The Cycliste Moderne, August 23, 2005

Leipheimer Holds On

Levi Leipheimer will likely have won the Tour of Germany by the time you read this. Leipheimer finished fourth on Sunday’s final stage in the mountains but managed to put another 30 seconds into Jan Ullrich. That set everything up for Monday’s 31km time trial.

Leipheimer and his Gerolsteiner team had expressed concern about whether the almost minute and a half gap that he had on Ullrich would be enough for Leipheimer to maintain the overall lead. Tuesday’s flat sprint into Bonn was unlikely to provide any opportunity for Ullrich to make up time. As such, Monday’s time trial would be decisive.

As expected, Ullrich won the stage. CSC’s Bobby Julich, who had lost significant time to Leipheimer in the first mountain stage, finished second. Leipheimer rode strongly to finish third on the stage, losing just under a minute to Ullrich. Had the stage been longer, Leipheimer very likely would have lost the overall to Ullrich who was the best time trialist in the race.

More suprising, however, was the gritty performance of Leipheimer’s teammate Georg Totschnig who managed to hold off Jorg Jaksche of Liberty Seguros and stay in third place by just six seconds. Gerolsteiner is certainly going to be pleased by the efforts of the team with riders in first and third and a significant mountain stage win.

Leipheimer has had a very strong performance this year and certainly can be happy with his performance on the bike. However, his performance in the Specialized ad campaign left something to be desired.

Young American Saul Raisin of Credit Agricole also had a strong time trial rider to solidify his top ten finish in the race.

Farrar to Cofidis

Emerging American speedster Tyler Farrar finally announced his signing with Cofidis this week. After winning the USPRO Criterium title in Downer’s Grove, Illinois on Sunday, Farrar confirmed the most poorly guarded secret in cycling. There had been much speculation as to whether he would sign with Cofidis which had started to pursue him after his success in last year’s Tour de l’Avenir. Moreover, Farrar had to address rumors early this year that he had signed with the French telephone credit team and denied that a deal was done at that time. Farrar can sprint and he can time trial. He will have the opportunity to learn from one of the best hard men in the professional peleton, Stuart O’Grady.

Domina Vacanze a new Superteam?

Lightly regarded Domina Vacanze is having an excellent transfer season which may get better still. The team which had Mario Cippolini’s former sponsor joining with the small Italian DiNardi team scored a major coup signing Italian rocket Alessandro Petacchi and several of the members of his silver lead-out train to a multiyear deal. The demise of Fassa Bortolo made the Italian speedster available.

Now European cycling outlets are linking T-Mobile’s Erik Zabel and possibly most of the German Continental Wiesenhof team with Domina Vacanze. Zabel’s arrival is supposedly tied to a new German sponsor and with Wiesenhof ending its sponsorship there has been much speculation about an Italian-German merger. On its face you wonder how two of the most dominant sprinters in the world can be on the same team.

However, the formation of the ProTour means that teams have to show up for all of the ProTour races. In the past, Italian teams were not necessarily interested in the Vuelta a Espana and the Tour de France frequently overlooked their Italian neighbors. Joining with Petacchi would give Zabel a team committed to sprinting that would get him back into the Tour de France, a race that Petacchi does not really seem to enjoy. There are more than enough races for both of them to ride and win without challenging the other. However, Milan-San Remo is a race both have won and a race they both want to win.