Ol’ 10 Speed has taken a few days to relax and ruminate after traipsing through Georgia last week for the sixth edition of the Tour de Georgia, and I keep coming back to what a fantastic event this was from a competitive and artistic standpoint.

The decisive battle last Saturday on Brasstown Bald, a 3-mile beast of a climb with sections of 25-degree gradient en route to a mountaintop finish, was great theatre, sports at its best, with premier athletes at the top of their games going head to head with the outcome hanging in the balance.

Game on the line, last minute of play, that kind of thing … with the fans RIGHT THERE.

This is where bicycle racing trumps every other sport. Where else can a fan literally yell into the ear of an athlete as one guy did while running alongside Levi Leipheimer on Levi’s first big acceleration on Brasstown Bald? And where else can fans literally help competitors by giving ‘em a push - as fans did for the stragglers on the vicious climb after the leaders had ascended?

“We do appreciate that,” High Road sprinter Greg Henderson said after winning Stage 7 on Sunday, his second stage win of the TdG.

But going back to the race itself, the TdG portends well to the immediate future of professional cycling in the United States and perhaps to the future of top-flight international competition.

The TdG showcased the best and brightest of American cycling, with the likes of U.S. national road race champion Levi Leipheimer, U.S. icon Big George Hincapie, three-time national time trial champ David Zabriskie, along with Christian Vande Velde, Bobby Julich, Chris Horner, Tom Danielson, Jason McCartney and Danny Pate. It was a who’s who of American cycling. And with UCI ProTour teams Astana, CSC, High Road and Gerolsteiner as well as powerful U.S. continental team Slipstream-Chipotle in the field, this was no leisurely ride.

The TdG also showcased the beacons of hope in professional cycling, anti-doping crusaders Slipstream-Chipotle and High Road, as well as Astana and CSC — two elite teams that have followed Slipstream’s and High Road’s lead and adopted state of the art anti-doping programs

Plus, you need look no further than the Brasstown Bald climb to see the future of high-level international cycling, with High Road’s Konstantin Sivtsov and Slipstream’s Trent Lowe — both 25 years old — topping Leipheimer in the decisive surge to the mountaintop … and the podium.

By finishing one-two in the stage, and one-two in the overall standings, Sivtsov and Lowe served notice that they are riders to watch in July at the Tour de France, especially with Astana, defending champ Alberto Contador and Leipheimer essentially banned from the race by the TdF organizer Amaury Sports Organization.

Of course, Silence-Lotto’s Cadel Evans and Rabobank’s Denis Menchov are the top favorites to win the Tour de France, but the youngsters Sivtsov and Lowe could be outside podium contenders.

“Sivtsov did his first Tour de France last year, and this will be Trent’s first ever … we’ll see, I think he’ll do well,” Slipstream director sportif Jonathan Vaughters said Sunday in Georgia. “One way or other, doing the Tour de France is where a bike rider really gains experience.”

Hincapie, the Tour veteran who directed Sivtsov to the Brasstown Bald victory - an American advising a Belarusan in Italian, advised TdF watchers to keep an eye out for Sivtsov and Lowe on “some of the climbing days.”

As for being contenders for the podium, Hincapie said: “They’re young; it’s tough to say.”

For High Road and Slipstream, the Tour de France will be a chance to showcase their “authentic athletic competition,” as High Road owner Bob Stapleton calls the team’s approach in the post-doping, clean-cycling era. Stapleton advocates being competitive and doing it right, as opposed to winning at all costs. If the team gets a win from one of its riders, all the better. If not, at least the team gave its best shot in a good, clean, honest effort.

“You don’t have to win the Tour de France, you just have to be competitive,” Stapleton said. “You can do that. It’s realistic goal. Our guys have shown that they can do that.”

Vaughters, a former teammate of Lance Armstrong in the early U.S. Postal days, advocates much the same thing, building a team of brothers as opposed to a team of domestiques. Slipstream enhanced its standing on the international stage by hiring David Millar, Zabriskie, Vande Velde, Magnus Backstedt and Julian Dean. They’ll be on Slipstream’s Tour de France roster along with Lowe and Danny Pate.

“I think we’ll have a good team,” Vaughters said. “Will we be the best team in the Tour de France? Nah. Probably not. But we won’t be the worst either. We’ll be a long way from the worst.”

And best-case scenario … maybe Lowe rides out front on some of the mountain stages in the team’s trademark argyle.

“He’ll be a good Tour de France rider,” Vaughters said. “He’s got all the right qualities. Not an enormous weakpoint.”

And from a purely competitive standpoint, you could say the same thing about the quality and depth of professional cycling in the U.S.

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