ToC Stage 5

George Hincapie won his second stage of the ToC on friday, giving him enough points to take the green jersey from J.J. Haedo.

The only real climb of the stage didn't turn out to be a leg-breaker, but did serve up the only real drama of friday's race. Levi Leipheimer had his teammates push the pace at the start of the climb and he launched himself off of the front in hopes of taking some time out of Floyd Landis.

Long story short, Levi's break didn't stick as he was caught on the descent into Santa Barbara. A selection of about 35 guys held off the chase group which contained the big-time sprint men. Disco led the charge to the finish as they had like 6 or 7 of their team present at the front.

George was able to hold onto the win even though he started his sprint with about 350 meters left to the line. Fabian Wegmann (Gerolsteiner) and Chris Horner (Davitamon-Lotto) finshed 2nd and 2rd respectfully.

Floyds grip on the leaders jersey seems a bit stronger now that there are only 2 stages left, and neither of those have climbs tough enough to put Phonak into any real trouble.

The leaders jerseys are now held by Americans:

Floyd Landis - Leaders jersey
George Hincapie - Sprinters jersey
Levi Leipheimer - Climbers jersey
Tom Peterson - Best Young Riders jersey

Very Interesting
In yesterday's post, I mentioned how there was an aweful lot of "buzz" surrounding J.J. Haedo's top-notch sprinting capabilities. Look at this picture from cyclingnews.com...


...looks like Bobby Julich may be planting some seeds about moving over to the CSC team???