Tour of Missouri – Highlights (plenty), Lowlights (few)
By JT Fisher
The big question has to be, was it successful? We have a brand new US stage race, rated 2.1 nevertheless, which boils down to it being a serious enough race that top teams can and will participate — and we’ve just concluded the first running.
Of course, success can have a lot of meanings, depending who’s answering: riders, team managers, tour officials, sponsors, the state, the towns involved, and so on. So let’s look at a possible scorecard and see what the Crazy 8 ball says about the first running of the bulls through the Gateway state.
In terms of scheduling, the ToM proved attractive based on the quality of teams who participated and the squads they sent. Remember, there were some big races such as the Tour of Spain competing for the same tours and riders. Also, mid-September gives the best chance of favorable weather, and we nailed it this year with very pleasant conditions for riders, spectators, volunteers, and vendors alike. Score the schedule and the weather a perfect 10.
As to the course, short of transplanting a whole lotta dirt or perhaps experiencing a long threatened seismic episode out of our sleeping giant New Madrid Fault, Missouri simply can’t put up the remarkable mountain stages. Nevertheless, just like Pay-Roubaix, which also lacks “mountains,” challenge is in the eye of the beholder and the ToM organizers made great use out of the earth god gave us.
It had been widely written prior to the race that five essentially flat stages would be a sprinter’s delight with no time advantage gained on the peloton, and thus the Stage 3 time trial would decide the overall winner. Those of us who ride here understood that this serious misjudgment of the flatness of the terrain likely reflected the views of writers who had assessed the course by perusing Fodors from the comfort of an overstuffed armchair. On a bicycle seat, it’s a somewhat different experience.
Stages of 120-150 miles still undulated sufficiently to throw up as much as 12,000 feet of climb and provide ample opportunities for attacks and breakaways, which, in the end, decided the outcome of the race on Stage 2 when Hincapie and a small group of riders went off the front and kept going. Surprise!
The outcome of the following day’s time trial became more about whether anyone could beat Leipheimer for the stage win (and the answer was a decided NO), and solidifying the podium positions of the GC leaders. Overall, score course layout an 8.
Event support is critical to longevity. If you don’t have the sponsors, staff/volunteers, town/state support, and the business community involved, these races become scarce, fast.
Tour of Missouri audiences varied roughly with the size of the start/stop towns and their distance from larger towns. Branson was a beautiful stage, but it’s not a big town and it’s a long way from any others. It was also a weekday, and Branson is deluged with visitors Friday-Sunday, so Thursday was not optimal for attracting a lot of drop-ins.
St. Charles, god bless it, never seems to NOT be having some kind of fair, so it attracts people who love its quaint, small town feel and the certainty that any visit will prove entertaining. Those who came out Saturday found a bike race to accompany the open air art fair, or vice versa. Either way, a nice crowd bustled along the race route into the town and around the finish village.
Sunday saw the finish in St. Louis (more about that below), which was well attended to the surprise of nobody. Rate the crowds at the ToM a solid 7.
As to event promotion, state/town support, and sponsor support, let’s cut to the chase and say that the ToM appears to have achieved an 11 out of a possible 10.
ATT cordially sponsored the live webcast of the race so we could follow it from our homes and offices when we couldn’t be at the course. Kudos to them. The cities and our state, and especially the Lt. Governor (motivated by a fondness for cycling and for having his picture taken with the podium girls practicing their cheek-pecks on him, you dog!) pulled out all the stops. Again, an 11 to the bunch a ya.
Finally, let’s remember the commercial sponsors our sport can’t do without. Personally, I go out of my way to do business with them including the Jittery Joes box dropped at my door every few weeks because it’s extraordinary coffee and some of my java money supports their U.S. Pro cycling team. Sadly, they weren’t in the ToM this year.
For the Tour of Missouri, we have a long list of those good people and organizations, and you can find them at http://www.tourofmissouri.com/sponsors. A special hats off to certain Local Bike Shops who seem to be actively involved in every cycling event, especially Dogfish and Big Shark. Please make it worth the while for these sponsors by supporting them in return.
Final Results
In case you’ve been out on a really long ride, let me be the first to inform you that George hisownself Hincapie ran away with the race days ago, but had to keep pedaling all the way to St. Louis to pick up the Yellow Jersey (which, I believe, his company manufactured. Great quality those jerseys, in my experience). However joyous the win was for him, it had the odd spectre of being the team’s last gig “en masse.”
Hincapie summed it up this way, “We brought a great team here because it is the last race we do as a team here in the US and so it was very important for us to bring a strong team and try to get the win. Fortunately I got in a great break away on the second stage and was able to hold onto that. Having a guy like Contador and the whole Tour de France team working for me, it was really special. I will definitely miss all the guys in the next couple of years.”
[Note to George, they’ll still be around, but don’t expect them to hand you up any bottles going forward.]
The luck of ToM organizers in having the top-shelf squad from Discovery making this event its finale was remarkable. Personally, I’ll be saddened by Disco disassembling, but by next spring I’ll undoubtedly be scooting around in a shiny new Team Slipstream kit and rooting for the new kids on the block.
Speaking of the devils, Best Overall Team award for the ToM was earned by Slipstream-Chipotle, which gave us the race’s Best Young Rider, Steven Cozza, and the second place winner in the GC, Will Frischkorn.
Frishkorn commented about the fast progression of Slipstream into becoming heir-apparent to the top US team status, “It has been an exciting week for the entire team. We have all made the jump to where we are expected to be next year. It’s been a big week for us and I think it shows we are going to be ready to replace Discovery and (be) the top American team in Europe.”
Sadly, it was also announced this week that Navigators is ending its run as one of the longest continuous bike teams ever. To the Navigator riders, we wish you God Speed in finding new saddles.
As a final note, while Disco hit everything in its sights by taking the overall and having Levi blow away the time trial, the Tour of Missouri proved an excellent showcase for the great teams and talented riders growing up in the domestic circuit. Ivan Dominguez of Toyota United took two sprint stage wins – including the final one today in St. Louis under the Arch — even though he’s still in recovery from injuries earlier in the year. And in the General Classification, William Frishkorn and Dominique Rollin (Kodakgallery.com – Sierra Nevada) stood beside Hincapie in the number 2 and 3 positions on the podium, respectively.
Results are below in case you haven’t come across them elsewhere.
Stage Six Results
1 Ivan Dominguez (Cub) Toyota – United Pro Cycling Team 2.37.13 (45.567 km/h)
2 Andrew Pinfold (Can) Symmetrics Cycling Team
3 Dominique Rollin (Can) Kodakgallery.com – Sierra Nevada
4 Charles Dionne (Can) Colavita – Sutter Home p/b Cooking Light
5 Kari Menzies (Aus) Health Net p/b Maxxis
6 Sebastian Frey (Ger) Team Sparkasse
Final general classification
1 George Hincapie (USA) Discovery Channel 21.00.33
2 William Frishkorn (USA) Team Slipstream p/b Chipotle 1.38
3 Dominique Rollin (Can) Kodakgallery.com – Sierra Nevada 2.09
4 David Canada Gracia (Spa) Saunier Duval – Prodir 2.21
5 Michael Friedman (USA) Team Slipstream p/b Chipotle 2.46
6 Frank Pipp (USA) Health Net p/b Maxxis 2.51
7 Valery Kobzarenko (Ukr) Navigators Insurance Cycling Team 3.06
8 Andrew Randell (Can) Symmetrics Cycling Team 3.50
9 Stefan Parinussa (Ger) Team Sparkasse 4.26
10 Matt Rice (Aus) Jelly Belly Cycling Team 6.16
11 Andrew Guptill (USA) Colavita – Sutter Home p/b Cooking Light 6.27
12 Jonathan Garcia (USA) BMC Professional Cycling Team 6.34
13 Danny Pate (USA) Team Slipstream p/b Chipotle 11.50
14 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Discovery Channel 12.23
15 Nathan O’Neill (AUS) Health Net p/b Maxxis 12.48
16 Glen Chadwick (Aus) Navigators Insurance Cycling Team 13.37
17 Darren Lill (RSA) Navigators Insurance Cycling Team 14.54
18 Timothy Duggan (USA) Team Slipstream p/b Chipotle 14.58
19 Matti Helminen (Fin) DFL – Cyclingnews – Litespeed 15.13
20 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Discovery Channel 15.25
Teams classification
1 Team Slipstream Powered By Chipotle 63.15.51
2 Discovery Channel Professional Cycling 13.43
3 Navigators Insurance Cycling Team 13.49
4 Health Net Presented By Maxxis 14.16
Best young rider classification
1 Steven Cozza (USA) Team Slipstream p/b Chipotle 21.16.39
Sprints classification
1 Ivan Dominguez (Cub) Toyota – United Pro Cycling Team 41 pts
2 Dominique Rollin (Can) Kodakgallery.com – Sierra Nevada 36
3 Luciano André Pagliarini Mendonca (Bra) Saunier Duval – Prodir 29
Mountains classification
1 Jeff Louder (USA) Health Net p/b Maxxis 26 pts
2 Anthony Colby (USA) Colavita – Sutter Home p/b Cooking Light 17
3 Bernardo Colex Tepoz (Mex) Tecos de la Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara 17
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BMC Working Well
Sep 20th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
[...] new Tour of Missouri. Our own JT Fisher was on the scene covering the race for Sportswriter.net and Bicycle.Net. The big question has to be, was it successful? We have a brand new US stage race, rated 2.1 [...]