of talented riders on the team that can vie for the best young rider’s jersey, including Tim Duggan, David Robinson and U23 national champion Ian MacGregor.
But the TIAA-CREF team will have its hands full fending off young Aussie Trent Lowe. A former junior world champion, Lowe recently won the Oak Glen climbing stage at the Redlands Classic, finishing second overall behind Health Net’s Chris Wherry.
New in 2005 is the jersey that goes to the most aggressive rider, as determined by a panel of judges upon the completion of each day’s stage. Designated to the rider who is judged to have instigated the most attacks, breakaways or assisted their teammates to the best advantage during the stage, the jersey comes with no overall prize, but podium time each day should be incentive enough for renegade riders to make the race exciting.
In 2004, the underdog Ofoto-Lombardi Sports squad was hyper-aggressive from day one. Whether it was Tim Larkin initiating a breakaway or Jackson Stewart off on a solo tailwind flyer, the team never let up in its bid for stage wins. And while the team didn’t come away with any stage victories, the small-budget Bay Area squad made its presence known. The team returns in 2005 as Kodak Gallery-Sierra Nevada, and is as likely as any to produce the race’s most aggressive riders.START LISTBe sure to keep track of events by following the race via VeloNews.com's LIVE COVERAGE.
