Stage 5 we all kind of got lucky. The right move went, Garmin let the gap open up. Then Sparkese came to the front. They had missed the move and they wanted to bring it back for Eric Baumann who was sitting high up in the points competition. They rode hard all day and we didn't have to panic. We crossed the line for another doozy of a day with an average speed over 46kph. Kelly's Canadians David Veilleux and Keven Lacombe really put on a show that day. David was fantastic in the break, really aggressive. And Keven ended the day 3rd on the stage in a dicey bunch sprint.

The boys roll with Team Garmin-Chipotle H3O, on stage 6 of the Tour of MissouriOriginally uploaded by Slipstream Sports/Chipotle

On stage 6 when things were looking dangerous we put some guys in the rotation with Garmin to control the gap. We knew if we rode, we might blow some guys and Svein may get isolated in the final. But we figured if we rode Garmin would likely have guys with Christian and their interests and ours were the same- contain and control. That was our gamble. And that is pretty much how it played out. Columbia came through hard in the final 16km of crosswinds. We lost all our guys. Pinner was actually still fresh at this point, but he had a flat at the worst of times. With the peleton blowing to shreds and the barrages happening in the caravan, his day was done. Svein was able to capitalize on the work being done by Christian's VDV's Garmin team mates. Svein even rode back a couple of Columbia assaults himself. But with only about 22 minutes of racing at that point he was able to manage and finished safely as Cavendish won another stage.

We woke up to miserable weather on Sunday in St. Louis. The rumor around the hotel was stage cancellation, or neutralizing the stage in terms of GC or … well you know. Everyone was tired after the hard fast rolling stages we'd had and a lot of the 'talk' was based on 'hope' not reality. The weather man said the rain and wind would blow through by noon. And sure enough when we left the hotel at noon the roads were drying and the wind wasn't as gusty. But the heavy rains had flooded part of the course. The circuit was shortened, and the officials decided not to tack on extra laps of a shortened circuit, so the the overall stage distanced was reduced as well.

The appropriate break got away, and then got caught on the last lap to setup a final sprint. Pinner got slammed around a bit and didn't have a great finish - 10th. He and we were disappointed. He was second on this stage last year and we were hoping for another podium finish to cap this tour. Svein wrapped up his tour with third overall. One of the best results in the team's history and a great way to end the season.

That's it for our season. Svein heads straight to Spain to train with Michael Barry and the YoungMan for the World's. Some of the other guys are heading to the SunTour. But officially the Tour of Missouri was the last race of 2009 for the S-team.

That's what happened to Svein today - he got caught in a gap. 11 seconds to be exact. We'll see if tomorrow we come to regret that 11 seconds. I'll have a chat with the commissaires, review the finish film - hopefully get it changed. But it may not change.  11 seconds…

The positives today were the Andrews - Pinfold and Randell. On this exact same stage last year Andrew Randell got in the GC deciding escape and locked in an 8th place overall. Well Randers nearly did it again today - well sorta kinda. He got in the 'move' of the day. And that was our plan - be aggressive, get guys out there. We just want to be chipping away at showing we're here to race. Randell did that today being out front for 170+ kms getting caught with about 10km to go.  Then, we want Pinfold to knock out those finishes we know he's capable of and he went 3 spots better than yesterday to finish 5th today. He had a box seat for the Cavendish show.

We are very excited for tomorrow.

1. guys to be aggressive and try to get into that move of the day - we didn't do that. That move consisted of Tom Zirbel, Johnnie Sundt and Kohler from Bissell, Kelly and BMC respectively.
2. guys to attack on the finishing circuit - to take that long shot at the stage win; have a shot at the KOM; or take a shot at the Aggressive rider prize. We did that. Will was great, attacking into the 2nd KOM and getting 2nd to Dominique Rollin. Will then kept it rolling alone and held off Columbia for about 12-13km while he rode solo. We thought that would be good to get the Aggressive rider prize. It wasn't and we are a bit choked about that.
3. set the finish up for Andrew Pinfold. We did this too. We had three guys with Pinner with about 4km to go and Svein dropped Andy off in good position. But sprinting is well… dicey, and nothing is guarenteed. Andy rode a decent sprint to come in 8th.

Day one is now down. The first day jitters are passed. We accomplished two of the three things we wanted. We're satisfied. We've got our act together and the guys have blown the cobwebs out of their legs after a few weeks with not a lot of racing. We'll see what tomorrow brings - our plan is pretty much the same.

The usual pre-race jitters are being felt and there is more than a lot of talk about how Mark Cavendish is going to go in the first few stages. We are taking a 'take it as it comes' approach to this race. It is very likely to be bunch sprints on the first few days or so the speculation goes. And although last year a race shaping break took stage two and narrowed the GC race to 10 guys… the thinking there was that Toyota did not want to defend for Dominguez on stage 2 and that is why that break went away - or so the speculation goes. You kind of get the idea of how the talk spins around. So, you can't really bank on anything and our guys have to be attentive to all possibilities.

It won't be bad if things shape up the way everyone is speculating… Columbia keeps it together for Cavendish on Stage 1 and 2 and the GC is sorted out amongst the time trialists on stage 3. Honestly if Svein rides the way he did in Beijing that may not be a bad situation for us at all…

Wow, wow, wow. What a ride by Svein in the time trial. Did you see it? Wow. Seventh - the only rider in the top ten not on a ProTour team. Sitting in the medal postions of the leader board untill the very end of the final wave of top seeded riders. Ahead of all riders from standout cycling nations like: France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Russia and Denmark. Here's a nugget of perspective to show the scale of Svein's David vs. the giants acheivement

Svein has slowly and progressively developed on this team over the last four years. Symmetrics in contrast to a rider like Cancellera -who won gold- operates for the entire year on about 1/5th of what CSC spends on Cancellera's salary alone.

Here's some more numbers on Svein's incredible ride, when you look at the top 30 riders in the Olympic TT:

• 23 riders were from Pro Tour teams
• 4 riders were from Pro Continental teams
• Only 3 were from Continental teams
• The next placed Continental rider was Santiago Botero - he was 25th. He's a former Pro Tour rider and former Time Trial World Champion and winner of TT stages in the Tour de France

We are simply awestruck by what Svein's achieved and couldn't be happier him.

				TEAM			ProTour	ProConti Conti
1 Fabian Cancellara (Sui)	CSC			x
2 Gustav Erik Larsson (swe)	CSC			x
3 Levi Leipheimer (USA)		Astana			x
4 Alberto Contador (Esp)	Astana			x
5 Cadel Evans 	(Aus)		Lotto			x
6 Samuel Sánchez  (Esp)		Euskadi			x
7 Svein Tuft (Can)		Symmetrics		 		  x
8 Michael Rogers (Aus)		Columbia		x
9 Stef Clement 	(Ned)		Bouygues Télécom	x
10 Robert Gesink (Ned)		Rabobank		x
11 Stephen Cummings(GB)		Barloworld  		 	x
12 David Zabriskie (USA)	Garmin				x
13 Stefan Schumacher (Ger)	Gerolsteiner		x
14 Bert Grabsch (Ger)		Columbia		x
15 Vincenzo Nibali (It)		Liqigas			x
16 Ryder Hesjedal (Can)		Garmin			 	x
17 Rein Taaramae (Est)		Cofidis			x
18 Vladimir Karpets (Rus)	Caisse D'espargne	x
19 Chris Anker Sørensen 	CSC			x
20 Denis Menchov (Russia)   	Rabobank		x
21 Vasil Kiryienka (Belarus)  	Tinkoff				x
22 Marzio Bruseghin (Italy)   	Lampre                  x
23 Kim Kirchen (Luxembourg)   	Columbia		x
24 Andrey Mizurov (Kazakhstan)  Astana			x
25 Santiago Botero (Colombia)  	Rock Racing				 x
26 Maxime Monfort (Belgium)   	Cofidis			x
27 Laszlo Bodrogi (Hungary)  	Credit Agricole		x
28 Simon Spilak (Slovenia)   	Lampre			x
29 Matej Jurco (Slovakia)    	Milram			x
30 Matias Medici (Argentina)    Scott-Marcondes			         x

If you are keen to follow Cam's tour here's the most timely resources we've found on the race in Guadeloupe.

• The Cycling News - always a good source for UCI race results
• The Guadeloupe Guide - a tourist website in french seems to have very timely results
• The Sport Guadeloupe site - has daily video coverage, they call it Journal du Tour, like the daily TDF recap on France2 in France. Guadeloupe is a French department after all

Let's be blunt, Garmin is in the Tour de France right now, that's the pinnacle of the sport and we have to admit we are not there. We're not going to stand in the way of a 23 year old kid's opportunity to be a part of that team. When you start bike racing you dream of riding on teams like that. And we are proud that teams like that look at teams like ours for emerging talent - it validates what we are doing and the choices we are making with our guys and the races we do. Of course we're now on the hunt for the next emerging Christian. We wish the young man all the best and hope it works out in 2009.

For those who don't know, a 'stagiare' role is like a try-out. Garmin isn't making a commitment to Christian for 2009 just yet. He's gotta prove himself. But we know he's got the right character to mix well with that team. His athletic ability isn't at question. And he has the same values about clean sport that is central to Slipstream Sports.

For Christian this is the third great thing that's happened to him in three weeks. First the Nationals win, then he got engaged to his lady friend, and now the Garmin deal. Bad thing for us is we may just have to race against the young man in Missouri this fall!

Finally, we think it's great that he'll be wearing the maple leaf jersey in Europe. Ryder had the TT jersey this year and Christian will keep it rolling. I think the last time the road jersey was over there in the big show was 1997 with Steve Rover? It will be pretty special to see it in the Giro di Lombardia - if that race works out as planned on Christian's schedule. I may just have to make another trip over to lake Como to see that.