Tour de Georgia weblog

Leipheimer doubles up, Brajkovic holds lead

Discovery Channel's Levi Leipheimer won his second straight stage at the Tour de Georgia today, easily riding away from the field to win at Georgia's highest peak.

Next to the top was Leipheimer teammate Tom Danielson, who won the climb last year with race leader Floyd Landis shadowing his every move. This year, Discovery Channel did the shadowing, as race leader Janez Brajkovic matched CSC's Christian Vande Velde switchback for switchback. Vande Velde, just 12 seconds behind Brajkovic starting the stage, couldn't gap the young Slovenian.

Anthony Colby and Nathan O'Neill waved the flag for US-based riders, finishing 3rd and 4th, ahead of 2001 and 2003 Giro d'Italia winner Gilberto Simoni.

Top 10:
1) Levi Leipheimer, USA, Discovery Channel
2) Tom Danielson, USA, Discovery Channel
3) Anthony Colby, USA, Colavita-Sutter Home
4) Nathan O'Neill, Australia, Health Net-Maxxis
5) Gilberto Simoni, Italy, Saunier Duval
6) Alexandre Moos, Switzerland, BMC
7) Ryder Hesjedal, Canada, Health Net-Maxxis
8) John Devine, USA, U.S. developmental squad
9) Christian Vande Velde, USA, CSC
10) Janez Brajkovic, Slovenia, Discovery Channel

Brajkovic holds the race lead.

Also:

Walker County Messenger | Leipheimer goes back-to-back

Let's get to racing

Time to kick off the 2007 Tour de Georgia. Today's stage runs from Medalist Sports headquarters in Peachtree City, down to traditional Stage 1 finishing town, Macon. It's 98.5 miles in all, with 3 circuits of a 2.55-mile loop in downtown Macon expected to happen around 4:30 or 5 p.m.

Stage 1 is traditionally a field sprint after a suicide break. In 2006, Aaron Olson provided the break, and Lars Michaelsen of Team CSC won the field sprint ahead of Freddie Rodriguez and Caleb Manion. Michaelsen, in his final career race, took a special lap of honor yesterday at Paris-Roubaix, where his teammate Stuart O'Grady won the Hell of the North, the toughest of the spring classics.

I'm still a little confused on the team rosters: I found a posted copy dated April 11th, but then in Saturday's pre-race press conference, Levi Leipheimer mentioned Janez Brajkovic as a Discovery Channel rider, and he's not on that roster, so I'll wait to post a final roster link. Update: CyclingNews has a start list that looks reasonable.

Here are the big names: Leipheimer, Hincapie, Danielson for Discovery Channel; Zabriskie, Vande Velde, Haedo for Team CSC; Freddie Rodriguez, Stefano Zanini, and Nick Gates for Predictor-Lotto; 2005 Giro d'Italia winner Gilberto Simoni and David Millar of Prodir-Saunier Duval; Tyler Hamilton, back from his 2-year suspension, for Tinkoff Credit Systems; Nathan O'Neill and Ryder Hesjedal from Health Net/Maxxis; Danny Pate, Tom Peterson, and Patrick McCarty from Team Slipstream; Ivan Dominguez, Chris Baldwin, Chris Wherry, and Henk Vogels from Toyota-United; and Ben Jacques-Maynes of Priority Health.

The strongest sprinters in the field are probably Haedo, Dominguez, and Rodriguez: If you gave me three shots, those are the guys I'd pick to win today. Dominguez has been a monster domestically, and Haedo is coming off a win in the Tour of Cologne: My money's on Haedo for the win today.

The web tracker with video that made its debut for the Tour of California has been updated for the TdG, and is available at www.tourdegeorgiatracker.com. Stage starts at 1 p.m. Eastern. Here's the course map, the course profile, and the course log from the official Tour de Georgia website.

Race Previews:

VeloNews: Fifth Tour de Georgia kicks off on Monday

CyclingNews | Georgia is back, and bigger

Procycling | Who will succeed Landis?

Tour de Georgia officials, HealthNet's O'Neill injured in accident

cyclingnews.com | O'Neill, Tour de Georgia officials injured in car accident

HealthNet time trial specialist Nathan O'Neill, Tour de Georgia communications director Jackie Tyson, and the Georgia Cancer Coalition's Judy Staton were injured Tuesday afternoon when Tyson's Toyota 4Runner hit a guardrail and rolled over, after reportedly being hit from behind on I-75.

Tyson was most seriously injured in the accident in Bartow County, near Cartersville, and remains in intensive care at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. Staton is recovering at Atlanta Medical Center.

O'Neill, TT champion of Australia about a jillion times, missed the Tour of California after a training accident in Australia in January, and now looks to miss the Redlands Classic next week before returning for the Tour de Georgia next month.

They were in Chattanooga as part of a whistle-stop tour of host cities that generated this TV news item and this newspaper story about Stage 3 April 18. The tour was scheduled to visit Rome on Monday with a press conference at Rome's City Hall.

Also:

VeloNews | Georgia, U.S. Open good to go; crash injures O'Neill and others

Y'all come - 2007 Tour de Georgia gets green light

Atlanta Business Chronicle | Tour de Georgia a go, despite no title sponsor

This year's edition of the Tour de Georgia is a definite go, after organizers canvassed existing sponsors, teams, and some additional Georgia businesses to make up for the lack of a true title sponsor.

The Atlanta Business Chronicle reports that the race still faces a shortfall of around $200,000, and that organizers continue to seek “additional opportunities for fundraising.”

Among the new sponsors: Garmin, vacuum maker Bissell, and Maxxis Tires, which has previously sponsored the race's sprint lines and co-sponsored the HealthNet team.

Also:

Macon Telegraph | Tour de Ga. avoids cancellation

VeloNews | Georgia, U.S. Open good to go; crash injures O'Neill and others

TdG fixture O'Neill takes 8th Aussie TT title

Townsville Bulletin | O'Neill wins fourth title

HealthNet's Nathan O'Neill, who lives and trains in Braselton, Georgia, won his 4th consecutive Australian time trial championship this weekend.

O'Neill, who was 7th in the 2006 Tour de Georgia, now has 8 career Australian TT titles.

Karl Menzies, also of HealthNet, was 3rd in the Australian national championships on Sunday.