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America’s Levi Leipheimer, the recent winner of the Tour of California, has been ruled out of the Paris-Nice race from March 8-15 because of a lower back injury, his Astana team announced on Saturday.

The injury was a result of a fall Leipheimer suffered during the third stage of the race in the United States.

“This fracture didn’t prevent him from winning the time trial and the overall classification in the Tour of California, although he suffered from a lot of pain,” said a team statement.

“Because of his injury Leipheimer will not start in Paris-Nice.”

Here Is The Official Team Astana Press Release:
Fractures for Leipheimer and Vaitkus
An MRI scan revealed an undisplaced fracture of the sacrum of Levi Leipheimer. It resulted from a crash in the third stage of the Amgen Tour of California. This fracture didn’t prevent him from winning the time trial and the overall classification in that Tour of California, although he suffered from a lot of pain. Because of his injury Leipheimer will not start in Paris-Nice. The Vuelta a Castilla y León will be his first race after his recovery period.

Tomas Vaitkus and Valeriy Dmitriyev crashed in the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on Saturday. The Kazakh rider has a big contusion of the muscles of the right calf and will be out for minimum two weeks.
Lithuanian road champion Tomas Vaikus, on his way to a top 5 placing in the race, could not escape a crash of another rider in the final sprint and went down as well. He has an undisplaced fracture of the head of the right radius bone in the right elbow; the same type of fracture Alberto Contador had in the Giro d’Italia of 2008. A CAT scan of a painful wrist did not reveal any fracture.

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