Nebraska Cycling News

Vande Velde 36th in 267-Kilometer Road Race; Team USA Closes 2007 with Medals in all Six Major UCI World's

Stuttgart, Germany - The 2007 UCI Road World Championships came to a conclusion on Sunday when George Hincapie (Greenville, S.C./Discovery Channel) recorded the best finish for the U.S. National Team in the 267-kilometer elite men's road race.  Hincapie placed 23rd, crossing the finish line in a 35-man group 49 seconds off the pace of winner and defending champion Paolo Bettini of Italy.

Christian Vande Velde (Boulder, Colo./Team CSC) finished in the same group in 36th place.

Other U.S. National Team members David Zabriskie (Salt Lake City, Utah/Team CSC), Tyler Farrar (Wenatchee, Wash./Cofidis), Bobby Julich (Glenwood Springs, Colo./Team CSC), Jason McCartney (Coralville, Iowa/Discovery Channel) and John Devine (Dixon, Ill./Discovery Channel) did not finish after assuming support roles for team.

Bettini sprinted to his second consecutive world title from a five-man lead group to become the first elite male to win back-to-back rainbow jerseys since Italian Gianni Bugno in 1991 and '92. Alexandr Koblanev (RUS) claimed the silver medal and Stefan Schumacher (GER) earned the bronze after the trio - along with Frank Schleck (LUX) and Cadel Evans (AUS) - escaped in the closing kilometers.  Bettini stopped the clock with a winning time of 6 hours, 44 minutes and 43 seconds after riding an average speed of 39.642 km/h.

Contrary to a typical world championship race, the pace was fast nearly from the beginning as the day was marked by several different breakaways that were all ultimately brought back. The result was a race of attrition in which only a handful of the strongest one-day riders in the world remained in the final kilometers.

Hincapie, the team's designated leader, admitted afterwards he didn't quite have the form on Sunday to contend for a spot on the podium.

"My legs were not good," he said.  "I could feel it about halfway that I was not having a super day, so I told the guys if they were good they can go and I would just try to follow wheels.  Once we hit 200 kilometers, I just didn't have the legs."

On the opening lap of the 14-lap race, Farrar initiated an early but short-lived breakaway that contained four other riders.  In 2006, Farrar rode in an early 12-man breakaway for nearly 140 kilometers, but this year, his early breakaway attempt was caught by the end of the first 19-kilometer circuit.

At the 100-kilometer mark, with a three-man breakaway already off the front, the remainder of the 198-rider peloton was split into two main groups with Julich initially making the first 40-rider split. Hincapie also made it into the front group, but believed the effort may have sacrificed his chances later.

"I saw it go and I had to bridge up to it, maybe like 5k by myself, and that might have taken a little bit of steam out of me.  But you know it was 40 guys and I figured two was better than one up there."

Once the lead group of roughly 40 riders was established, another split resulted in a 30-rider front group in which only Julich was present. For the next 50 kilometers Julich helped push the pace of the lead group, but thanks primarily to a hard-chasing Dutch squad, the two main groups reconnected for the beginning of the final three laps.  Once the peloton was back together, only about 60 riders remained in contention including Hincapie, Julich, Vande Velde and McCartney, who were all still in the main group with three laps to go. At that point, Devine was in a group 3:35 back and Farrar and Zabriskie had abandoned.

Over the course of the next three laps, attrition pared the field down even further and when a two-man break containing Davide Rebellin (ITA) and Koblanev escaped at the end of the penultimate lap, a Spanish-led chase further splintered the field. Throughout the last 20 kilometers, only Koblanev, Evans, Bettini, Schumacher and Schleck emerged from the nearly 200 starters - nearly seven hours later - to sprint for the world title.

"I couldn't react, I was just empty there," Hincapie recalled of the decisive split. "All day we were going because we were chasing something down. It wasn't a typical world championships. It was fast. Some days you just don't have it.  There was a lot of climbing today and obviously I just wasn't at my best. If you're not at your best on this course there's not much you can do."

Missing the podium on Sunday left the U.S. National Team without a world championship road race medal since Lance Armstrong won the world title in 1993.  Other than Armstrong, only Greg LeMond has stood on the podium (1982-83, '85, '89).

The U.S. National Team closes out the 2007 UCI Road World Championships with one medal - a silver in the elite women's time trial from Kristin Armstrong (Boise, Idaho/Team Lipton).  Other highlights include three of the top-five finishes in the elite women's time trial with a fourth-place finish from Amber Neben (Irvine, Calif./Flexpoint) and a fifth-place effort from Christine Thorburn (Sunnyvale, Calif./Webcor).  

The 2007 UCI Road World Championship also marked the last major world championship of the calendar year as Armstrong's silver was the 17th medal won by Americans this season.  In January, Americans began the year with three silver medals at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships courtesy of Jonathan Page (Northfield, N.H.), Katie Compton (Colorado Springs, Colo.) and Daniel Summerhill (Centennial, Colo.). In March, Sarah Hammer (Temecula, Calif.) gave the United States its first gold medal of 2007 after successfully defending her world title in the individual pursuit at the UCI Track World Championships and Brad Huff (Fair Grove, Mo.) won a bronze medal in the omnium. In June, Kyle Bennett (Conroe, Texas) collected another world title for the U.S. National Team at the UCI BMX World Championships while Randy Stumpfhauser (Sanger, Calif.) and Danny Caluag (Chino, Calif.) captured silver medals and George Sowers (Glendale, Ariz.) won a bronze.  In August, Taylor Phinney (Boulder, Colo.) won a world title in the time trial at the UCI Junior Road and Track World Championships and Jerika Hutchinson (Mt. Shasta, Calif.) won the bronze medal.  At the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in September, Brian Lopes (San Clemente, Calif.) and Jill Kintner (Seattle, Wash.) each came home with world titles in the 4-cross while John Swanguen (San Diego, Calif.) won a silver in the junior men's downhill, Melissa Buhl (Chandler, Ariz.) won a bronze in the women's 4-cross and the Team Relay squad of Georgia Gould (Ketchum, Idaho), Sam Schultz (Missoula, Mont.), Ethan Gilmour (Ludlow, Vt.) and Adam Craig (Bend, Ore.) rode to a bronze medal. 

2007 UCI Road World Championships

Stuttgart, Germany

September 26-30, 2007:

Elite Men's Road Race

1. Paolo Bettini (ITA) 6:44:43

2. Alexandr Koblanev (RUS) s.t.

3. Stefan Schumacher (GER) s.t.

23. George Hincapie (Greenville, S.C.) +0:49

36. Christian Vande Velde (Boulder, Colo.) s.t.

DNF. Bobby Julich (Glenwood Springs, Colo.)

DNF. Tyler Farrar (Wenatchee, Wash.)

DNF. Jason McCartney (Coralville, Iowa)

DNF. John Devine (Dixon, Ill.)

DNF. David Zabriskie (Salt Lake City, Utah)