Leipheimer goes wire to wire
Levi Leipheimer was the leader after the prologue of the 2007 Amgen Tour of California, he was the leader after the last stage Sunday in Long Beach and he was the leader of every stage in between.
Leipheimer, who is from Santa Rosa and races for the Discovery Channel team, crossed the finish line on Shoreline Drive in Long Beach safely surrounded by his blue-clad teammates and grateful to have finished what he called “one of my most satisfying racing experiences.”
His overall time of 24 hours 57.24 minutes was 21 seconds faster than German veteran Jens Voigt of CSC. Leipheimer’s Discovery Channel teammate Jason McCartney was third, 54 seconds behind.
Reaching speeds estimated at 45 mph, wrestling for every last ounce of breath he had left, Ivan Dominguez, a Cuban defector and sprint specialist now living in California, burst across the finish line to take the final stage victory.
Dominguez, who lives in Agoura Hills and races for the Torrance-based Toyota-United Pro Cycling team, just beat out Australian Graeme Brown.
“This year’s race was extremely competitive,” Leipheimer said. “All the teams really put a lot of pressure on us and without that level of competition this victory is not as satisfying. Instead it was one of our most satisfying victories because our team really had to fight hard.”
Leipheimer, who has three times finished in the top 10 of the Tour de France and who moved from the German Gerolsteiner team to the U.S.-based Discovery Channel for this season, said this was an emotional victory.
On Saturday, George Hincapie, a former Tour de France stage winner and the most well known of Lance Armstrong’s loyal teammates during his seven-year run of cycling domination, crashed and broke his wrist early in the sixth stage. Hincapie, also a Discovery Channel racer, rode nearly 100 miles with the broken bone and had surgery Sunday morning.
“George’s injury was a big bummer for us and for him,” Leipheimer said. “This race wasn’t supposed to be so difficult for us to win.”
Sunday’s final stage was a 10-lap, 77.5-mile circuit around Long Beach. The route closely followed the course of the Long Beach Grand Prix auto race, and Dominguez didn’t guarantee his win until the final second.
Dominguez, 32, grew up in Havana and began cycling when he was 13. He defected to the United States during the 1998 Goodwill Games and has been racing for U.S.-based teams ever since. He joined Toyota-United last year.
“I can tell you this crowd was huge and I just went hard the last 100 meters,” Dominguez said. “I love it here. Everyone knows I love living in the U.S. and everyone knows I wanted to be in California.”
According to race organizers, an estimated 1.6 million fans watched the eight-stage, 650-mile trip from San Francisco to Long Beach.
The Tour of California is in its second year and is owned by AEG. Shawn Hunter, president of AEG sports, says the company intends to continue its five-year plan of growing the event into a premier cycling stop.
“We are looking to expand the race from eight to 10 days next year,” Hunter said. “A mountain finish is something we’re going to look at in the next couple of years.”
Leipheimer and American Bobby Julich (CSC), who finished fourth overall, both said gaining a true mountain stage finish was important.
“A mountain finish would make it pretty exciting,” Julich said. “Do we really need one? Yeah, we do.”
Leipheimer agreed: “Fans would really like it, even if we have a shorter, uphill finish.”
Hunter said his event might become the first U.S. race to join the ProTour series that is managed by the International Cycling Union (UCI) and that AEG is interested in attracting network television to complement the broadcast efforts of the Versus channel.
Jonathan Vaughters, director of Team Slipstream and a former Tour de France racer, said the California crowds were on par with what he sees in France each summer.
“After what I’ve seen, 1.6 million spectators, it shocks me cycling isn’t a much bigger sport in the U.S. in general.”