Only one American is riding in the Vuelta this year -- Levi Leipheimer, fresh off his Olympic bronze medal in the road time trial. Leipheimer hasn't ridden in the Vuelta since his third place in 2001. Like many of the other former members of the Discovery Channel cycling team, he ended up moving with director sportif Johan Bruyneel to Astana, the Kazakh cycling team that was torn apart by doping last year.
And what did Leipheimer do yesterday? He won the individual time trial and took over the overall lead in the race. Astana chose not to defend the lead today, because the race heads into the Pyrenees on Saturday and everyone needs to be at their freshest, but he's just 10 seconds back.
Leipheimer's victory makes him just the 5th American to win a stage in the race, along with Guido Trenti (2001), David Zabriskie (2004), Tom Danielson (2006) and Jason McCartney (2007), and only the second American to wear the leader's maillot oro (after Floyd Landis (2004), who was the leader of the U.S. Postal Service team that won the Team Time Trial that year).
But Americans don't get to see the Vuelta, because Versus, which owns the U.S. rights, chooses not to show it. Amazing.
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