Guess again.

Once again completing a compelling comeback, the 29-year-old Olympus High School graduate was named to the U.S. Olympic Team on Tuesday, just a couple of weeks after returning to train at altitude around Park City and Deer Valley. Though he wasn't quite ready to join his Team Garmin-Chipotle at the Tour de France that begins this week, he and fellow former Utahn Levi Leipheimer will chase gold medals in both the individual time trial and road race in Beijing.

"Everything's kind of been up in the air," Zabriskie said. "I'm happy that they selected me."

Zabriskie and Leipheimer, who graduated from Rowland Hall in Salt Lake City and attended the University of Utah, are among five men selected for the U.S. team, and they both have been working in Utah with coach Max Testa of The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital in Murray in preparation for the Olympics.

Testa believes both can be competitive, too, the 34-year-old Leipheimer in the grueling 108-mile road race on Aug. 9 - expected to be perhaps the most challenging in Olympic history - and Zabriskie in his time-trial specialty on Aug. 13.

Leipheimer "really wants to do well," Testa said, because he did not finish the road race at the 2004 Athens Games in Greece, and because his Team Astana has been barred from the Tour de France because of its past associations with doping.

"He has a good chance in the road race," Testa said. "There is a 10K climb every lap, so he has to work hard. He's not a natural sprinter, but he should do well."

Zabriskie "has a good possibility of being really, really sharp" in his first Olympics, Testa added. "The time trial is a technical event so you don't need a lot of races to get ready for it, you just need specific training and Dave has such a gift for that race. . . . If he can put in three weeks of training he can be competitive."

He has six weeks, starting today.

"Everything is going the way it should be, and I'm capable of training," Zabriskie said. "I still have time to tune everything up."

Zabriskie hadn't been so certain when he fractured a vertebra in his lower back in the crash in Italy. But the injury healed much faster than the nearly career-ending injuries he suffered in a collision with an SUV in Millcreek Canyon in 2003 - his wife Randi gave birth to a baby boy, Waylon, while he was recovering - and he's hoping for a similarly spectacular return to racing.

The year after returning to racing following his 2003 accident, Zabriskie won a stage at the Tour of Spain as well as the second of three national time-trial championships. Riding in the Olympics, though, represent for him an achievement equal to anything else he has managed.

"It's something I've always wanted to do," he said. "I'm pretty excited."

George Hincapie will headline the U.S. men's road cycling team, making his fifth Olympic appearance, while Jason McCartney and Christian Vande Velde also are on the team for the road race. Four years ago, Americans Tyler Hamilton - since disgraced as a drug cheat - and Bobby Julich won gold and bronze medals, respectively, in the time trial at the Athens Games.

mcl@sltrib.com

lwodraska@sltrib.com

Off to Beijing

DAVID ZABRISKIE FILE

* Three-time national time-trial champion.

* Only American to win stages in all three Grand Tours.

* Third American to wear yellow jersey at Tour de France.

LEVI LEIPHEIMER FILE

* Three-time top-10 finisher of the Tour de France.

* Two-time winner of the Tour of California.

* Former time trial and road race national champion.