Leipheimer climbs hill the fastest
Levi Leipheimer won the Amgen Tour of California’s opening prologue Sunday, riding emotionally from the flat streets at the Embarcadero and straight uphill 1.9 miles to Coit Tower.
Burdening him during his ride of 4 minutes 49.050 seconds were the expectations put on the shoulders of the 33-year-old veteran whose team, Discovery Channel, will soon be without a sponsor and whose sport, cycling, has been pierced with a flood of bad news and controversial drug testing results.
Finishing second was Jason Donald, a rookie rider for Team Slipstream-Chipotle, who was driving a trash truck last year and whose self-deprecating humor covered only a little of his bubbling excitement over finishing ahead of such distinguished riders as Ivan Basso, George Hincapie, reigning world time trial champion Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland and world and Olympic road race champion Paolo Bettini of Italy.
Different expectations, same reaction at the end. Howls of exhausted joy and kisses and hugs from the families.
Crowds estimated by local authorities as 280,000 to 300,000 lined the streets of Telegraph Hill and crowded the Embarcadero on a day of warm temperatures and clear skies on this first of eight stages. The 650-mile trip will end Sunday in Long Beach.
Leipheimer started last because he won the same stage last year during the inaugural event. It was almost a punishment.
His target was Donald’s time of 4:50.497. Donald, of Winter Park, Colo., started seventh and 143 riders were to follow, including all the race favorites. But about halfway through the start list, the winds shifted. What had been gusts that helped push the racers up Telegraph Hill became cruel headwinds.
As Leipheimer climbed the hill, his team technical director Johan Bruyneel spoke into his earpiece and told him of the shifts. “I said, ‘Don’t tell me this stuff.’ I feel great, I don’t want any negative thoughts floating around my head,” Leipheimer said. “It was a surprise nobody else beat [Donald’s] time, but I didn’t want to know that.”
Donald, 27, is a novice at this big-race attention. Manager Jonathan Vaughters recruited him to Slipstream last summer. Until then Donald was scraping to make a little money racing in small U.S. events and, he said, being supported by his wife, Kirstin, who is an auditor.
While Vaughters’ team isn’t overflowing with the $15 million a year that sponsors such as cable network Discovery Channel have lavished on their teams, Donald is still wide-eyed at the perks he’s getting.
“My first training camp with Slipstream, they hand me a sandwich and tell me to come back in two hours for a massage,” Donald said. “Yeah, that’s hard for me to take.”
Vaughters, a former cyclist who rode for U.S. teams that starred Lance Armstrong, is promoting his Slipstream organization as one that is built to nurture young American cyclists and be proactive in drug testing, taking doping samples from his racers dozens of times each month.
Slipstream is a level below teams such as Discovery and does not qualify, for example, for the Tour de France. But Vaughters has been lobbying European race directors to offer his team wild-card invitations into smaller events. His sales pitch goes something like this:
“New team, fresh faces, all young riders, very firm ethical stance,” Vaughters said. “We’re not going to go about it the old school way. We’re doing it our way. Not everybody appreciates that. Some do.”
Leipheimer, who has finished three times in the top 10 of the Tour de France and is a favorite to succeed Floyd Landis as the winner of the Tour of California when it ends Sunday in Long Beach, is trying to make a pitch for his more accomplished outfit.
The top United States-based team is scrambling to find new sponsorship after receiving the news two weeks ago that Discovery Channel will not renew its contract after the 2007 season.
“I’ve always said I wanted to win this race,” Leipheimer said. “It’s important to me personally, but it’s more important to Discovery Channel as a team. We need to come out swinging for 2007.”
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Tracking the riders
New technology allows cycling fans to follow the locations of riders online during the race in near real time. Some of the web features that can be found on latimes.com/tourofcalifornia:
Course details, video
This site shows today’s course and follows select racers in near real time as they move over the course from Sausalito to Santa Rosa. It also offers live video, course elevation and information on the riders and teams.
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Near real time course tracking ‘fly through’
Using Google maps or downloading more sophisticated Google Earth software allows fans online different levels of detail of the race. The view below can be zoomed in or out to show one rider, the peloton, or the entire field.
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Sample image for display purposes
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Sources: AEG, Amgen Tour of California