Domestic squads on par in Georgia

With ProTour teams forced to split their top riders between the Spring Classics in Europe and America's Tour de Georgia, many of the domestic teams had a chance to steal the spotlight, reports Cyclingnews' Kirsten Robbins.

American ProTour squad Discovery Channel was clearly the dominant team at the 2007 Tour de Georgia. However, results suggest parity across the remaining teams, both ProTour and domestic.

With many of Europe's Classics taking place during the month of April, and with the Tour de Georgia under financial uncertainty less than a month before the start, it was difficult for the ProTour teams to commit all of their top riders. Team CSC's team director in Georgia Dan Frost elaborated on the decision for some teams to keep their GC riders in Europe. "The Spring Classics and the races in Europe now are our main focus for this time of year," Frost said. "I think that makes a big difference in terms of which ProTour riders are available to come to Georgia. We have come here for the last four years and we love this race. It's a hard race and the organization is much better every year. This year it was our decision to bring a couple of strong riders and a mix of development riders because Georgia is a good place to introduce racing to them."

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Team Slipstream-Chipotle was among the domestic teams represented in several of breaks throughout the course of the event and its director Jonathan Vaughters commented that the placing of the event within the European calendar as being in the best place it can be, given the number of races each year. "I think it comes down to the time of year and nothing more than that," Vaughters said. "We are right in the middle of really important Classics plus coming upon the Giro and the Tour. This race is a little bit harder course-wise and it is a great race but it is in a tougher time slot. During February, at the time of the Tour of California, there is nothing else going on and the weather is great compared to European conditions so teams can send their A squads. At this time of the year teams are split racing all over Europe."

To read the full feature on the Tour de Georgia, click here.