George Hincapie Wins Stage 5 Tour of California
Hincapie emerges from a storm of Blue to take his second stage victory in Santa Barbara. Fabian Wegmann, Chris Horner Podium. Landis in Gold...Provisional results and report... updated with Photos

Let George do it! photo c. Scott Schaffrick & www.dailypeloton.com

Stage Five today was driven the 105.3 miles from San Luis Obispo to Santa Barbara at a fast pace. The stage followed the California central coast to the points sprint at Guadalupe, where the race left the rolling coast behind to travel East into the Santa Ynez coastal mountains near the Solvang training grounds of CSC, Discovery, Health Net and other pro teams. The courses toughest challenge will be the four mile Cat.1 climb up San Marcos Pass to the second KOM of the day; and then descends to a beach front finish in Santa Barbara.

Stage 5 Profile San Luis Obispo to Santa Barbara

After a day of attacks and few successful breaks Discovery's Ekimov got away with Mike Sayers (Health Net) and Nick Reistad of Danny Van Hautes' Jelly Belly team and Jens Voight (CSC). The break gained as much as 3:25 when the peloton got serious in pursuing the escapees. Ekimov the closest to the leaders is five minutes behind the present occupant of the California "Golden Fleece" Floyd Landis of Phonak.

By the time the break reached the climb to San Marcos summit they had two minutes on the Phonak led peloton in a furious chase that closed the gap by the time the peloton stretched its legs on the first part of the climb to 1:35.
Voight, Lang, Ekimov and Reistad raced for the summit with Lang over the KOM first but the time had continued to shrink to 1 minute when Levi Leipheimer and Ricardo Ricco put the heat on the final section of the climb.

Leipheimer proceeded to catch the break with Ricco holding on and flew by. The remainder of the peloton chased during the descent and Leipheimer was caught by the lead group of 20 at the 8 mile to go mark.

Discovery and Phonak drove the peloton towards the finish in the last 5 miles at a blistering pace to control the front. Discovery with 5 riders on the front took over driving the peloton like a school bus with a lead foot to the finish. At 500 metres is was an all blue lead train of the Discovery team with Paolo Salvodelli driving the front with George Hincapie in close attendance at over 40 mph.

Salvodelli to the side, and George Hincapie takes his second stage win of the tour in a battle with Gerolsteiner's Wegman who can't come around a very fast finishing Hincapie! Wegman reportedly started the race recovering from an illness has almost struck California gold for the second time in the last year after his victory in the hopefully not the last, San Francisco Grand prix in September.

The Podium Stage 5

Fabian Wegmann, George Hincapie, Chris Horner

Results Stage 5:
  1. George Hincapie (Discovery)

  2. Fabian Wegmann (Gerolsteiner)

  3 Christopher Horner  Davitamon-Lotto
  4 Josep Jufre Pou  Davitamon-Lotto
  5 Riccardo Ricco (Ita) Saunier Duval-Prodir
  6 Sebastian Lang (Ger) Gerolsteiner
  7 Hayden Roulston (NZl) Health Net/Maxxis
  8 Sergey Lagutin (Uzb) Navigators Insurance
  9 Scott Davis (Aus) T-Mobile Team
10 Ben Jacques-Maynes (USA) Kodakgallery.Com/Sierra Nevada
11 Valery Kobzarenko (Ukr) Navigators Insurance
12 Miguel Angel Martin Perdiguero (Spa) Phonak Hearing Systems
13 Christian Vandevelde (USA) Team CSC
14 Bobby Julich (USA) Team CSC

G.C. Floyd Landis retains the California Gold Jersey as race leader.

  1 Floyd Landis (USA) Phonak Hearing Systems 16.29.40
  2 David Zabriskie (USA) Team CSC 0.29
  3 Bobby Julich (USA) Team CSC 0.34
  4 George Hincapie (USA) Discovery Channel 0.45
  5 Nathan O'Neill (Aus) Health Net p/b Maxxis 1.08
  6 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Gerolsteiner 1.10
  7 Cadel Evans (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto 1.29
  8 Thomas Danielson (USA) Discovery Channel 1.49
  9 Christian Vandevelde (USA) Team CSC 1.55
10 Jason McCartney (USA) Discovery Channel 1.58

The Tour of California Jerseys

Sprints classification

1 George Hincapie (USA) Discovery Channel 40 pts
2 Juan José Haedo (Arg) Toyota-United Pro 30
3 Christopher Horner (USA) Davitamon-Lotto 23
4 Josep Jufre Pou (Spa) Davitamon-Lotto 19
5 Olaf Pollack (Ger) T-Mobile Team 17

Mountains classification

1 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Gerolsteiner 25 pts
2 Bernhard Kohl (Aut) T-Mobile Team 20
3 Riccardo Ricco (Ita) Saunier Duval-Prodir 14
4 Marco Pinotti (Ita) Saunier Duval-Prodir 9
5 Floyd Landis (USA) Phonak Hearing Systems 7

Best young rider classification
1 Thomas Peterson (USA) Team TIAA-CREF 16.39.15
2 Taylor Tolleson (USA) Team TIAA-CREF 10.42
3 Craig Lewis (USA) Team TIAA-CREF 10.46

Teams classification
1 Team CSC 49.31.10
2 Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team 1.40
3 Davitamon-Lotto 3.58