Tour of California: Hincapie Wins the Stage and Levi Makes it a Double

Results: Stage Seven: Santa Clarita – Pasadena, 150 km 

The roads were wet and there was more rain in the forecast this morning as riders lined up for the seventh and final stage of the 2008 Amgen Tour of California.  Jackets and leg warmers were abundant. 

The challenging course today would make this final stage far from just ceremonial.  Two intermediate sprints meant that the green jersey was still in contention and a final KOM climb, more than 4,800 feet up the Millcreek Summit, would still allow for some shake-up on GC.  Six five-mile laps around the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena would end today’s stage and this year’s race. 

Only 90 of the original 132 started today as that nasty flu bug continued to make its rounds through the peloton.   

Team Astana immediately took control of the pack this morning.  They were down one rider today after Vladimir Gusev crashed near the end of yesterday’s stage and broke his collarbone.  

Right away there was an attack by Doug Ollerenshaw (Rock Racing).  He was chased down and more attacks came and were caught.  After some back and forth a group of ten riders got away: George Hincapie (High Road), Jason McCartney (CSC), Yannick Talabardon (Credit Agricole), Oliver Zaugg (Gerolsteiner), Dimitri Champion (Bouygues Telecom), Danny Pate (Slipstream), Taylor Tolleson (BMC), Rory Sutherland (Health Net), Tom Zirbel (Bissell) and Michael Creed (Rock Racing). 

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2008 Amgen Tour of California – Prologue

Prologue: Palo Alto – Stanford University, 3.4 km

It was a short, flat and wickedly fast route that lay before the riders as they lined up in the starting hut today under sunny skies in Southern California to kick off the third Amgen Tour of California.

Riders began in Palo Altoand flew through a 3.4 km (2.1 mile) flat route ending with a full 360 degree loop around the Stanford Oval on the StanfordUniversitycampus before heading into the finish line.

132 riders were out to race today – 45 of them from the US.  American Levi Leipheimer (Astana) won last year’s prologue and he was the heavy favorite to take the win today as well. However, today’s short, fast course was very reminiscent of the kind of course yo’d see at an individual pursuit event on the track and Team High Road just happens to have brought with them the current world pursuit champion, Bradley Wiggins, who is sitting out the Copenhagen track world cup to be here in California.

The first rider to start today was Iker Camao of Saunier Duval-Scott. Health Net’s John Murphy came out of the gate shortly afterwards and set the fastest time with 4’04 but he didn’t hold onto the lead for very long once Dave Zabriskie (Slipstream) hit the road and set the new time to beat of 3’59.58. The saddle on Zabriskie’s bike today was decked out with an American flag – a man happy to be riding at home.

But Zabriskie’s time turned out to not be enough when Swedish rider Gustav Larsson (CSC) shaved a few tenths of second off of his time hitting the line at 3.59.19.

An American favorite, Tom Danielson (Slipstream) has been struggling with some injury and illness, and was supposed to be in Europe racing this month but his team decided this would be a better race for him. He rode a time of 4’11. And his former Discovery teammate, Jason McCartney, now riding with Team CSC, clocked in at 4’10.52.

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