February 23/08 5pm EST - Tour of California: Stage 6 update and Keven Lacombe update

Posted by Editoress on 2/23/08.

Today's 169 km stage from Santa Barbara to Santa Clarita has 4 KoM's and 2 Sprints.

Dominique Rollin (Toyota - United) is the current leader in the Sprint points competition with J J Haedo (Team CSC) is 10 pts behind.

So the challenge for Dominique and his teammates today (and tomorrow) will be to take as many sprint points as possible ahead of Haedo. Team CSC who are out of all jersey contentions EXCEPT for the Sprint jersey will be doing everything they can to get Haedo as many points as possible.

The group stayed, mostly, together until the 1st KoM. Jurgen Vandewalle (Quick Step) attacked just before and took the points. Then Steven Cozza (Slipstream) launched an attack and was shortly joined by 5 others: Christophe Le Mevel (Credit Agricole), Karsten Kroon ( CSC), Rory Sutherland (Health Net), David Canada Gracia (Saunier Duval), Alexandre Pichot (Bouygues Telecom)

The motored through the 2nd KOM, first Sprint, 3rd K0M the 2nd Sprint and the 4th KoM.

So far so good, Rollin has not gotten any Sprint points, but neither has Haedo.

The gap is 7 min with 79 km to go.

25 km to go. The break is still away, but the gap is falling, it is now 2:45. When they arrive in Santa Clarita they will do 3 laps around a 5.6 km circuit.

20 km to go - gap 2:15

Finish

Unoffocial
1. Mark Cavendish (GBr) High Road
2. Luciano André Pagliarini Mendonca (Bra) Saunier Duval-Scott
3 Juan Jose Haedo (Arg) Team CSC

6. Dominique Rollin (Can) (Toyota - United)

Update on Keven Lacombe

Rob talked to Keven yesterday afternoon, as Keven was out training. He said that he was really sore around his shoulder where he went through the rear windshield, but felt pretty good othewise. He will be taking it easy for ~ 2 weeks and then start back to heavy training. On Monday he will head back home to write exams.

The accident occurred on stage 3 when a team car suddenly stopped and the CSC team car ran into the back of it.. Keven then hit the CSC car and went through the rear windshield. Remarkably there were no serious injuries.

Casey Gibson sent the photo below ... with the following caption
"The results of your hockey player checking the CSC team car"


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