Germany Tour 2006

Final result after the 8th stage
winner	Jens Voigt	32:11:10 h (42.298 km / h)
Second	Levi Leipheimer	+ 1:38 min
Third	Andrei Kashechkin	+ 2:23 min
Fourth	Vladimir Gusev	+ 2:33 min
fifth	Yevgeny Petrov	+ 2:57 min
Sixth	Marzio Bruseghin	+ 3:42 min
seventh	Iñigo Cuesta	+ 4:08 min
Eighth	Stijn Devolder	+ 4:09 min
Ninth	Eddy Mazzoleni	+ 4:36 min
Tenth	Pablo Lastras	+ 4:38 min
Scoring	Erik Zabel	115 p.
Second	Jens Voigt	88 P.
Third	Andrei Kashechkin	62 P.
Mountain scoring	Sebastian Lang	21 p.
Second	Andrei Kashechkin	21 p.
Third	Jens Voigt	20 p.
Young talent evaluation	Vladimir Gusev	32:13:43 h
Second	Stefan Schumacher	+ 2:15 min
Third	Thomas Dekker	+ 3:49 min
Team evaluation	Team Gerolsteiner	96:42:18 h
Second	Team CSC	+ 0:13 min
Third	Discovery Channel	+ 3:01 min

The Germany Tour 2006 took place from August 1st to 9th, 2006 . The eighth edition of the tour since its reintroduction started for the first time with a prologue - held in Düsseldorf . After eight stages, the destination in Karlsruhe was reached. The route with a planned total length of 1,390.5 kilometers consisted of two flat individual time trials (including the prologue), two mountain arrivals to Seefeld and St. Anton , as well as four flat and one medium-difficult stage in the Harz Mountains . By shortening the fifth stage, without crossing the Kühtaisattel , the total distance of the tour was reduced to 1,361.4 kilometers. However, the number of mountain arrivals did not change by keeping the destination Seefeld for the fifth stage.

Despite the negative headlines in the run-up to the tour, there was great interest both on the roadside and on the televisions.

course

prolog

The 5.5 kilometer long start of the tour was marked by several falls due to the changeable weather with heavy rain and strong wind. Secret favorite Stefan Schumacher lost 1:28 minutes to the day's winner Wladimir Gussew in such a fall with the resulting defect in the chain and front tire , who was able to prevail just ahead of T-Mobile young talent Linus Gerdemann and the German time trial champion Sebastian Lang from the Gerolsteiner team .

For a long time, last year's German champion Gerald Ciolek held the fastest time. He was already second on the track and, unlike most of his competitors, found the track conditions to be good.

1st stage

Field of drivers on the first stage near Dortmund-Hohensyburg

As the day before at the prologue , the race was characterized by the bad weather conditions. A top duo , Anttón Luengo and Andreas Matzbacher , pulled away in the first hour of the race . Their maximum lead was just over six minutes. They were overtaken by the peloton 23 kilometers from the finish.

At the last mountain classification of the day in Steinhagen , 6.5 kilometers from the finish, some drivers increased the pace significantly. Stefan Schumacher , the unlucky person of the prologue, reached the summit with a small margin, which he could not defend until the finish. Then his teammate Sebastian Lang tried , but was slowed down by a camera motorcycle. In the finish sprint, Assan Basajew from Team Astana won ahead of Danilo Napolitano and Erik Zabel .

The success in the sprint was Basajew's first ProTour victory. Thanks to a time credit in one of the intermediate sprints, Vladimir Gusev was able to extend his overall lead by one second to his closest rivals.

2nd stage

After several unsuccessful escape attempts at the beginning of the race, the German Ronny Scholz , who was not followed by any other driver, started a solo escape at race kilometer 23 . His maximum lead was now 6:45 minutes, at the foot of the resin it had melted to around 2:30 minutes. After 107 kilometers solo, the field caught up with him.

At the culmination point of the first mountain classification in Bad Grund , there was a top group of eight with prominent names such as Jens Voigt and Stefan Schumacher . But their lead of a maximum of 0:24 minutes was already used up in the second ascent to Bockswiese shortly afterwards .

There a new top group formed with Voigt, Davide Rebellin and Andrei Kaschetschkin . They defended their lead on the descent to Goslar and reached the home straight together. In the final sprint, Voigt won ahead of Rebellin, who slipped his rear wheel slightly in the last corner, and Kaschetschkin, who was also unable to resist the winner. The field followed four seconds behind with Erik Zabel and Kim Kirchen on the other places.

3rd stage

After a restless start phase, Marco Pinotti pulled away from the field at race kilometer 30, with a maximum advantage of around 9 minutes. Shortly before the merger with the main field about 30 kilometers from the finish in Schweinfurt, several drivers attacked from the same, but unsuccessfully. Even after that, it remained restless in the closed main field. The sprinter teams kept the field together until the home straight. There Gerald Ciolek secured his first victory in the UCI ProTour ahead of Erik Zabel and André Greipel , who completed the German triple victory.

Zabel secured the red point jersey. On the yellow jersey of the overall leader, he was only a few hundredths of a second behind due to time credits that he had won in the finish sprint and in the intermediate sprints on the track.

The day before the stage, a 37-year-old police officer from the motorcycle squadron died while securing the route when he was hit by a falling truck.

4th stage

As on the previous days, a duo pulled away from the field right from the start. Björn Schröder and Charly Wegelius . After the two had quickly expanded their lead to around 7 minutes, the field began to sharply increase the pace and halved the lead within 15 kilometers. Schröder then broke off the breakaway attempt, while Wegelius continued his escape alone, but was overtaken by the main field a little later.

Then a new group of three drivers formed at 90 km. Marcel Sieberg , Sébastien Minard and Markel Irízar had a maximum lead of around 2:55 minutes. There the Milram team dictated the pace, driving in full force at the front of the field. When there were still about 6.5 kilometers to drive, Sieberg attacked in the breakaway group and continued to escape alone. However, neither Sieberg nor that of the chasing duo was enough and the escape ended 4 kilometers from the goal.

On the demanding last 1.5 kilometers, on which the drivers had to overcome a height difference of 50 meters, Jens Voigt was in the lead up to a few hundred meters before the finish line. However, Graeme Brown won ahead of Stefan Schumacher and Erik Zabel , who secured the yellow jersey of the overall leader.

There was a rear-end collision in the column of material trucks in Geretsried , about 180 kilometers after the start, between the T-Mobile truck and the neutral material vehicle . The Italian sprinter Danilo Napolitano was also involved in this collision .

5th stage

Before the start of the stage, the riders protested because it was snowing and raining on the Tyrolean Kühtaisattel at temperatures around freezing point. The tour organization had an understanding and then changed the course of the stage: Instead of driving over the Kühtai, the drivers continued their journey through the Inn valley . This shortened the former “king's stage” by around 30 kilometers.

Despite the bad weather, the racing pace was very high from the start. A top group of 20 and 17 could not break away decisively and were quickly put back. On the tricky descent from the Achensee into the Inn Valley , the main field was divided into two parts.

In the valley at race kilometer 83, a six-man top group formed from the first field with László Bodrogi , Christian Knees , Sébastien Rosseler , Jan Boven , Robert Retschke and Paolo Fornaciari . But their lead never grew beyond three minutes. When the lead fell below a minute, Rosseler tried it on his own, while the rest of the group fell back into the main field. However, Rosseler's escape ended at the beginning of the final climb to Seefeld .

In the climb, a top group of ten formed with last year's winner Levi Leipheimer , Jens Voigt , Vladimir Gussew , Leonardo Piepoli and Andrei Kaschetschkin . Kaschetschkin, Leipheimer and Piepoli were able to break away from the rest of the drivers shortly before the mountain classification. They crossed the mountain classification together, while Voigt followed nine seconds behind. After the mountain classification, which was followed by a three-kilometer flat section, Leipheimer attacked from the top group and won ahead of Kaschetschkin and Marzio Bruseghin , who had found connection again on the flat section.

Voigt, who crossed the finish line three seconds behind, took over the yellow jersey of the leader in the overall standings. Kaschetschkin took over the lead in the mountain classification from Stefan Schumacher .

6th stage

Right at the beginning of the “new” queen stage, there were again several attempts to break away. On the descent from Seefeld into the Leutasch Valley , ten kilometers after the start, Erik Zabel , Sebastian Lang and Mathew Hayman separated from the field. A little later, Sébastien Rosseler was joined by a fourth driver. The quartet had a lead of 11:25 minutes before the start of the Hahntennjoch .

There Rosseler and Hayman could not follow the pace of the two Germans and fell behind. In the main field, the Astana team set the pace, with individual drivers repeatedly trying to loosen up. The main field was reduced to a group of around 20 drivers with all favorites for the overall victory. Alexander Vinokurow , Linus Gerdemann and Patrik Sinkewitz , however, did not belong to this group, which crossed the pass summit 8:08 minutes behind the leading duo.

On the way to the final ascent, the lead of the leading duo shrank drastically. Shortly after the two of them had passed St. Anton and entered the final ascent to the Arlberg Pass , they caught up with the field, where Vinokurow increased the pace significantly. Then the Gerolsteiner team took over the lead in the group. A little later the CSC team in the form of Iñigo Cuesta for its captain Jens Voigt . When the group was still around twelve drivers, Levi Leipheimer attacked . He was only followed by Voigt, Andrei Kaschetschkin and Yevgeny Petrov . Two kilometers from the finish, there was a gap between the Leipheimer-Kaschetschkin duo and the Voigt-Petrow duo. In a tunnel, Kashechkin attacked unsuccessfully, while Voigt was able to catch up with his opponent. Voigt won the finish sprint of the quartet, which no one could follow in the sprint. Behind him followed Leipheimer and, at a slight distance, Kaschetschkin and Petrow.

With his second success Voigt extended his lead in the overall standings to the new overall runner-up from Leipheimer. Despite having a tie with Kaschetschkin, Lang took the lead in the mountain classification as he was the first to cross a mountain in the higher category than Kaschetschkin, the Hahntennjoch.

7th stage

Jens Voigt in front of the finish line

The 38.2 kilometer long individual time trial around Bad Säckingen turned out to be a triumph for overall leader Jens Voigt .

Marco Pinotti set the first target time with 47:06 minutes. However, his time was not enough to secure the day's victory. László Bodrogi , the Hungarian time trial champion, set a time to be taken seriously with 46:06 minutes, even for the favorites.

Then the favorites followed the overall victory. The tension in the fight for the yellow jersey evaporated at the first intermediate time when Voigt set the fastest time and Levi Leipheimer distanced himself by 19 seconds. At the following measuring points, he continuously expanded his lead. At the finish he undercut the previous best time of Bodrogi, who was second in the stage, by 1:03 minutes. Leipheimer lost a total of 1:14 minutes to Voigt and finished fifth, but remained second in the classification for the yellow jersey. Sebastian Lang , who felt hindered on the route by a vehicle from the tour organization, and Alexander Vinokurow , whose shape was upwards with regard to the Vuelta a España , as on the previous day, followed in 3rd and 4th place in the daily standings .

Andrei Kaschetschkin improved from fifth to third place in the overall standings. In the fight for the red jersey, Voigt shortened the gap to Erik Zabel with his third stage win . Stefan Schumacher moved up to second place behind Wladimir Gussew in the junior ranking , while the Gerolsteiner team took the lead in the team ranking again.

8th stage

Jens Voigt shortly before the start in Bad Krozingen

On the last part of the day, after several unsuccessful attempts to break away at kilometer 25, the trio Pascal Hungerbühler , Lloyd Mondory and Mads Kaggestad , who was the initiator of the escape, pulled away. They drove about 130 kilometers with a maximum of about 6 minutes ahead of the lead. Shortly before the first destination passage in Karlsruhe , the peloton ended the escape of the three drivers.

From then on, the speed was kept very high by the sprinter teams, so that attempts to break away were hardly possible. In the finish sprint, Graeme Brown just about secured his second win of the day. Erik Zabel and Danilo Napolitano followed on the other places .

Jens Voigt easily retained the lead in the overall standings and secured the 50th professional victory of his career. There was also no change in the fight for the sprint standings, Zabel secured the jersey for the sixth time. With Sebastian Lang , another German won the cycling jersey of the best mountain rider. Wladimir Gussew won the junior competition with ease and the Gerolsteiner team triumphed in the team competition.

Stages

Stages	Day	Start finish	km	Stage winner	Overall first
prolog	August 1st	Dusseldorf	5.5 ( EZF )	Vladimir Gusev	Vladimir Gusev
1st stage	August 2nd	Düsseldorf - Bielefeld	198.2	Assan Basayev	Vladimir Gusev
2nd stage	3rd August	Minden - Goslar	181.5	Jens Voigt	Vladimir Gusev
3rd stage	4th of August	Witzenhausen - Schweinfurt	203.3	Gerald Ciolek	Vladimir Gusev
4th stage	5th of August	Heidenheim - Bad Toelz	203	Graeme Brown	Erik Zabel
5th stage	6th of August	Bad Toelz - Seefeld ( AUT )	192.1 *	Levi Leipheimer	Jens Voigt
6th stage	August 7th	Seefeld - St. Anton ( Arlberg Pass ) (AUT)	196.6	Jens Voigt	Jens Voigt
7th stage	8th August	Bad Säckingen	38.2 ( EZF )	Jens Voigt	Jens Voigt
8th stage	August 9	Bad Krozingen - Karlsruhe	172.1	Graeme Brown	Jens Voigt

* shortened to 163 km due to temperatures around freezing point, snowfall and rain on the Kühtaisattel

Ratings in the course of the tour

The table shows the leader of the respective classification after the stage.

stage	Overall rating	Scoring	Mountain scoring	Young talent evaluation	Team evaluation	Most active driver
1st stage	Vladimir Gusev	Vladimir Gusev	Vladimir Gusev	Vladimir Gusev	Discovery Channel	not forgiven
2nd stage			Stefan Schumacher			Andreas Matzbacher
3rd stage			Davide rebel		Team Gerolsteiner	Ronny Scholz
4th stage		Erik Zabel	Stefan Schumacher			Marco Pinotti
5th stage	Erik Zabel					Marcel Sieberg
6th stage	Jens Voigt		Andrei Kashechkin		Team CSC	Sven Teutenberg
7th stage			Sebastian Lang			Erik Zabel
8th stage					Team Gerolsteiner	not forgiven
winner						not forgiven

Web links

Commons : Deutschland Tour 2006  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Germany Tour 2006 on cycling4fans.de