Tour de Georgia stage two wrap and comments

Reported by Mark Zalewski and Eddie Monnier

The Austrian Peter Wrolich (Gerolsteiner) was the strongest sprinter and the lucky winner of the second stage of the Tour de Georgia. In the downhill finish in Rome, Georgia, Wrolich caught the right wheel for the last few hundred metres - the one of Lance Armstrong, who was right behind Levi Leipheimer - and managed to outsprint "The Boss", who used a 54 chainring to test his finishing powers, but finally had to give in to the specialists to cross the line in third position behind Saunier’s Manuel Quinziato. South African sprinter Robert Hunter will go into the stage three time trial with the leader’s jersey, with fellow sprinter Wrolich placed second on the General Classification that will very probably get shaken up on Thursday.

"It's very, very, very important for us to have a strong performance here, for two reasons. For the bike market, this is the flagship type of operation you can do to bring a product into the American market. We have a good start with our partner here. What I hear is it is going very well. We're just a little short of supply but we will fix that for next year. And of course, for the hearing aid business. We promote better hearing through this."

When asked if he was suprised by the ruling on the Tyler Hamilton situation, the Phonak team owner replied, "Let's say it like this. In my opinion, from a legal viewpoint, say it cannot really give him a two year ban, no ban really, from a legal viewpoint. This test is unfortunately not as it should be done...I know it from this scientific committee. It gives you certain information, but then it’s not possible to go over to the interpretation. I think he has a good chance on the CAS appeal. USADA has only a two-to-one vote and this already says a lot about the case. It's a split opinion....USADA is nothing more than indirectly dependent on WADA, this is not a clear stage of separation of interests."

One of the most active riders on stage one, Marco Pinotti told Cyclingnews, "I decided to show myself a bit. I was in a break for almost 50 km. In the end, I was a bit tired on the final laps. But I was able to stay among the front group, so that's a good sign. Also, [Monday] was still a bit of jet lag, because we only came over on Sunday. Every day passing I think we'll feel better. I hope to do a good time-trial tomorrow."

"We'll have a look at the sprint competition. Obviously, I'm just struggling a bit with the distance, having come straight off the track. This is my first road race this season, but as the K's roll on, I sort of deplete faster than everyone else. But I'm sprinting pretty quick at the moment. On first lead out, we had to switch things around because I was sprinting so quick and a couple of the guys are sick. The heat's another thing. I've been training in Colorado where there's snow. And here it's like a million degrees, so we'll see how it goes."