Stage 2: Statesboro - Augusta 188km
Georgia 2: J. J. Haedo wins, Dominguez holds lead
CSC sprinter J.J. Haedo wins stage 2 into Augusta, Georgia Tuesday. (Jonathan Devich/epicimages.us)
Team CSC's domestic sprint king Juan Jose Haedo outsprinted Greg Henderson (High Road) by half a wheel to win stage 2 of the Tour de Georgia into Augusta today. Overall leader Ivan Dominguez leads Henderson by three seconds, with Haedo now in third, just one second behind the Kiwi.
A healing broken wrist hampered Haedo in yesterday's opening stage. He told Cyclingnews that the risk of crashing and re-injuring it made him hesitant to mix it up in the finale. But you cannot keep a good sprinter from doing what he does best, and that was the best medicine for Haedo today.
"With three corners to go is when I knew that I was going to give the sprint 100 percent. I did not tell the team to work for me in the sprint today," Haedo said, because of his injured wrist. "I told McGee if I was feeling good in the last few kilometers then he would help me out. But he was on one side of the field and I was on the other so I had to find my own way at that point.
"I found my way to the front, took Ivan's wheel and was happy to be in that position. I knew that he had a strong lead out. I heard the noise of the crash but that's it. At that point you can't even look bad or you can crash yourself too."
From there it was a straight shot to the line, with all of the top sprinters jumping on wheels. "I had George [Hincapie] looking after me," said second place Greg Henderson. "One gets a lot of respect in the peloton when George is looking after ya! He got me to one kilometre to go and he took me straight to the back of the Toyota-United train. That Toyota team train is really strong right now but I wasn't able to drop down in my eleven so I sprinted in my twelve. I'd rather win but JJ and Ivan [Dominguez] are good mates of mine and to finish behind JJ is alright with me."
Coming in fourth was Slipstream-Chipotle's Tyler Farrar, who won the first intermediate sprint of the day today after flatting in yesterday's final 3km. "We tried to make amends today," said Farrar. "It went well and I took the first intermediate, but the final was a bit hectic with a big descent in the final 3km. I came in fourth - it's not a win but the legs are OK."
Farrar is now tied for the best young rider of the race with the first stage's second place finisher Nicholas Sanderson (Jelly Belly.) "It was a bit dicey but I didn't have a good day today," Sanderson said about the finish. "The second time up the hill I started cramping, but I'll try again tomorrow." Sanderson will keep the jersey for tomorrow and said it was a good goal for the team.
The main break of the day was initiated by the media's pick for most aggressive on the day, Toyota-United's Justin England, who went clear alone 64 kilometres into the stage. He rode solo for another 32 kilometres before Bryce Mead (Jelly Belly) and Rhys Pollock (GE-Marco Polo) bridged up. However, the race organiser decided to change the most aggressive award at the last second, giving it to Pollock and leaving a sour taste in the media's mouths.
"It was a bummer, it definitely stung," England said about hearing the announcement for most aggressive rider as he limped across the line off the back. "But the most important thing of the day is to have a guy in the move to take the pressure off the team so they can be fresh for the circuits at the end.
"I don't know who the guy is that decided to take the jersey away from Justin, but that's not right," said race leader Ivan Dominguez (Toyota-United) who finished in third. "He was supposed to get the jersey and everyone was talking about that. He was the first guy alone out there for a long time and two guys bridged across to him. There is nothing that we can do about it now.
"We were joking with Justin that if he won today we were going to get him drunk!" Dominguez joked. "It was good for us to have Justin out there. I'm not going to win the GC anyway unless someone lets me go behind the car on the climb! It's better for us to have a rider up the road so we don't have to chase. Justin did a lot of work and we are really happy with him and we are still going to get him drunk!"
Cyclingnews asked the race director Jim Birrell of Medalist Sports what the rationale behind the most aggressive award was. "It is a three party process: the media, online voting and the management staff of Medalist," he said. "And the management staff thought that the Marco Polo rider did a lot of work in the break."
Coincidentally, General Electric is co-sponsoring the Marco Polo team for this race only - and General Electric is also a sponsor of the race for the best young rider category. Finding sponsorship money has been a problem for this race in recent years, with sponsors stepping in at the eleventh hour last year. When asked if sponsor considerations came into play in the process of deciding who should get the most aggressive award, Birrell said: "That might have something to do with it."
The pre-race favorite for the race, Astana's Levi Leipheimer, avoided the major crash of the day, floating to the back of the pack once inside the safety of the final 3km. "I got kind of a sixth sense about it," he said. "When you've gone down in a crash like that it's not worth it, so I like to hang back a little bit. It's inside 3km so you see the crash, put it in the little ring and start spinning."
Astana did some of the work earlier in the day keeping Justin England to only seven minutes, not wanting to repeat last year's race where a break got 29 minutes on the field. "Those stages aren't done yet!" he laughed. "But I think it was partly our responsibility to help control it."
The CSC team did not do much work out on the course to bring the break back, and Haedo said it was because he was not planning on sprinting. "We didn't help the other teams today because I didn't know if I was going to be able to sprint or how my wrist would feel," said Haedo. "Tomorrow we are going to have to give back by helping the other teams do a little bit of work, especially if we are going to sprint at the end. But I have a team that always helps out the other teams in most situations; but, yes we are going to help the teams out tomorrow."
Tomorrow is another day for the sprinters, starting in Washington, Georgia and traveling west towards Lake Lanier with a finish in Gainesville. No KOM points are on offer, so today's sprint climb winner, Frank Pipp (Health Net-Maxxis) will get a free ride in the jersey for an extra day."
Ivan Dominguez will wear the leader's jersey for at least one more day tomorrow, but after that the course will turn uphill. "I’ll have the jersey for one more day, but its getting heavy," he said. "I will do my best and will try. The guys are riding very well and I am so happy with them."
To see how the race unfolded, and for more photos and results, visit Cyclingnews.com.
