Taylor Phinney wins the USA Pro Cycling Challenge 2012
Levi Leipheimer of Team Omega Pharma-Quickstep was ideally placed to grab an overall victory at the USA Pro Cycling Challenge but his hopes were shattered as Christian Vande Velde stormed across the finish-line during the stage 7 of the race.
Velde occupied the top overall spot after the final overall classifications at the USA Pro Cycling Challenge 2012 with Tejay Van Garderen of Team BMC finishing 21 seconds behind at the second spot.
Velde was 9 seconds behind his American competitor and was required to produce exceptional results during the final stage of the race.
Taylor Phinney of Team BMC won the race after he completed the race in a quickest time of 17 minutes and 25 seconds.
Christian Vande Velde of Team Garmin-Sharp fell 10 seconds short and finished second at the 15.3 kilometre race.
"It was a feather in my cap that a lot of people didn't know that I had. I felt good coming out of the Tour on my time trial bike - I don't know why, the same thing happened last year,” said Vande Velde.
"I was very excited after yesterday when I took time out of Tejay [van Garderen] and stayed close to Levi [Leipheimer] and I knew that I was in with a shot”.
This race has been amazing from start to finish and I'm excited to finally put the cherry on top with the yellow jersey at the end of the race".
Tejay van Garderen of Team BMC, Peter Velits of Team Omega Pharma-Quick Step and Thomas Danielson of Team Garmin-Sharp occupied the third, the fourth and the fifth positions during the stage 7 of the race.
Taylor Phinney, Hugo Houle, Moreno Moser, Gavin Mannion and Joseph Lloyd were the top five young riders on the day.
Top ten cyclists after the USA Pro Cycling Challenge final general classifications are as below,
1
Christian Vande Velde (USA) Garmin - Sharp
25:57:34
2
Tejay van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing Team
0:00:21
3
Levi Leipheimer (USA) Omega Pharma-Quickstep
0:00:24
4
Andreas Klöden (Ger) RadioShack-Nissan
0:01:08
5
Janez Brajkovic (Slo) Astana Pro Team
0:01:14
6
Jakob Fuglsang (Den) RadioShack-Nissan
0:01:24
7
Thomas Danielson (USA) Garmin - Sharp
0:01:28
8
Matthew Busche (USA) RadioShack-Nissan
0:01:32
9
Peter Stetina (USA) Garmin - Sharp
0:01:39
10
Joseph Lloyd Dombrowski (USA) Bontrager Livestrong Team
0:01:40
Tags: