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12.05.2007/ Giro: Van Houwelingen counts 21 opportunities, Dominguez wins opening stage Joe Martin stage
race, Mutual agreement between Unibet and Garcia Quesada
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Mancebo, Sevilla & Perez: "We are cyclists with heart and soul"
Picture gallery Liège-Bastogne-Liège, April 29, 2007 (4 pages)
Danilo Di Luca wins "The most beautiful race in the world"
New: Floyd Landis offered a reduced sentence by USADA if he gave "incriminating evidence" about Armstrong
New: Gonchar suspended by T-Mobile
New: Special coverage Giro d'Italia 2007
Giro: Van Houwelingen counts 21 opportunities
Adri van Houwelingen will make his debut as team leader for Rabobank at the Giro d'Italia, but as a rider
he already competed in the Giro once. In 1986, he rode a very successful tour with team-Skala. "We were a young and inexperienced
group," remembers Van Houwelingen. "Jean-Paul van Poppel made his debut and immediately broke through by winning two stages.
Right now, I would jump at that chance. We have 21 opportunities to win at least one. We can accomplish this in multiple ways,
but I expect the bunch sprints to hold the most opportunities for us."
After all, the Australian Greame Brown strongly improved himself as a sprinter. "That is because he has also become a better
cyclist," explains Van Houwelingen. "His top-speed might not have improved, but he knows better how to maintain his position
and he has more power and energy left during the final kilometer. Last year, he would have been exhausted by then. And, except
for McEwen, he has beaten all world-class sprinters once this season. Additionally, Van Heeswijk, Van Bon and Horrillo are
there to assist him in the sprint."
Because there are two selective stages scheduled in the first week, this will immediately result in large time differences
in the general classification. "This holds additional opportunities for breakaways." According to Van Houwelingen, the Rabo-team
will also be able to strike in the mountains, with Rasmussen – who is really ambitious to perform well mainly during
the second part of the Giro – and Ardila. "That would be great. Furthermore, I hope Mauricio will finish in the top-twenty.
A podium place is not realistic. I do not want to put the expectations up too high, and Mauricio concurs with that."
Tour-classics-Giro
The team leader underlines the importance of the tour for the team, in spite the fact that Denis
Menchov, Michael Boogerd and Oscar Freire are not on the list of participants. "They cannot appear at every start, but need
to make decisions in their schedule. The Giro – after the Tour de France and the classics – is the most important
race for us, let that be clear. A lot of races have lower priority."
Top-favorite for the final victory, according to Van Houwelingen, is Damiano Cunego. "Followed by Danilo di Luca, Paolo
Savoldelli, and Gilberto Simoni. All of them are Italians, yes, but it has, after all, been eleven years since a foreigner
won the Giro (Pavel Tonkov, edit.). Only in Italy is this race considered to be the most important race of the year. The same
goes for Spaniards and the Vuelta, but for the rest of the world, the Tour de France has the highest priority."
Read also Special coverage Giro d'Italia 2007
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| Graeme Brown wants to win a stage (picture: Cyclingheroes) |
Dominguez wins opening stage Joe Martin stage race
Ivan Dominguez of the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team grabbed the first-day lead at the 30th annual Joe Martin
Stage Race with an impressive victory Friday in the Stage 1 road race.
Dominguez used the lead-out of teammate Ivan
Stevic to jump past Karl Menzies (Health Net presented by Maxxis) coming out of the final turn at the end of the 110-mile
(177 km) race. Stevic held on to place second, while Toyota-United had three others finish in the top 10: Chris Baldwin (sixth),
Caleb Manion (ninth) and Justin England (10th).
The win was Toyota-United’s 15th of the season and its fifth
in a National Race Calendar event. It was the eighth victory of the season for Dominguez, but his first since April 1. He
came into the three-day, four-stage race in fifth place in the NRC individual standings (after 12 events).
"I was
a little worried how I would do because this is my first race since the Tour de Georgia," Dominguez said. “But I felt
good."
For much of Friday’s race, it looked like three riders who escaped the pack after 12 miles (20 km) would
battle it out for the stage win. The trio built an 11-minute lead before the combined efforts of Toyota-United, Health Net
presented by Maxxis and the Jelly Belly Cycling Team started bringing the gap down. The last of the three was caught only
3.1 miles (5 km) from the finish.
"At one point, it looked like it was going to get a little tight, so everyone threw
in an extra guy (to work)," Toyota-United Team Director Harm Jansen said.
As the finish drew closer, Toyota-United
put several riders on the front to set up a lead-out train for Dominguez. Manion handled the initial lead-out, followed by
Stevic, who said he liked the uphill finish that featured a six-percent grade in the final 350 meters.
"I didn’t
want to put him (Dominguez) in a bad situation by attacking and taking someone with me," Stevic said. "So it was perfect to
stay together and get him the win while I gained a few seconds."
Due to time bonuses awarded on the finish, Dominguez
has a five-second lead over Stevic while third-place finisher on the stage, Alex Candelario (Jelly Belly) is 10 seconds back.
Menzies is fourth at 15 seconds and is tied on time with seven other riders, including Baldwin, Manion and England.
Last
year, only 21 seconds separated the top three overall finishers: Gord Fraser (first), Stevic (second) and Scott Moninger (third).
"Those eight seconds that separate 10th place with everyone else’s time are crucial. A few GC guys lost a few
seconds," Jansen said.
Toyota-United’s other three riders are among 103 riders who are 23 seconds back: Stefano
Barberi (54th place), Jose Manuel-Garcia (55th place), and Sean Sullivan (108th place).
Friday’s race featured
more than 5,400 feet of climbing, including a 9.2-mile section with an average grade of 2.7 percent. But Stevic said the tempo
being set by the three teams to reel the breakaway back helped Dominguez save his strength.
"It wasn’t that
hard so it was good for Ivan," the Serbian national champion said. "We didn’t go hard on the climbs so he had good legs
for the finish."
Saturday, the 131 remaining professional men’s riders will compete in two stages: a 92-mile
(148 km) road race in the morning and a 2.5-mile (4 km) uphill time trial in the afternoon. The road race features a 23-mile
loop that includes more than 1,500 feet of climbing on each of the three laps the riders will complete. The individual time
trial is a 680-foot climb out of Devil’s Den State Park. The average grade is 6.8 percent.
"I hope to ride a
good time trial because it’s going to make the different on the GC,” Stevic said. “But a lot of things can
change on the last day because the criterium (on Sunday) is very technical and very hard."
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| Ivan Dominguez before the ceremony (picture: Tom Ewart/NWA Photography) |
Mutual agreement between Unibet and Garcia Quesada
The Spanish cyclist Carlos Garcia Quesada and team Unibet have reached an
amicable agreement to end the dispute that prior finished the relation between them. Quesada is allegedly involved in the
Fuentes affair but was cleared by the Spanish Cycling federation. Carlos Garcia Quesada did not compete in 2007 for team Unibet
and is free to join any other cycling team.
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