our race coverage

September 7-13, 2009

Wednesday’s 180k could have potentially been critical for the GC; however, sprinters again defined the day with Thor Hushovd (Cervelo) taking top honors this time. Hushovd’s bonus seconds for the win tied him on GC with Mark Cavendish (Columbia) and the tie-breaker came down to the totals of finish placing which put Hushovd nominally ahead. The BISSELL team again rode a smart race reserving their energy for a potentially decisive move.

At 10K into the race, Garmin’s Will Frishkorn and Mike Friedman broke away and built up a minute gap. The only pursuer was Team Type 1’s Matt Wilson and he was able to bridge across by the 25k mark. Due to the timing of a nature break, the gap quickly increased to over 3 minutes, and the threesome stayed away for most of the day. Columbia controlled the peloton throughout the day with the final catch coming at 10K to go. The final 13K was an undulating straight roll-in to the finish.

The only difference in the Wednesday’s approach to the line was the tactics displayed by winner Hushovd. Instead of utilizing the lead-out train that he had done in the 2 previous stages and risk Cavendish getting on his wheel, Cervelo chose to fire off attacks in the closing metres. The strategy worked as planned and Hushovd took the win with Cavendish finishing 5th.

BISSELL had a solid day and finished 2nd in the team classification with Frank Pipp 12th, Pete Latham 15th, and Ben Jacques-Maynes 23rd for the day. The team is successfully protecting the energy expenditure of Tom, Ben, and Jeremy in the lead-up to Friday’s time trial.