Tour of California Stage 7: Excellent day for HTC-Columbia, Martin wins TT, Rogers retains overall lead

The young German HTC-Columbia rider Tony Martin won stage 7 of the Amgen Tour of California today and his team mate Michael Rogers secured the overall lead with his second place on the day.

There were high hopes for today's individual time trial over two laps of a 10.5 mile circuit through central Los Angeles that one of Levi Leipheimer, Dave Zabriskie or Michael Rogers - top triallists all - would comprehensively stamp their authority on the overall race.

As it was, Michael Rogers did come second and take the overall lead but only by a very few seconds over Zabriskie and Leipheimer. This would have been a disappointment for the latter who has won this stage for the last three years.

The result is that the top three now go into tomorrow's final criterium stage unusually with everything to play for; it should be gripping.

Tour of California Stage 7 brief result

 1  Tony Martin          (HTC-Columbia)            41:41.1
 2  Michael Rogers       (HTC-Columbia)            0:00:23
 3  Dave Zabriskie       (Garmin-Transitions)      0:00:27  	
 4  Levi Leipheimer      (Radioshack)  	           0:00:33
 5  Jens Voigt           (Saxo Bank)               0:01:00
 6  Bert Grabsch         (HTC-Columbia)            0:01:07
 7  Maarten Tjallingii   (Rabobank )               0:01:13
 8  Chris Horner         (Radioshack)              0:01:19
 9  Rory Sutherland      (Unitedhealthcare-Maxxis) 0:01:19
10  Robbie Hunter        (Garmin-Transitions)      0:01:22

Tour of California 2010 overall after stage 7

 1  Michael Rogers       (HTC-Columbia)           29:46:07
 2  Dave Zabriskie       (Garmin-Transitions)      0:00:09
 3  Levi Leipheimer      (Radioshack)              0:00:24
 4  Jens Voigt           (Saxo Bank)               0:01:12
 5  Rory Sutherland      (Unitedhealthcare-Maxxis) 0:01:25
 6  Chris Horner         (Team Radioshack)         0:01:31
 7  Peter Sagan          (Liquigas-Doimo)          0:01:33
 8  Ryder Hesjedal       (Garmin-Transitions)      0:01:46
 9  Janez Brajkovic      (Radioshack)              0:02:10
10  Thomas Danielson     (Garmin-Transitions)      0:02:21