Edited by Paul Verkuylen & Les Clarke

Cycling News September 17, 2008

Christian Vande Velde has added another feather to his cap during an excellent season by topping the USA Cycling Professional Tour standings. After winning the Tour of Missouri overall title last weekend, the Garmin-Chipotle rider finished the 14-event series with 272 points. It was enough to better defending champion Levi Leipheimer, who amassed 244 points.

And in a result that reflected Vande Velde's breakthrough year as a leading rider, Garmin-Chipotle won the season-long competition in the teams category, with a total of 711 points. Jonathan Vaughters' outfit beat the force of Team Columbia by 198 points.

The USA Cycling Professional Tour consists of 14 events – UCI-sanctioned events in the US and USA Cycling's three professional road championships. After finishing third overall at the Tour of California, the 32-year-old Illinois native shot to prominence with a fifth place overall at the Tour de France, a top-20 in the Olympic road race and third at the USA Cycling National TT Championships. His Missouri title was enough to take the crown ahead of Leipheimer to be arguably his country's best rider in 2008.

Canadian Dominique Rollin finished an excellent season with third in the standings while Germany's Eric Baumann and Team Columbia's young Belarusian Kanstantin Sivtsov rounded out the top five.

Individual

1 Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Chipotle)            272

2 Levi Leipheimer (Astana)                          244

3 Dominique Rollin (Toyota-United Pro)              144

4 Eric Baumann (Sparkasse)                          141

5 Kanstantsin Siutsou (Columbia)                     140

6 Tyler Farrar (Garmin Clipotle)                    126

7 Mark Cavendish (Columbia)                         121

8 Dave Zabriskie (Garmin Clipotle)                  115

9 Oscar Sevilla (Rock Racing)                       112

10 Matti Breschel (CSC - Saxo Bank)                 100

Teams

1 Garmin Chipotle                                   711

2 Columbia                                          513

3 Astana                                            358

4 CSC - Saxo Bank                                   342

5 Rock Racing                                       303

6 Toyota-United Pro                                 267

7 Kelly Benefit Strategies-Medifast                 231

8 Health Net                                        207

9 BMC                                               169

10 Bissell                                          146