The 2007 Tour of Germany is held from August 10 thru August 18.
Jens Voigt successfully defended his title with an almost flawless 2007 Tour of Germany proving once again what raw power and a fierce self-belief can accomplish. Voigt's winnig margin ended up at 1' 57" over Levi Leipheimer (Discovery Channel) with David Lopez (Caisse D'Epargne) in 3rd place at 2' 10".
Let's run through the classification winners. The Points Classification was won be Erik Zabel who added points in the final stage courtesy of his 2nd placing. He was also helped out by Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil (Caisse d'Epargne) who started the day equal on points but chose not to start the final stage. Niki Terpstra (Team Milram) took out the Mountains Classification which was uncontested thanks to the flat course of the last stage. The Young Rider Classification went to Robert Gesink (Rabobank) and unless I'm a very bad judge, we're going to see his name at the head of this classification in quite a few races over the next few years. The Team Classification was taken out by Team CSC by a very healthy 6 minutes.
Stage 9 Profile
The final stage was won by Gerald Ciolek (T-Mobile) who outsprinted Erik Zabel to take his 3rd stage win for the Tour. The final day consisted of a 143.3km course that took the field from Einbeck to Hannover over flat terrain.
A group of 4 escaped early over the only climb of the day, a Category 3 bump up Rote Fuchs, they were Grischa Niermann (Rabobank), Harald Totschnig (Elk Haus), Matthew Lloyd (Predictor-Lotto) and Pierre Drancourt (Bouygues Telecom). They really only got to around 2 and a half minutes clear of the peloton which was never going to be enough and by the time they hit Hannover the lead was back to 1' 35".
Once in Hannover 4 circuits were to be covered and the escapees did well to stay away for 3 of those laps. But in the final lap they finally succumbed and the sprinters had their final say. Ciolek emerged down the side of the road to power away to yet another impressive victory.
The reactions and the news...
Team CSC - another big day for the team with comparisons with the Tour of Denmark made.
T-Mobile - Gerald Ciolek is the new sprinter to watch.
Rabobank - Grischa Nierman returns to his home town.
Cyclingnews
VeloNews
Daily Peloton
Stage Results (Top 10)
| 1 Gerald Ciolek (Ger) T-Mobile Team 2 Erik Zabel (Ger) Team Milram 3 Mark Renshaw (Aus) Crédit Agricole 4 Juan José Haedo (Arg) Team CSC 5 Danilo Napolitano (Ita) Lampre-Fondital 6 Olaf Pollack (Ger) Team Wiesenhof Felt 7 Robert Förster (Ger) Gerolsteiner 8 Lloyd Mondory (Fra) AG2r Prévoyance 9 René Weissinger (Ger) Team Volksbank 10 Carlos Dacruz (Fra) Française des Jeux |
3.16.55
|
Final Overall GC (Top 10)
| 1 Jens Voigt (Ger) Team CSC 2 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team 3 David Lopez Garcia (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne 4 Leonardo Bertagnolli (Ita) Liquigas 5 Robert Gesink (Ned) Rabobank 6 Chris Anker Sørensen (Den) Team CSC 7 Maxime Monfort (Bel) Cofidis-Le Crédit par Téléphone 8 Laurens Ten Dam (Ned) Unibet.com 9 Gustav Erik Larsson (Swe) Unibet.com 10 Davide Rebellin (Ita) Gerolsteiner |
30.57.21 |
Points Classification
| 1 Erik Zabel (Ger) Team Milram 2 Gerald Ciolek (Ger) T-Mobile Team 3 Danilo Napolitano (Ita) Lampre-Fondital |
98 pts 88 62 |
Mountains Classification
| 1 Niki Terpstra (Ned) Team Milram 2 David Lopez Garcia (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne 3 Jens Voigt (Ger) Team CSC |
23 pts 15 12 |
Young Rider
| 1 Robert Gesink (Ned) Rabobank 2 Chris Anker Sørensen (Den) Team CSC 3 Maxime Monfort (Bel) Cofidis-Le Crédit par Téléphone 4 Amaël Moinard (Fra) Cofidis-Le Crédit par Téléphone 5 Linus Gerdemann (Ger) T-Mobile Team |
31.00.36 |
Teams
| 1 Team CSC 2 Discovery Channel 3 Caisse D'Epargne |
93.02.25 |
