April 24/08 11:17 am - Tour de Georgia: Stage 4- report, photos and results

Posted by Editoress on 04/24/08
 

Tour de Georgia Georgia USA

Photos

by Amy Smolens

Postrace, Eric Wohlberg - Symmetrics

Amy Smolens: What did you think of the course today on the auto racing track at Road Atlanta?

Eric Wohlberg: Well, that was a great circuit actually. The uphills were short but they were steep, with a lot of technical sweeping corners in it and very aggressive rumble strips so we sure didn't want to get too far inside of the corners. We thought it was a good course.

AS: Did your experience in team time trials help or was some of the ProTour competition just too much?

EW: Well, we have to look at our strength across the board right now with the amount of racing we've done up to date, and I think when you take that into consideration we had a pretty solid ride. Our goal was to finish with everyone, we wanted to finish all 8 riders. You know, a lot of teams out there were burning two or three riders (off the back) in the first two laps. But we figured we'd ride a good, steady pace, keep the team together and whatever we got out of it, that's what we'd get out of it. So I think it would have been nice to have been another ten or fifteen seconds faster, but at the end of the day I think that we're happy with the ride. For the lack of TTTs we do, especially the short ones like that, we figure we're pretty happy with it. We've done some longer TTTs, 40k ones, and that's a little bit more about pacing and stuff like that. Today for ten miles basically everyone had to be pretty much right on the limit the whole time, and on a course like that if we're to drop one guy off, after the first or second lap there'd be a good chance that that guy would miss the time cut, so we didn't want to put any rider in that kind of situation today.

AS: What's left in the guys' legs and what's the plan for tomorrow's tough Stage 5, 133.4 miles from Suwanee to Dahlonega?

EW: Same as usual. We've been trying to be as aggressive as we can for those first two hours until that move goes. The last couple of days in hindsight it hasn't been any big deal because they've been basically kind of suicide moves and no team has really gotten anything out of that breakaway. Really it's just been the domestic guys that have been trying to mix it up and the big teams are sticking together then putting guys up (in front of the peloton) towards the end and bringing it back for the field sprint. We think it probably could play out the same way again tomorrow but if there's any significant move going up the road we want to be in it for sure.

AS: So as the wily veteran of Team Symmetrics, talk about what you're seeing from the young guys here so far and what you expect from them over the next few days.

EW: Oh, I think Christian (Meier) is looking good right now, Cam (Evans) has been looking good so I figure those guys are probably going to be our best hopes for Brasstown Bald (Saturday's Stage 6.) You know, Pinner (Andrew Pinfold) had been sprinting pretty good right now and we're just trying to keep the team together as much as we possibly can to try to help position our guys for the finale in the sprint and we're also trying to mark any kind of significant group or significant split that may happen in the race early on. It kind of bothers me that the only way the breakaways have really formed so far to date is because there's a small group up the road and then someone calls for a natural break or there's an accident and the field gets neutralized. That's been the only reason why any kind of break has gotten any time at all. With the stage being longer (133.4 miles) tomorrow maybe things might play a little bit different early on, but it's hard to say. High Road's got a really strong team right now and Astana definitely wants to control for Levi, so I think there will be two teams out there, the two strongest teams in particular, that are really going to try to control the race and just leave it to their climbers going up Brasstown Bald two days from now.

Report by organization
American-based Slipstream Chipotle presented by H30 averaged over 29 miles per hour en route to winning the inaugural Team Time Trial (TTT) at the Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T by four seconds over Astana (LUX). Team High Road (USA), the last team on the 2.5-mile course today, finished third at six seconds back.

"We really didn't know what to expect coming into a team time trial∑on a car and motorcycle race track like Road Atlanta," said Tom Danielson, the team leader for Slipstream Chipotle, who was the champion of the 2005 Tour de Georgia. "Honestly, it was a lot like a car race or a motorcycle race out there. Equipment, team effort, tactics were the key to our victory today."

The 2.5-mile, 12-turn race track is normally used for motor sports events such as the Petit Le Mans. While motor sports participants ride the course in a clockwise direction, pro cyclists today rode the TTT in the opposite direction. The hilly course began with a 14 percent gradient on the first climb and featured tight turns throughout. The TTT was also unique in that the riders used rode bikes instead of time trail bikes.

"This is a pretty technical course and we talked to (riders) from a lot of different teams and they felt we made the right decision to go with just their street bikes," said Jim Birrell, race director for the 2008 Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T. "I thought they would be more efficient on their street bikes than their TT bikes, with this climb and with the technical descent. What it does is give a level playing field for all riders."

Greg Henderson (NZL) of Team High Road will remain as the General Classification leader and retain the AT&T Overall Leader's Jersey for a second day. Henderson has a 15-second lead over German teammate Andre Greipel. With the win today, Slipstream's David Zabriskie moves to third overall and his teammates Danielson and Christian Vande Velde move up to fourth and fifth in the G.C., respectively. The second place showing by Astana helped two of its top American teammates move up in the G.C. as well - Levi Leipheimer to eighth and Chris Horner to ninth. George Hincapie (USA) of Team High Road is just outside the Top 10 in 12th place.

Slipstream's victory comes one day after rider Tim Duggan was injured in a crash during Stage Three of the Tour. Duggan remains in a Georgia hospital in stable condition.

"It really shook me up and almost made me feel, maybe I want to quit bike racing," said Danielson upon hearing of Duggan's crash and injuries. "But I got it together and we realized we are going to do this for Timmy. He started a new foundation called the Å’Just Go Harder Foundation', so we put that on the back of our seat posts. So while we were hurting (in the TTT) we could see just go harder. And we did, we just went harder for Timmy."

The Maxxis Sprint Leader jersey will remain with Tyler Farrar of Slipstream and the United Community Bank King of the Mountain jersey will stay with Frank Pipp of HealthNet presented by Maxxis. Rory Sutherland of Health Net was awarded the Georgia Lottery Most Aggressive Rider Jersey today and his teammate Trent Lowe (AUS) was awarded the GE Best Young Rider jersey. Lowe won the GE Best Young Rider at the 2005 Tour de Georgia.

Stage Five is the Tour's longest stage at 133.4 miles (214.7 kilometers) and is the first of two mountain stages. Riders will depart from Suwanee at 10:00 a.m., marking the first time the Tour has started in Gwinnett County. There will be three battles for UCB KOMs at Burnt Mountain, Woody Gap and Crown Mountain before reaching the finish line in Dahlonega. The course also features a Georgia Power Sprint in Cumming. It is the fourth time that Dahlonega has hosted the Tour (2004-2006), with this year's stage expected to finish between 2:50-4:15 in the afternoon.



Stage 4: Road Atlanta (TTT), 16.1km

1. Slipstream Chipotle p/b H30 (USA), 19:38.86
2. Astana (Lux), 19:40.57
3. Team High Road (USA), 19:42
4. Team CSC (Den), 19:49.58
5. BMC (Sui), 20:08.51
6. Gerolsteiner (Ger), 20:09.53
7. Health Net p/b Maxxis (USA), 20:17.72
8. Bissell (USA), 20:18.06
9. Toyota United (USA), 20:20.29
10. Rock Racing (USA), 20:29.21
11. Symmetrics (Can), 20:29.67
12. Team Type 1 (USA), 20:32.42
13. Jelly Belly (USA), 20:47.12
14. Jittery Joe's (USA), 20:57.57
15. GE Marco Polo (Chn), 20:59.41