Hushovd hustles to Missouri lead

Thor Hushovd took advantage of a difficult final 2km and a tired Columbia-HTC team on Wednesday's third stage of the Tour of Missouri to take his first stage win and the overall lead.

September 9, 2009 VeloNews.com

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By Steve Frothingham

2009 Tour of Missouri, Stage 3: Thor Hushovd (Cervélo TestTeam) finds the key to beating Columbia’s Mark Cavendish.

Photo: Casey B. Gibson

Thor Hushovd took advantage of a difficult final 2km and a tired Columbia-HTC team on Wednesday’s third stage of the Tour of Missouri to take his first stage win and the overall lead.

The Cervelo TestTeam rider, known for his uphill sprint, took the win after rival Mark Cavendish’s Columbia-HTC team patrolled the front of the field for more than 100 hilly miles, only to lose control in the final run-in.

“We didn’t want to make a proper lead out,” Hushovd said. “If we did a proper lead out maybe Cavendish would sit on my wheel. So we made it very hard, we attacked, we went really fast on the bumps and that’s how we mixed up the whole sprint, and in the end, it suits me perfect.”

Cavendish appeared to be boxed in in the final meters and finished fifth.

“Yeah, it was a chaotic finish,” Cavendish said. “All my guys were used up early today, no one helped us out a bit.”

Cavendish, who won the first two stages in field sprints, entered stage 3 with an overall lead of 10 seconds thanks to time bonuses. Hushovd’s stage 3 bonus brought him back into a tie with the Manxman, with the tie breaker determined by adding their stage finishes. Hushovd’s third, second and first places (six points) added up to a lower number than Cavendish’s first, first and sixth (eight points). Cavendish now leads the best young rider competition.

Rolling to Rolla

The 114-mile stage contained relentless rolling hills, few of them longer than a half mile. Garmin-Slipstream was pinning its GC hopes on time trial champ Dave Zabriskie, who could rest up for Friday’s TT with a steady pace through the hills Wednesday.

2009 Tour of Missouri, Stage 3: Mike Friedman, Will Frischkorn, and Matt Wilson started the break early.

Photo: Casey B. Gibson

So Garmin’s Will Frischkorn and Mike Friedman took off with a team war cry about seven miles in. After Team Type 1’s Matt Wilson bridged up, Columbia signaled it would allow the break when several team members stopped for a nature break.

The threesome built up a nearly four-minute lead while Columbia led the field at a steady pace over the hills.

Freidman — looking to position himself for a GC run with a strong TT — grabbed the intermediate sprints and their time bonuses. Wilson, looking to protect teammate Moises Aldape’s KOM lead, grabbed the three KOM summit sprints. And Frischkorn (who finished second overall in the 2007 Tour of Missouri) provided much of the horsepower, before finally coming undone in the final 15km.

Meanwhile, Zabriskie, Astana’s Levi Leipheimer and other GC hopefuls got a free ride in the pack.

2009 Tour of Missouri, Stage 3: Levi Leipheimer (Astana) has been keeping a low profile, waiting for Friday’s time trial.

Photo: Casey B. Gibson

Frischkorn was the first to fall off the break and faded back to the pack and then off the back. Columbia drove the chase into the final 10km, finally catching Friedman and Wilson with about 8km to go.

On a day of continuous rollers, the penultimate little summit was 1.2km from the end, and riders shot into the final kilometer on a wide, straight city street into downtown Rolla. The finish hill began steeply then flattened out for the last 300 meters.

After Cervélo disrupted Columbia’s attempt at a leadout, an OUCH-Maxxis rider attacked up the left side, and Hushovd bounded off the wheel of a Kelly Benefit Strategies leadout train on the right side to take the front with about 250 meters to go.

JJ Haedo (Saxo Bank) was second, with Dario Cataldo (Quick Step) third and Daniel Oss (Liquigas) fourth.