Skip to main content

Weekend Racing Update - September 17th, 2007

Vuelta de Espana:
Today (the 17th) is the second race day. 

Over the weekend, Saturday's race started with the news that Michael Blaudzun of CSC and Carlos Castano of Karpin Galicia dropped out of the race due to injuries sustained during 

Friday's stage. 
Saturday's stage saw many early attempts at a break, but nothing stuck until the 66km mark, when a group of 11 riders went off the front. By 92km, they had built their lead up to 5 and a half minutes and they got as far as 7 and a half minutes up by the 163km point. 

During the last climb, with 20km to go, the lead pack started to splinter as individual riders made attacks. It was not until they passed the summit, with 15km to go, that Jason McCartney (Discovery Channel) and two others got away. McCartney pushed as hard as he could to get away, and enjoyed a 41 second lead with 5km to go. He held on to win the stage over Thomas Lokvist by 28 seconds. 

Sunday's stage saw an early breakaway of 20 riders at the 50km mark. The group worked well together and led by over 4 minutes just 27km later. At the day's second climb, the teams of the race leaders sent domestiques to attack the break and whittled their lead down to 3 minutes, and then 2 minutes. 

By the third climb, some of those sent to attack the break and those who didn't get swallowed up on the climbs started to work together. Carlos Sastre, Denis Menchov, Cadel Evans, Vladimir Efimkin and Samuel Sanchez came to the front of the peloton. 
Sanchez was the man who had the guts to descend hard and fast today and came to the lead. He was challenged by Beltran, but won out in the two-man sprint to take the stage. I'm sure the crowds went wild over a countryman taking the stage.

Denis Menchov continues to lead the G.C., but Sanchez's performance Sunday was enough to bump Miquez out of the top 5. 

Tour of Missouri:
Luciano Andre Pagliarini Mendonca of Saunier-Duval takes the stage while Hincapie holds on to the overall lead.

Danny Pate survivies a long breakaway to win on Saturday. Hincapie still at the top of the G.C.

Hincapie just needed to keep pace with the peloton to win the overall race, but there was a lot of action amongst those looking for a stage win or a chance to move up in the G.C. 
Ivan Dominquez of Toyota-United won the final sprint, and his second stage, after Brad Huff crashed out. Love this picture and caption.

As expected, Hincapie took the overall win. There was a special farewell presentation at the end for the Discovery Channel team, with members from the Motorola, US Postal and 7-Eleven teams. 

Popular posts from this blog

Vuelta Stages 8 to 10, plus other news

Today is a rest day at the Vuelta. I took my rest day yesterday, so here is all of the information from the last 3 stages.  Stage 8: Bert Grabsch of T-Mobile sets a blistering pace of 55 km/h to win Saturday's individual time trial. Laszlo Bodrogi took second and Stijn Devolder got third. Devolder made up enough time to cruise by Denis Menchov in the G.C. Devolder has a 30 second lead, with Menchov, Efimkin, Evans and Monfort rounding out the Top 5. Stage 9: Saunier-Duval's Leonardo Piepoli survived a number of attacks to take Sunday's stage. Denis Menchov was in there with him up until the end, but did not fight for the stage win, as he knew that he would still end up in the golden jersey at the end of the day. Stijn Devolder had a bad day, losing 5 minutes off of the leaders. For the stage, the leaders were Piepoli, Menchov, Miquez, Sastre and Zaugg. The G.C. is now led by Menchov. Previous leader Vladimir Efimkin in second, though a little over 2 minutes behind. Cadel Ev

Tour of America Coming in 2008?

Do you have some sea salt on hand? Okay, pop a grain into your hand. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, we can report that there is talk of a country-spanning Tour of America being planned for 2008. This web site has preliminary information about the race. The race is said to have 27 stages that will be contested over 30days. It would start in New York and finish up on the west coast, winding through as many as 22 states. They seem to be tying it into 9/11 as they are trying to start close to that date and the first stage is said to complete at Ground Zero.  They are offering $11 million in prize money, with $1 million going to the overall winner. They expect to invite the top teams in the world to come to the race.  I'm all for this. I'm ready to sign up and volunteer, as it looks like a stage will be passing right through my area.  Joe Lindsey, writer of the Boulder Report blog at Bicycling.com is thinking "What the... ?" There are some things that cas

It's The Beginning of the End for Floyd Landis

The Floyd Watch is at Day 79. At this point, even the arbitrators may not know how they are going to decide on the Floyd Landis case, but they only have 10 days from this point to publish a decision. Today is the day that the arbitrators are scheduled to meet with their technical advisor, Dr. Franceso Botre. This is said to be the last step necessary to close the hearing, but as I have said earlier, there's nothing to stop the panel from calling one last meeting before they issue their decision. Once the hearing is closed, they have 10 days to issue a decision.  10 business days from today is September 25th. I'm still hoping to hear something by the end of the month.  Of course, regardless of the decision, the whole thing is very likely far from over. It's already been stated that the losing party, whoever that may be, will appeal. Then we can start all over. It's been said that Floyd is nearly out of money. Any appeal is going to cost him money, and even if he wins thi