Tour de Georgia weblog

Vinokourov trades Georgia for Liege-Bastogne-Liege

CNN.com | Vinokourov will defend Liege title

Alexandre Vinokourov has switched gears, and will defend his 2005 win at Liège-Bastogne-Liège April 23rd. As the new leader of Liberty Seguros, Vinokourov had originally planned to ride the Tour de Georgia in late April.

After the Vuelta a Castilla y León, which Vinokourov is currently leading, Vinokourov will be racing only at LBL and at the Dauphiné Libéré starting June 5 before the Tour begins in Strasbourg July 1.

Quick Step, Davitamon-Lotto to line up at Tour de Georgia

Rome News - Tribune | Tour de Georgia 2006 announces teams

Look for 6 ProTour teams in this year's Tour de Georgia, running April 18 - April 23 in my backyard.

Team CSC, Discovery Channel, Phonak, and Prodir-Saunier Duval, returning from last year, are joined by Davitamon-Lotto, who will probably bring Chris Horner and Fast Freddy Rodriguez, and Quick Step-Innergetic could bring “American” Guido Trenti; we'll see about Bettini, Boonen, and Milan-San Remo winner Filippo Pozzato. Defending champ Tom Danielson of Discovery and Floyd Landis of Phonak are early commitments.

Medalist Sports expects Yaroslav Popovych, Trent Lowe (now with Discovery after winning best young rider at last year's race), and Viatcheslav Ekimov to also appear for Discovery Channel. Full rosters are still a couple of weeks away.

Two Pro Continental teams return: HealthNet-Maxxis and Navigators, and 7 UCI Continental teams fill out the field: Colavita-Sutter Home, Jelly Belly, Jittery Joe's-Zero Gravity, Kodakgallery.com-Sierra Nevada, Targetraining, Team TIAA-CREF, and Toyota-United.

Floyd lands Paris-Nice

VeloNews | Landis triumphs at Paris-Nice

The World's Fastest Mennonite has done it again, adding the Paris-Nice title to his freshly won overall at the Tour of California.

Markus Zberg took the final stage, fighting back to Evgeni Petrov and Alberto Contador after getting dropped, then beating both to the line.

Landis said the victory was a confidence-builder for Phonak, who showed they could defend a leader's jersey, in a race not ideally fit to his strengths:

"It was a difficult race to win because there were no mountaintop finishes and there were no long time trials," Landis said. "In some ways I was lucky. I had a good day on a very difficult stage. At the Tour, you don't get lucky and win. You have to be good every day for three weeks."

The next races on Landis' calendar are the Criterium International, the Tour de Georgia, and the Giro d'Italia.

Patxi Vila was 2nd overall, and Antonio Colom, who soloed away from the field late Sunday to move up the leaderboard, took 3rd overall.

Bobby Julich didn't start Sunday's last stage, after crashing on Saturday. Tom Boonen is looking ahead to Milan-San Remo this weekend, and decided a day with 4 categorized climbs might take a little too much out of his legs.

Update: USA Today named Landis its U.S. Olympic Athlete of the Week for the win.

Also:

cyclingnews.com | Paris-Nice Stage 7: A new American hero

Daily Peloton | Paris Nice Final

Phonak Cycling Team | Floyd Landis: “This is my greatest triumph”

Photos:

GrahamWatson.com | Paris-Nice Stage 7 photo gallery

cyclingnews.com | Paris-Nice Stage 7 photo gallery

Tour de Georgia routes finalized

Macon Telegraph | Organizers reveal Tour de Georgia details

The Tour de Georgia is just over a month away, and rather than suffering from the addition of the Tour of California to the US racing schedule, my local chance to see the Euro-pros looks to be getting along great.

The Macon Telegraph reports Stage 1 is a near-clone of last year's opener from Augusta to Macon, and that Stage 1 will be accompanied by 2 criteriums (sorry, Latin teachers) in downtown Macon (such as it is).

Also, Discovery Channel has announced that not only will its team be there, with defending TdG champion Tom Danielson, but that they're helping sponsor the race, the first time they have. They'll be spotlighting a presentation called “The Race to Replace,” looking at how the team is trying to fill the void left by Lance Armstrong's retirement.

The Telegraph story says CSC and Phonak will definitely join Discovery on the start line, then lists individual riders they hope to sign, including Liberty Seguros' Alexandre Vinokourov and Quick Step's Tom Boonen.

On to a little wild-eyed speculation:

There is even a chance that Lance Armstrong, who retired after winning his seventh Tour de France last summer, may ride in the event. Chris Aronhalt, spokesman for Tour organizer Medalist Sports, said the Tour's ties to the Georgia Cancer Coalition may lure Armstrong back to the bike.

Here are PDFs with the route for each stage:
Stage 1 - Augusta to Macon
Stage 2 - Fayetteville to Rome
Stage 3 - Chickamauga to Chattanooga, TN
Stage 4 - Dalton to Dahlonega
Stage 5 - Blairsville to Brasstown Bald
Stage 6 - Cumming to Alpharetta

This is a great chance to get up close and personal with many of the world's best riders. Y'all come!

Here are my photo galleries from last year:

Stage 4
Stage 5
Stage 6