By Susan Westemeyer Team CSC can look back at a highly successful 2007 season, in which it won the...
JJ Haedo (CSC) (Image credit: Jon Devich)
By Susan Westemeyer
Team CSC can look back at a highly successful 2007 season, in which it won the ProTour team ranking and had five riders in the ProTour's top-25. In addition, the team brought in 35 victories, including a world title.
The year's first wins came in the Tour of California, where sprinter Juan Jose Haedo took out stage two and stage six, while Jens Voigt beat eventual overall Levi Leipheimer in a small group sprint into San Jose, after crossing the highest point of the Tour on that stage.
Newcomer Alexandr Kolobnev took the team's first ProTour win of the year and his first ProTour win ever by initiating an escape group only two kilometres into the third stage of Paris-Nice. He broke away from the riders accompanying him with seven kilometres to go and won by 12 seconds.
The highlight of the spring was Stuart O'Grady's win at Paris Roubaix, his first win in two and half years. "I was going to win today or die trying," said the first Australian to ever win the race. He was in an early escape group, which he broke out of to win by nearly a minute.
The Giro d'Italia was the next big success for the Danish team. Kurt-Asle Arvesen won a stage, but the real sensation of the race was Andy Schleck, who finished second overall.
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Fabian Cancellara warmed up for the Tour de France by winning the prologue of the Tour de Suisse and holding the leader's jersey for three days, before turning it over to team-mate Fränk Schleck, who took over the lead for two days by winning the fourth stage.
The team continued its luck in the Tour de France, where time trial world champion Cancellara won both the prologue in London and the third stage, where he surprised all the sprinters. He wore the leader's jersey for seven days. When the race moved into the mountains, the team switched its support to Carlos Sastre, who ended up finishing fourth overall.
The team dominated its homeland race, the Tour of Denmark, with Arvesen finishing first, Matti Breschel third and Nicki Sorensen fifth. Both Breschel and Arvesen won stages along the way.
In August, Jens Voigt won the Deutschland Tour for the second time in a row. He took over the lead in the second stage, a team team time trial near Karlsruhe and held on to it until the end, cementing his lead with a strong individual time trial win and being able to fend off competitors on the Rettenbachferner.
In the Vuelta a España Carlos Sastre came close to winning, but could not topple Russian Denis Menchov (Rabobank), who was a class for himself. One member closed the season out in style, as Cancellara successfully defended his time trial title at the Worlds in Stuttgart, 52 seconds ahead of his closest rival.
Fränck Schleck narrowly missed out on a medal, finishing fourth in the road race.
