Russians Ruling Tour de Suisse?

By Ashton | Permalink |

No Comments | June 22nd, 2007 | Trackback

Gusev Wins Stage Seven This year’s Tour de Suisse is beginning to remind me of the Cold War era spoof The Russians are Coming! (I suppose most cycling fans are too young to remember the Cold War, much less that movie.)

After yesterday’s snowball start, Russian rider Vladimir Efimkin of Cassie d’ Epargne donned the yellow and blue leader’s jersey for today’s seventh stage. Team Discovery has not come close to winning a stage since Levi Leipheimer’s crash on the rain slicked roads on his way to the finish of that final stage of the Criterium Dauphine Libere; that is until today. Discovery’s Russian born Vladimir Gusev, who had been on the attack since early in the day, made his final, successful attack with about 20 km to go. Gusev held off a chase by Chris Horner and Andreas Kloden in the final 5 km to win the stage for team Discovery before plunging over his handle bars while breaking too quickly after crossing the finish line.

Discovery fans should not let this stage win get their hopes up for next months Tour (or in the post-Lance Discovery world, perhaps that should be “Dour”) de France. Leipheimer does not appear to have the legs to win a three week race at this point, there is no word yet on how Popovych has been recovering from the injuries suffered during his spills in the Giro, and there still is no news on Tom Danielson’s recovery from the ill-ness that pulled him from the Giro.

Efimkin will again wear the leader’s jersey in Saturday’s stage.

The Russian riders certainly seem to be making a name for themselves in the Tour de Suisse. If you are a Discovery fan, then you at least can be grateful that one of those Russians is on your team!

Thank you, Mr. Gorbachev, for tearing down that wall.