Leipheimer Wins Tour de Suisse Overall After a Fast Time Trial
6/19/11 – In a nail-biting final stage at the Tour de Suisse on Sunday, Team RadioShack’s Levi Leipheimer (37) put in a sterling performance in the time trial to cap off a solid week of racing and claim the overall victory by only four seconds, taking the yellow jersey off the back of Damiano Cunego (Lampre-ISD) on the last day of racing. Starting the race with 1:59 to make up to Cunego, Leipheimer went right to work as soon as he rolled out of the start house, showing steady gains at each of the two check points, finally crossing the line in third place behind leader Fabian Cancellara and teammate Andreas Klöden. Cunego was still on course and a hard week of aggressive racing seemed to be the undoing of the Italian rider, who in the end lost more than two minutes, handing the overall to Leipheimer.
Earlier in the week Levi Leipheimer lost 40-seconds on a dangerous descent in stage three, opting for a more conservative approach to racing with an eye to the start of the Tour de France in two weeks. At that point Leipheimer’s position on the classification was tenth, but stage-after-stage Leipheimer continued to show good form, attacking and following the moves in the Alps and steadily moving up in the overall. At the end of Saturday’s stage 8 he held fourth place but had an almost two-minute deficit to make up, and was hoping the lost 40 seconds from stage three would not come back to haunt him. They didn’t.
Leipheimer’s classification victory was bolstered up by the excellent performances from teammates Andreas Klöden and Nelson Oliviera who took second and fourth on the time trial stage.
“What a race. I really didn’t know how close it was with Cunego,” said Levi Leipheimer in Schaffhausen. “All I heard was my director yelling at me in the last corner ‘Sprint! Sprint!’ and I could hear in his voice that it really was a question of seconds.”
“I almost lost my voice because of the yelling,” said Team Director Dirk Demol. “Levi likes to be pushed and it was necessary and close today. Earlier in the day I followed Nelson Oliveira, who did a great TT too. After having seen the course I told Levi he had to believe in it. He did. Winning the Tour de Suisse, that was not a foregone conclusion.”
For Levi Leipheimer the Tour de Suisse is his 15th overall victory as a pro rider in a stage race. Among his wins are victories in the Tour of California (three times), the Dauphiné Libéré and the Tour of Germany.
“This Tour de Suisse has really been tough this year. Very mountainous, very hard. You could see there was no field sprint at all this week,” continued Leipheimer. “I had some good days, but also bad days, but without Team Radioshack there was no way I could win today. I am very happy I did not disappoint. Now it’s time to take some rest and start in the Tour de France.”
“Levi will be ready for that race in which he already stood on the podium,” added Dirk Demol. “I don’t think there will be a chance that Levi will be too early with his form. He will be good in France. We had the luck too that Levi could save forces during this race. We have to be honest, Damiano Cunego and his teammates did control the race. I feel sad for him because he lost the race on the last day, with only some seconds, but that’s sport. Levi had the chance to win this race by doing a hard effort. Today he did an enormous effort; he went very deep and it worked out fine for the team but earlier this week he could count on his teammates who kept him out of the wind. This is a victory for the whole team.”
Leipheimer concluded: “I am so happy to win here because it is a big race with a nice history and palmares. Yesterday I got an email from Andy Hampsten. He won this race twice as an American. I am proud to follow his footsteps.”
Results: Stage 9: Schaffhausen, ITT, 32.1km/20mi
1 Fabian Cancellara 0:41:01; 2 Andreas Klöden (Team RadioShack) 00:09; 3 Levi Leipheimer (Team RadioShack) 00:13; 4 Nelson Oliveira (Team RadioShack) 00:25; 5 Tom Danielson 00:38; 6 Gustav Larsson 00:41; 7 Jakob Fuglsang 00:44; 8 Thomas De Gendt 00:48; 9 Chris Froome 01:02; 10 Christian Vande Velde 01:04
Overall Classification Tour de Suisse
1 Levi Leipheimer (Team RadioShack) 31:45:02; 2 Damiano Cunego 00:04; 3 Steven Kruijswijk 01:02; 4 Jakob Fuglsang 01:10; 5 Bauke Mollema 02:05; 6 Mathias Frank 02:24; 7 Frank Schleck 02:35; 8 Laurens Ten Dam 03:11; 9 Tom Danielson 03:17; 10 Maxime Monfort 04:12
