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First four teams announced for 2009 Tour of Missouri

The first four teams for the third Tour of Missouri were announced today: three returning ProTour teams Garmin-Slipstream, Columbia-High Road and Liquigas and the Pro Continental Cervélo Test Team.

Garmin-Slipstream is expected to field a top team that will include 2008 Tour of Missouri Race Champion Christian Vande Velde.

The overall course for the 7-stage race, scheduled for September 7-13, 2009, will take on a very different slant in 2009. For the first time, the race will route east to west, starting in St. Louis and finishing in Kansas City. The past two years, the race routed west to east starting in Kansas City to finish in St. Louis.

A total of 15 teams participated in the 2008 edition of the race which had a UCI 2.1 rating: Garmin-Chipotle, Liquigas, High Road, American teams BMC, HealthNet p/b Maxxis, Rock Racing, Bissell, Colavita Sutter Home p/b Cooking Light , Jelly Belly , and Kelly Benefits Strategies-Medifast and Toyota-United. Also present were Mexico’s top professional team Tecos and Canada’s best squad Symmetrics, along with top European continental squads from Rabobank of the Netherlands and Sparkasse of Germany.

With its upgrade to the 2.HC ranking, the 2009 edition should bring in more ProTour teams to the event, up to a maximum half of the number of teams as per the UCI rules. Additional teams will be announced in coming weeks.

Post-ToC interview with Team Type 1's Phil Southerland

For Team Type 1 co-founder and professional cyclist Phil Southerland was faced with many unknowns  before starting the 2009 Amgen Tour of California. Not only had he never raced at this level but as a Type 1 diabetic, he had never put his body through this high intensity 8-day of racing.

But it was a tough one. The hard racing and the weather conditions took their toll on a suffering Southerland, when faced with worsening tendonitis, pulled out of the race on stage 4. The next day, under sunny skies  finally, we sat down for a quick chat where  he answered my questions about his experience at the big show. One thing to note is that not only is Southerland planning on returning to the race but he is not deterred in his focus of bringing his team to the Tour de France in a few years.

"It was tough the first day, tough the second day, tough the third day and that's just the riding. Then the weather, it was cold, wet, a million layers of clothing. It was just brutal in all aspects but also the racing was an experience of a lifetime for me. I got to chat with some of the best racers in the world, that's pretty damn cool. Now when I come back and bump elbows with the best in the world in the last kilometers in the race, I'll be a little bit more of a fighter than a survivor."

Read interview on PodiumCafe.com