Hincapie, RadioShack head to US Pro Championships
RadioShack, the winner of the team classification at the Tour de France, will be bringing a five-man team to the US Pro Road Championships this weekend in Greenville, South Carolina. With Levi Leipheimer’s eyes trained on Saturday’s
time-trial and top-10 Tour de France finisher Chris Horner leading the road race team on Sunday, RadioShack has a very good chance of claiming a title or two with the help of their two favourites, coming to the event from the two Canadian one-day ProTour races.
“I'd like to think I have a good shot at winning the time trial and with a team of five guys in the road race, I think RadioShack has a good shot at winning that,” said Leipheimer to
Cyclingnews. “The ProTour races in Canada were important for our team so I wouldn't categorize them as ‘preparation’ for USPro, but they didn’t hurt, that’s for sure.”
Matthew Busche will be joining Leipheimer in the time-trial. Leipheimer was the national time-trial champion in 1999 and won the time-trial stages and overall victories in the Tour of California for three consecutive years. He was
also the US road champion in 2007.
Young Taylor Phinney, of RadioShack’s feeder team Trek-Livestrong, is expected to make a major bid at the time-trial win toward the end of a remarkable season which has earned him 12 victories so far. Defending champion Dave Zabriskie
will miss the event, since he is riding the Vuelta a Espana with Team Garmin.
Horner hasn’t competed in the US Pro Road Championships since 2005, where he finished in second overall.
“The form is good, so I do believe I will be there at the finish of the race with a chance to win,” Horner told
Cyclingnews. “Last time I did USPro was in Philly. I’ve never been on the new course. It will take a lot of teamwork to win for sure. I'm sure the team will decide during the race who has the form to win.”
The defending road champion George Hincapie is Horner’s biggest threat in the road race. Hincapie will be leading the seven-man BMC-Racing team
“I think BMC and us will more than likely be racing together early on in the race then against each other near the finish,” Horner said.
However, the champion sustained a knee injury just weeks ago and his form is uncertain. He also competed in the two Canadian ProTour races and his goal is for a BMC-Racing rider, whether it’s him or a team mate, to win the Championships in his home town
of Greenville.
"My knee is fine, that is not the problem," said Hincapie at the Canadian races. "The problem now is missed training and missed racing. My knee is totally fine now. I'm still behind where I need to be and I'm still hoping for a miracle in the next six or
seven days to get me to where I need to be. I'm just happy that I'm able to race because 10 days ago I thought my season was over."
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