Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team 2007

Atlanta – The Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team picked up its fourth top five finish at the Tour de Georgia Sunday when Ivan Dominguez finished fourth in Stage 7’s circuit race through downtown Atlanta.

Dominguez had already placed fifth on Stage 1 and Stage 6 while teammate Ivan Stevic gave Toyota-United a victory on Stage 3 in Rome on Tuesday. That win helped Toyota-United become the only domestic team to win a stage of both the Tour de Georgia and the Amgen Tour of California two years running.

“I’m very satisfied,” Toyota-United Team Director Harm Jansen said. “I think the guys made a big presence for themselves in this race. In all the stages where we thought we had a chance to win, we did a lot of work to control the stage.”

Like it did on nearly every stage, Toyota-United drove the chase to catch a two-man breakaway that threatened to spoil the day for the sprinters. After the escapees were run down inside the final 10 km, it was Juan José Haedo (Team CSC) who took the win at the end of the 66.8-mile (107.5 km) race in a time of two hours, 25 minutes and 30 seconds. Fred Rodriguez (Preditor-Lotto) was second and Sergey Lagutin (Navigators Insurance Cycling Team) placed third.

Dominguez said he mistimed his sprint on the long, uphill drag to the line.

“Yesterday I waited too long, today I went too soon,” he said.

It didn’t help that Dominguez lost one of his leadout men, Caleb Manion, in the final three kilometers when a rider in front of him locked up his wheel going into an off-camber turn.

“When Henk and I went into the turn, we just ran out of room,” Manion said. “There was nowhere to go, so I ended up going into the gutter and then over the handlebars into the crowd.”

Manion avoided serious injury, but did come away with some road rash.

In the final overall standings, Justin England was highest-placed for Toyota-United in 54th, followed by Ivan Stevic (56th), Chris Baldwin (57th), Manion (76th), Burke Swindlehurst (78th), Vogels (92nd) and Chris Wherry (96th).

“Toyota-United has stepped up to an international level in the 16 months or so it has been part of the sport,” Vogels said. “We were very, very strong all week and between us, CSC and Discovery, we controlled the race. I think we gained a great deal of respect.”

Labels: Henk Vogels, Ivan Dominguez