Viviani storms Steamboat Springs

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Elia Viviani (Liquigas-Cannondale) took a convincing bunch sprint victory at the end of stage four at the USA Pro Cycling Challenge on the streets of Steamboat Springs. The Italian out-powered Michael Mørkøv (Saxo Bank-Sungard) while Kenny van Hummel (Skil-Shimano) finished third.

Levi Leipheimer (RadioShack) maintained his overall race lead and will wear the yellow leader’s jersey into stage five’s 170.2km route from Steamboat Springs to Breckenridge on Saturday.

The crowds went wild as the peloton entered the final five kilometres of the race traveling at speeds of close to 70 km/h through the technical right and left hand corners before arriving in downtown Steamboat Springs.

Liquigas-Cannondale provided its sprinter with a tough-to-beat lead-out train, rivaled by Leopard Trek, UnitedHealthcare and Skil-Shimano.

"After Ivan Basso was out of the general classification, the team will support me for the final three stages," Viviani said. "Today the whole team worked all day for my sprint and in the last kilometres [Davide] Cimolai and [Daniel] Oss did a very, very good ride and perfect work for me.

"This victory is very important for the team because Cannondale is an important sponsor and it is from the USA. The team is in a good period because we won the stage in the Vuelta yesterday and today we made another demonstration that Liquigas-Cannondale is one of the best teams in the whole world."

Dutchman Kenny van Hummel (Skil-Shimano) had his sites on stage victory in Steamboat Springs, but came up short in the dash to the line.

"It was a hard day on the climbs," Van Hummel told Cyclingnews. "There were attacks for a long time and I was suffering. The team did a very good job to hold me in the bunch and in the final they worked for me.

"We have a lot of young guys so there's not a lot of experience so we coached each other and I think we did a good job. However, in the last three kilometres we lost each other. There was a big war behind the wheel of Viviani and I won the big game for the wheel of Viviani but I couldn't pass him in the sprint.

"It's not what I expected, but it's the first sprint after the mountains. Tomorrow is a survival day and the last day should be a bunch sprint again."

For race leader Leipheimer, the day went according to plan in the defense of the yellow jersey.

"Mission accomplished today," said Leipheimer. "I defended my leader’s jersey and did so with as little work on my teammates as possible. They had to do some work but at the same time we had help from other teams that were interested in a field sprint. Today went as good as we could have hoped and we are another day closer to Denver.

"Today was nice because it was a little bit shorter and flat. I think all the riders were looking forward to that. There were a lot of times that I could look around today and it was beautiful. Liquigas-Cannondale did a lot of work and they deserved the victory."

Breakaway caught on the outskirts of Steamboat

After an aggressive start to the stage four 133km road race from Avon to Steamboat Springs, a breakaway of five riders set sail that included Janier Acevedo and Cristhian Montoya (Gobernacion de Antioquia), Rubens Bertogliati and Vladimir Efimkin (Team Type 1-Sanofi) and Stefan Denifl (Leopard Trek).

Acevedo was the highest placed rider in the overall classification, 2:37 minutes behind race leader and stage three time trial winner Levi Leipheimer (RadioShack). Leipheimer’s teammates set a quick tempo at the front of the field and held the time gap to the breakaway at approximately 2:30.

Team Exergy moved to the front of the field to aide RadioShack in the chase prior to the first and only intermediate sprint for points located 99.1km into the stage. Its sprinter Fred Rodriguez noted prior to the start of the stage his interest in winning the Smashburger Sprint Jersey and a stage during the USA Pro Cycling Challenge. However, breakaway rider Denifl picked up the full points during the intermediate sprint.

UnitedHealthcare contributed to the pace-setting during the final 30km of the stage for its sprinter Robert Forster. Other strong sprinters moved closer to the front of the field included Kenny van Hummel (Skil-Shimano) Daniel Oss and Elia Viviani (Liquigas-Cannondale) and Hayden Roulston (HTC-Highroad).

The onslaught of lead-outs from teams such as Liquigas-Cannondale, travelling roughly 65 km/h, caused the gap to the five breakaway riders to drop under 30 seconds and it continued to fall rapidly during the closing kilometres of the race outside of Steamboat Springs.

Efimkin made one final attack out of the breakaway before both he and his companions were absorbed into the field with roughly 10km to the finish line.

"We as a team don't have a sprinter so for us it was important to be in the break," Bertogliati told Cyclingnews. "Sometimes if you have enough luck these breaks can go to the finish. We tried the hardest that we could and I'm happy for Vladimir [Efimkin] who took the most aggressive jersey."

With the peloton all together, the sprinters' teams fought all the way to the line, with Viviani benefiting from a great lead-out from teammate Daniel Oss.

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