The 2008 Tour de Georgia couldn’t have ended better for Team High Road on Sunday, as Kiwi sprinter Greg Henderson won the final stage and Belarusian Kanstantin Sivtsov secured his overall race lead by four seconds ahead of Slipstream-Chipotle’s Trent Lowe.

A new climb with 20km to go lived up to expectations, breaking Liège-Bastogne-Liège wide open, but Alejandro Valverde relied on tactical savvy and his fiery finish-line punch to win La Doyenne for the second time in three years Sunday. After working into the decisive four-man move, Spain’s “Green Bullet” collaborated with Davide Rebellin (Gerolsteiner) to fend off searing attacks from the Schleck brothers on the Saint-Nicolas climb with 5.5km to go only to relegate the Italian to bridesmaid status with his winning sprint.

Despite a recently diagnosed injury that has kept him in near-constant pain, Rock Racing’s Rahsaan Bahati roared across the line at the Athens Twilight Criterium to capture his first major victory of the 2008 season. In a race that featured a relentless pace throughout in front of thousands in downtown Athens, Georgia, Bahati was able to beat a charging field to the line with enough time to lift his arms to the sky in tribute to a fallen friend.

A new climb with about 20 kilometers to go in Sunday’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège should pump fresh excitement into one of the oldest races in cycling. The steep climb at La Roche aux Faucons ("Falcon's Rock") is giving hope to riders such as Damiano Cunego, Frank Schleck and Cadel Evans that the hardest of the Ardennes classics will be even more explosive. “I think this climb will make the final more selective and even harder,” said Cunego, winner at Amstel Gold Race. “This is a true climb that I think will change everything. I see a small group pulling away and staying away.”

After sitting behind a ProTour engine over 133 hilly miles, Bissell’s Richard England timed his sprint right to take stage 5 of the 2008 Tour de Georgia on Friday. Slipstream-Chipotle’s Trent Lowe finished in the select front group of 22 riders to take the yellow jersey from High Road’s Greg Henderson, who had a hard day and came off the group on the second KOM climb.

Jittery Joe's team boss Micah Rice has been filming throughout the Tour de Georgia and posting the footage online daily. "I've got every single sprint finish, but I've also got things like the pre-race team meeting where in six minutes of footage you can watch the entire team talking about the plan for the day," Rice said. "We have an interview with Cody (Stevenson) after his crash, road rash and all. And we have interviews with various people as the day moves on. We have a ton of stuff up there."

Starting the day one man down after Timmy Duggan’s frightful crash on Wednesday, an inspired Slipstream-Chipotle won the Tour de Georgia’s stage 4 team time trial Thursday at the Road Atlanta automotive raceway. Slipstream rode four laps of Road Atlanta’s rolling 2.5-mile racetrack in 19:36, 3.41 seconds faster than Astana, at an average speed of 29.14 miles per hour.

Health-Net-Maxxis rider has been front and center for this Tour de Georgia, grabbing the KOM lead on stage 1 and figuring in a long four-man breakaway on Wednesday's stage 3. Pipp's coach Frank Overton has been sharing Pipp's wattage readings and providing VeloNews readers with some analysis after every stage. He's tickled pink that Pipp has been playing such a central role in the race.

Highroad’s Greg Henderson went pretty quick to win Wednesday’s stage 3 sprint — 81.3 kph to be exact; that’s more than 50 mph. We were able to take a look at the maximum values on Hendy’s SRM after the stage. Assuming he was putting out his hardest effort of the race in the final sprint it took 1250 watts to win.

After two slight misfires, High Road’s heavy artillery got its coordinates dialed Wednesday, firing Greg Henderson into the yellow jersey with an explosive win on stage 3 of the Tour de Georgia. Toyota-United’s Ivan Dominguez, winner of stage 1, lost the leader’s jersey when he came off the group in the hilly closing circuits of Gainesville.

Dutch phenom Marianne Vos outgunned her challengers on the painfully steep slopes of the Mur de Huy to take a repeat win at the Flèche Wallonne women’s World Cup. Vos scaled the brutal kilometer-long pitch the fastest, dropping Marta Bastionelli (Italian National), Judith Arndt (High Road) and three-time winner Nicole Cooke (Great Britain) near the summit to take the fourth World Cup round of 2008. The victory was reminiscent of her 2007 victory, which saw Vos ride a tiring Cooke up the 25 percent pitch, then sprint to victory in the closing meters.

It was a mur too far for Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) as Kim Kirchen (High Road) sprang past the attacking Australian on the final ramps of the knee-busting steeps up the Mur de Huy on Wednesday to win a wet and wild Flèche Wallonne.

Eyebrows, and a few voices, were raised at the conclusion of stage 2 of the Tour de Georgia Tuesday when race officials announced that they had awarded the day’s most aggressive rider prize to G.E.-Marco Polo’s Rhys Pollock rather than Toyota-United’s Justin England.

Four weeks ago J.J. Haedo was out motorpacing in Girona when a dog darted in front of his friend’s motorcycle. The driver hit the brakes; Haedo hit the motorcycle and broke his hand. After an initial X-ray failed to reveal any breakage, Haedo continued to ride for a week, even starting Castilla y Leon. “I tried to race,” he said. “I did the prologue, but on the next day I had to pull out because there was too much pain.”

The Italian Olympic Committee’s appeal of a decision to exonerate Alessandro Petacchi of a doping charge is weighing on the sprint king’s mind. Petacchi continues to ride while the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) considers the case, and won two stages at the Tour of Turkey recently. But he says the doping case is getting to him. Petacchi returned a “non-negative” test for elevated levels of salbutamol last season. It's a drug used by asthma sufferers and Petacchi has clearance to take it.

A tender hand didn’t slow CSC’s J.J. Haedo in the sprint finale of the second stage of the Tour de Georgia. Haedo took a convincing win in Augusta ahead of High Road’s Greg Henderson, stage 1 winner Ivan Dominguez (Toyota-United) and Tyler Farrar (Slipstream-Chipotle). Just a week out of a cast, Haedo is riding Georgia with his left hand heavily taped. Tuesday’s flat to rolling stage from Statesboro concluded after two, 5-mile laps of Augusta that ventured across the Savannah River into South Carolina.

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the latest edition of The Prologue, the weekly summary of news from the world of competitive cycling by your friends at VeloNews.com.

The spring racing season continued to gain momentum this past week, with Sunday's Holland's Amstel Gold Race kicking off the Ardennes Classics in Europe and the Tour de Georgia here in the U.S.

Look no further than the results sheet from Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race to see who’ll be bucking for the win in Wednesday’s mid-week classic at 72nd Flèche Wallonne. With the menacing wall at the Mur de Huy waiting at the end of the 10-climb, 199.5km course, the punchy climbers who shined on the Cauberg will be looking to hit the repeat button.

A fast start to the 2008 Tour de Georgia saw Ivan Dominguez take the first stage sprint into Savannah. Casey Gibson was there to catch the riders en route.

One of the most interesting moments of the Tour de Georgia’s opening stage developed midway through the race, when two former overall winners, Chris Horner and Tom Danielson, jumped into a 13-man breakaway following the second intermediate sprint. Also in the breakaway were CSC’s Bobby Julich and Rock Racing’s Victor Hugo Peña. And while Horner is clearly in Georgia to ride for Astana team leader Levi Leipheimer, Danielson, who has been nursing a herniated L5 vertebra tracing back to the opening stage of the 2007 Vuelta España, entered the race as an unknown factor.

The sixth Tour de Georgia began Monday with a short and — for Toyota-United — sweet stage from Tybee Island into Savannah. Ivan Dominguez battled his way through the well-orchestrated lead-outs of Gerolsteiner and High Road to take a commanding sprint win on the 70.4-mile flat stage ahead of Jelly Belly’s Nic Sanderson and Gerolsteiner’s Robert Förster.

This week coach Frank Overton will be analyzing the power readings from Health Net-Maxxis rider Frank Pipp, as he competes in the Tour de Georgia. VeloNews will be sharing Pipp's SRM power files and Overton's analysis after each stage. Those interested in seeing the complete power files can download them from Fascatcoaching.com. What follows is Overton's preview of the race. -- Editor

The Cauberg climb was the scene of a stunning finale Sunday of a wild, action-packed Amstel Gold Race that saw Damiano Cunego (Lampre) score a huge victory against the attacking Frank Schleck (CSC). Realizing his only shot against faster rivals such as Cunego and third-place finisher Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne) was to attack, the Luxembourger surged away with a vengeance with 500 meters to go to drop everyone out an elite group of nine riders except Cunego. Schleck’s raid almost worked, but Italy’s “Little Prince” had another ending in mind.

Two of Italy’s biggest stars are on the mend and hope to be back at their best in time for major upcoming goals. Two-time world champ Paolo Bettini is skipping both Amstel Gold Race and Flèche Wallone due to a broken rib suffered in last week’s Vuelta al País Vasco while Daniele Bennati will finally make his debut with Liquigas following a lengthy recovery from a knee injury.

Powerful gusting winds didn’t sway 19-year-old Tiffany Cromwell (Colavita Olive Oil-Sutter Home) or Michael Grabinger (Successful Living), who took NRC victories on the Laguna Seca Raceway Saturday at the Sea Otter Classic. The men’s and women’s events played out very differently. Cromwell rode solo off the front of a break for the final few laps. Grabinger, however, made it into an unusual four-man breakaway with two teammates and David Clinger (Rock Racing). The men lapped the field — twice — before Successful Living lined up a leadout in the stiff crosswind.

Anna Milkowski is a member of Team Advil-Chapstick. This diary entry was completed a few hours after she won the 2008 Tour of the Battenkill Valley in New York — Editor Redlands exists as a haze — a temporary exchange of lobster gloves and neoprene flippers for sunscreen and swimming pools — then a quick return to winter. The experience hinted I had survived this challenging winter of indoor riding and even a yard-sale crash on black ice, but the season began for real today with the Battenkill Roubaix in Salem, New York.

Near-record setting temperatures sent dust, gravel and rocks flying at the Tour of the Battenkill Valley on Saturday, but racers from the Great White North, perhaps the least adjusted to the heat, managed to dominate the event. Bruno Langlois, racing for Team Volkswagen, pipped five-time Canadian national champion Mark Walters (Team R.A.C.E.), following an 82-mile event that sent racers over a combination of dirt and paved roads in a quiet corner of New York State.

The list of favorites for Sunday's Amstel Gold Race seems nearly as long as the number of years the race has been held: 43. For the first time in more than a decade, neither one of Holland’s eternal favorites for Amstel Gold — Erik Dekker or Michael Boogerd — can be counted on to carry national pride. Each won Amstel once, beating Lance Armstrong each time in what was one of the biggest wins in each of their respective careers.

Team Type 1 Sets Sights On A Stage Win In Georgia Tybee Island, Ga. — Team Type 1 brings an arsenal to the Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T that is equipped to deliver a stage win during the seven-day, 590-mile (949.5 km) race that begins Monday. Team Type 1’s roster for the race will be Emile Abraham (TRI), Moises Aldape (MEX), Fabio Calabria (AUS), Glen Chadwick (AUS), Chris Jones (USA), Valeriy Kobzarenko (UKR), Ian MacGregor (USA) and Matt Wilson (AUS).

With no individual time trial and a trip planned up the steep Brasstown Bald mountain, the seven-day 2008 Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T, appears to be a climber’s race. Odds-on race favorites include 2006 overall winner Tom Danielson (Slipstream-Chipotle), Astana’s U.S. national champion Levi Leipheimer and Rock Racing’s Spanish climbing sensation Oscar Sevilla.

Click here for complete Tour de Georgia coverage Monday, April 21, stage 1 — The race will make its first ever visit to the seacoast when it starts at Tybee Island. The 71.8-mile stage passes through the coastal lowcountry, with several intermediate sprints before the finish in Savannah. The race has not visited the historic city since it hosted the prologue in 2003.

High Road's Edvald Boasson Hagen won in a sprint between four breakaway companions to prevail in the GP Denain on Thursday. The 20-year-old Hagen took a commanding win over AG2R's Jimmy Casper and Credit Agricole's Jimmy Engoulvent. FDJ's Fredric Guesdon trailed by 10 seconds. Hagen was part of a day-long break of 15 that was then whittled down to six riders on the last lap.

High Road is prepared for a tough tactical battle in the Tour of Georgia, says team sports director Allan Peiper. “With the decisive stage to the Brasstown Bald climb coming late in the race, and the team time trial preceding that, teams will have to keep their options open for as long as possible. We’ll be looking to do our best throughout.”

Riders and families of the NorCal High School Mountain Bike League were greeted by a warm beautiful Monterey day when they all came out for race 4 in sunny Fort Ord. The unexpected warm temperatures added an extra stress for racers, but true to League character, most persevered to the end. Although the location was the same as the season opener, it was a very different race. With a few more steep hills, a downhill sand pit, some newly added windy single track, and poison oak that was in full bloom, the course provided a day full of epic attacks, surprises, and mishaps.

High Road's Mark Cavendish won the 207km Grand Prix de l'Escaut (also known as the Scheldeprijs Vlaanderen) for the second successive year on Wednesday just ahead of top sprinters Tom Boonen of Belgium and Australia's Robbie McEwen. Germany's Eric Zabel took fourth place but it needed a photo-finish to separate Cavendish and former world road race champion Boonen.

Stuart O'Grady took another step towards erasing the memory of the Tour de France crash which nearly ended his career with a stunning ride at the Paris-Roubaix classic Sunday. O'Grady, the first Australian to claim cycling's biggest one-day prize in 2007, went into the cobblestone-riddled epic lacking full form and knowing that only "a miracle" would give him the chance of a repeat. But he produced a stunner to finish fifth shortly after his CSC team leader Fabian Cancellara had been humbled only by an explosive winning sprint from Belgian Tom Boonen.

Italian sprinting star Alessandro Petacchi continued his 2008 winning ways in the Tour of Turkey (UCI 2.1/April 14-20). He won the first stage from Izmir to Kuþadasý in a photo finish, for his seventh win of the season. Second, by a hair, was the Argentinian Ruben Guillermo Bongiorno (CSF Group-Navigare), and third was Spaniard Javier Benitez Pomares (Benfica). The stage win also gave Petacchi the overall lead.

Kyle Gritters (Health Net-Maxxis) broke free from a large break to take first at the Garrett Lemire Memorial Grand Prix Sunday in Ojai, California. He was followed closely by teammate John Murphy and Toyota-United’s Hilton Clarke. Australian Tiffany Cromwell (Colavita-Sutter Home) soloed across the line in the women’s race, well ahead of teammate Iona Wynter-Parks, who also finished alone, before Rachel Tzinberg (Bicycle John’s) took the bunch sprint just seconds later.

The nasty rain didn’t show up for the 106th Paris-Roubaix, but a superb Tom Boonen sure did. On a Sunday of cool sunshine and favorable winds, the Quick Step team leader took his second Roubaix victory, three years after the first, with an unstoppable sprint over his final breakaway companions Fabian Cancellara (CSC) and Alessandro Ballan (Lampre).

In preparation for its first crack at Paris-Roubaix — arguably the world’s most demanding single-day event for riders and their bikes — Slipstream-Chipotle wisely called on their team captain Magnus Backstedt for technical recommendations. Maggy, the 2004 winner of the “Hell of the North,” keyed the team’s mechanics in to a few secrets of smoothing out the bumpy ride.

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the latest edition of The Prologue, VeloNews.com's weekly summary of news from the world of competitive cycling.

The season is in full swing this week with racing underway both here in the U.S. and in Europe.

Nick Nuyens proved he could ride as a classics contender with his second-place finish at Sunday’s Tour of Flanders. Nuyens, Cofidis’ newest strongman, bridged to a surging Juan Antonio Flecha in the final kilometers of Belgium’s most famous single-day race in an attempt to bring back Quick Step’s streaking Stijn Devolder. While Devolder took the win, Nuyens took the sprint for second, as well as his best-ever classics result.

Is this the year? Is this the year that the stars will be aligned for George Hincapie on the cobblestones of Paris-Roubaix? Is this the year that the tall 34-year-old American can follow up his two sixth places, two fourth places and his runner-up spot (of 2005) with another big performance on Sunday? Is this the year he can win?

VeloNews spoke with Rabobank’s Juan Antonio Flecha just a little more that 24 hours after he helped deliver teammate Oscar Freire to his win at the 70th edition of Ghent-Wevelgem.

Team High Road's Kim Kirchen won Thursday's fourth stage of the Pais Vasco in a sprint finish, while Astana's Alberto Contador retained the overall lead. It was Kirchen's second stage victory in this year's event, and left him in fifth place in the overall standings. Contador came in 20th with the same time as the stage winner to retain his overall lead, three seconds ahead of compatriot Ezequiel Mosquera. Kirchen covered the 171 kilometers between Viana and Vitoria-Gasteiz in four hours, 17 minutes and 33 seconds to edge his teammate Morris Possoni of Italy at the line.

Making their mark both stateside and in South America last weekend, Kona Factory Team riders proudly stood atop the podium in Fountain Hills, Arizona and the Pan-Am Mountain Bike Championships in Venezuela. Competing in three races last weekend at the McDowell Mountain Park in the second NMBS event, team riders Barry Wicks, Ryan Trebon and Wendy Simms all secured top-three finishes in at least one race. Kris Sneddon also competed and finished in the top-15 in all of his races.

With their morale on a high after Judith Arndt’s victory in the Tour of Flanders, High Road’s women’s team now tackle the fourth round of the World Cup this Saturday, the Ronde Van Drenthe. The high point of a three-race series in and around Drenthe, the 136.6km event features a triple ascent of the notorious Vamberg climb. 750 metres long and with sections at a 20 percent gradient, the race features a number of cobbled sections. Narrow, twisting and frequently exposed roads, not to mention potentially bad weather, make the race a tough event, normally fraught with tension.

Spain's David Herrero of the Karpin team won the 195km third stage of the Tour of the Basque Country on Wednesday between Erandio and Viana while Astana's Alberto Contador retained the overall lead. Herrero had finished third in the first two stages of the race, and now lies third overall, eight seconds behind Contador. The 28-year-old Herrero beat out compatriot Luis Leon Sanchez and Italy's Olympic champion Paolo Bettini in a sprint finish for a time of 4:54:24.

Oscar Freire’s knack for winning chaotic sprints made him a favorite to win the 70th edition of Ghent-Wevelgem as a huge 77-rider pack thundered toward the finish line in this small Belgian town. And while the cagey 32-year-old did emerge victorious to become the event’s first Spanish champion, Freire and his Rabobank teammates earned the win the old-fashioned way.

Over the years, dozens of top sprinters, from Freddy Maertens to Sean Kelly to Mario Cipollini, have won Ghent-Wevelgem, which celebrates its 70th edition on Wednesday. But the UCI ProTour classic rarely ends in a field sprint. When Cipollini earned his third Wevelgem scalp in 2002, he was in a small breakaway group with Americans Fred Rodriguez and George Hincapie. Hincapie won the race the year before in a photo-finish over Dutchman Leo Van Bon, also in a small-group sprint.

Kim Kirchen (High Road) drove a fierce sprint up a rising finish to upset two-time world champion Paolo Bettini (Quick Step) in Tuesday’s attack-riddled second stage at the Vuelta al País Vasco. Riders went down in the middle of the pack in the final surge to the line as teammate Michael Barry gave Kirchen a perfect lead-out to spring the Luxembourg all-rounder to a morale-boosting victory ahead of the Ardennes classics later this month.

Alberto Contador’s “Revenge Tour 2008” continued Monday as the Astana rider uncorked a blistering acceleration on the last of seven climbs to bolt away from a soggy and cold peloton in the 137km opener at the Vuelta al País Vasco. Contador won the stage three seconds ahead of Ezequiel Mosquera (Karpin-Galicia) and takes an unexpected eight-second lead on his main adversaries in an exciting opening day of the six-day Basque Country tour.

When it’s a hard day in the Tour of Flanders, the home riders nearly always come out on top. And Sunday’s 92nd edition of the gnarly Belgian classic was one of the hardest, with hail showers, even some snow, and long bouts of heavy rain blasting the riders through the middle part of the 264km race, which started and ended in spring sunshine. So it was fitting that the reigning champion of Belgium, Stijn Devolder of Quick Step-Innergetic, emerged with a gutsy solo triumph.

Alex Wrubleski (Webcor Builders) and Santiago Botero (Rock Racing) wrapped up the overall titles at California's Redlands Classic on Sunday. Wrubleski not only won the Beaver Medical Group Sunset Road Race in a bunch sprint, just ahead of Leigh Hobson (Cheerwine) and Kim Anderson (Team High Road), but took just enough bonus time in Sunday’s final stage of the Redlands Cycling Classic to take the overall from Mara Abbott (Team High Road) by a mere second.

Danilo Di Luca (LPR) won the Settimana Lombardia race on Sunday following the sixth and final stage over 162.7km around Bergamo. Teammates Paolo Savoldelli and Daniele Pietropolli finished second and third respectively. Italy's Francesco Failli (Acqua e Sapone), won the stage in a sprint finish. It was the 43rd career win for 32-year-old Di Luca, the reigning Giro d'Italia champion. Di Luca is embroiled in an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to have a three-month suspension he served for a doping offense last year overturned.

German ace Judith Arndt out-kicked American Kristin Armstrong to win the women’s Tour of Flanders, the third round of the 2008 UCI women’s World Cup. It was the fourth career World Cup victory for Arndt, the silver medalist from the 2004 Olympics, and the first for her team under its new High Road label. “It was a perfect victory; a perfect day for us,” said Arndt. “It was a team victory.”

Emilia Fahlin (Team High Road) and Jeff Louder (BMC) won Saturday’s 1st Centennial Bank-KWB Wealth Managers Criterium, the second stage of the 2008 Redlands Classic in California. Fahlin, a 19-year-old Swede, took the bunch sprint ahead of a hard-driving women’s peloton in Saturday’s 1st Centennial Bank-KWB Wealth Managers Criterium. Hot on her wheel was Canadian Alex Wrubleski (Webcor Builders) and Advil-Chapstick’s Brenda Lyons.

The Absa Cape Epic stage race wrapped up Saturday with the Bulls team — comprising the German riders Karl Platt and Stefan Sahm — capturing the final stage while the overall title goes to the Cannondale Vredestein duo of Denmark's Jakob Fuglsang and Belgium's Roel Paulissen. With a nine-minute time advantage built up of over the last couple of stages, the Cannondale Vredestein team solidified their position by finishing in the lead bunch. The Bulls team secured second place overall.

Fabian Wegmann (Gerolsteiner) won in Spain and Tony Martin (High Road) took the flowers in Holland in weekend racing across Europe. In Spain’s GP Miguel Indurain, Wegmann repeated his victory from two years ago by being first up the climbing finish at the 950-meter El Puy in Estella. Wegmann profited from the work of his Gerolsteiner teammates to control the pace made easy work of Michael Albasini (Liguiqas), who crossed the line second some two seconds ahead of third-place Joaquin Rodríguez (Caisse d’Epargne).

A few glimpses of sunshine were interrupting the rain showers Saturday evening in Belgium, partially drying out the 24 sections of cobblestones and 17 hellingen included in the 92nd Tour of Flanders.

Katharine Carroll celebrates her win in the sprint, and on the podium.

Rock Racing's Santiago Botero won Friday's stage 1 circuit race at the Redlands Bicycle Classic, after soloing away from a five-man breakaway. In the women's race, Aarron's Katherine Carroll won the stage in a sprint. Casey Gibson was there to capture the action in photos.

Colombian Santiago Botero (Rock Racing) took the win in Friday’s Beaumont Circuit Race, the first stage of the Redlands Cycling Classic — and his first win in America. After working in a break with five other riders beginning in the second of five 17-mile laps, he attacked in the final lap and powered across the finish line a resounding 52 seconds ahead of Sebastian Haedo (Colavita-Sutter Home) and Burke Swindlehurst (Bissell) in second and third.

Competitive cyclists are not patient people. They tend to go directly to the pain, work too hard too early, and mistakenly overlook the real limiter of their performance simply because it doesn’t hurt enough to satisfy their addiction to pain.

Tyler Hamilton is looking at the glass half full. After the Rock Racing team captain was prohibited from racing at the Amgen Tour of California and his team was not invited to this month’s Tour de Georgia, it would be understandable for Hamilton to be discouraged following Rock’s devastating loss of the race lead by one second in the final stage criterium of the San Dimas Stage Race on Sunday. Not the case, Hamilton said Wednesday evening as he rode in a team car towards the Redlands Classic.