Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team 2007

Philadelphia –The Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team will put two former champions and a stage winner at the Tour de Georgia on the start line of Sunday’s Commerce Bank International Championship in Philadelphia.

American Chris Wherry (2005) and Australian Henk Vogels (2000) have each earned wins in the 156-mile (251 km) race when it was contested as the USPRO road race championship. They will join Serbian national champion Ivan Stevic, winner of Stage 2 at the Tour de Georgia, on Toyota-United’s roster for the final event of the Triple Crown of Cycling.

Stevic has competed in the Philadelphia race twice before, but has never placed better than 14th. Last Saturday, he finished second to Rashaan Bahati (Rock & Republic Cycling Team) at the CSC Invitational in Arlington, Va.

But it is another Ivan – Ivan Dominguez – who has been grabbing headlines for Toyota-United this season. The Cuban has won eight races, including Stage 7 of the Amgen Tour of California, and finished second in last year’s International Championship. But a crash in mid-May at the Tri-Peaks Challenge Stage Race sidelined Dominguez with back and rib injuries.

“It is definitely a loss to not have Ivan Dominguez here with us,” Toyota-United Team Director Harm Jansen said. “It would allow us to be a little more flexible with our tactics.”

Toyota-United will field one of the most international lineups of any team in the 140-plus rider field.
Joining Stevic, Wherry and Vogels on Toyota-United’s roster will be Brazilian Stefano Barberi, New Zealander Heath Blackgrove, Jose Manuel “Chepe” Garcia of Mexico and Australians Caleb Manion and Sean Sullivan.

Sunday’s forecast calls for sunny skies with low humidity and a high temperature of 80 degrees Farenheit (27 degrees Celcius). Stevic said he wouldn’t mind the temperature to be even warmer.

“I want it to be hot – like 90 degrees or more,” he said. “I always feel good in hot and humid weather.”

Jansen agrees that the race takes on a different complexion when the mercury rises.

“We would fare well with hot weather because it would make for a smaller group coming to the finish,” he said. “That would make it an easier race to control in the end.”

Nearly half a million spectators are expected to turn out for Sunday’s race that includes 10 laps of a 14.4-mile circuit. The featured aspect of the course is the brutal ascent of the 17 percent grade Manayunk Wall. Thousands pack the climb, contributing to a world championship-like atmosphere that is unlike any other in a race in the United States.

“It’s probably the single-most prestigious one-day race in the United States,” Jansen said. “It’s one of those races that we were very close to winning last year and we’ve definitely put our sights on it.”

“Philadelphia is a special race, unlike any other we will ride the entire year,” Stevic said. “You really have to have a feeling that you’re going to win this race.”


Although the race will be the longest single-day event Toyota-United will compete in this year, Stevic said long training rides aren’t necessary to adequately prepare for the distance.

“The big effort in this race only lasts about two hours,” Stevic said. “Before that, it is just about riding your bike.”

Toyota-United will spend Friday training outside Philadelphia, in Reading, where the team competed in the second leg of the Commerce Bank Triple Crown on Thursday afternoon, then ride the course on Saturday.

German Bernhard Eisel (T-Mobile) is the leader in the Triple Crown standings after the first two legs of the Commerce Bank Triple Crown. With victories at both Lancaster and Reading, Eisel has an 80-point lead over Sergey Lagutin (Navigators Insurance Cycling Team), who finished second in Lancaster on Sunday. Through the first two races, Toyota-United’s best placing is the 10th place finish by Caleb Manion in Thursday’s race in Reading.

Toyota-United has won 20 races this season and is the only domestic team to win stages at both the Amgen Tour of California and the Tour de Georgia. The second-year squad is also the only one in the U.S. with an official fan club. The Toyota-United membership team (www.toyota-united.com) boasts nearly 20,000 fans who have signed up to receive the team’s newsletter and purchase team merchandise and apparel at discounted prices.