Great win SN: Even he was dead for so long he still won

January/February Summary

After the successful Australian championships, DFL have not ridden a race but that hasnt stopped racing elsewhere. Well, except for the Tour Down Under which was cancelled due to technical difficulties.

With riders such as Maaskant, Cameron Meyer, Darren Lapthorne and Tom Southam, Drapac Porsche dominated the GC in Qatar. They won the TTT, and Meyer won an individual stage, with the team eventually taking positions 2-8 in GC behind Alexandr Kolobnev. It was the Russians first ever win in the 4 seasons of this career.

Drapac Porsche are only 2nd in the continental standings though, behind Team Slipstream. Zabriskie took a stage and 5th overall in Langkawi while Zdenek Stybar took a stage in California which was won overall by their rider Oscar Sanchez.

In ex-DFL watch the stand out performer was Saul Raisin. Now riding for Caisse d'Epargne, the American won the overall of the Challenge Vuelta a Mallorca. Elsewhere, De la Fuente (Unibet) was 17th in Langkawi, Goss (Slipstream) took 3rd in Stage 3 of California and Manan (Ag2r) grabbed a couple of top 10s in the Tour Mediterraneen.

Coming up...

The start of the Cobbles
Paris-Nice - a Stage going up and down Ventoux, Pliuschin will be there

its back

Yay! Great!

Team: Nolf, Sabatini, Verbist, Thomas, Pliuschin, Kittel, Henshaw, Martin
Last Year: Nolf was 31st in a large group of 40 riders, 4 minutes down

It is cobbles yes, but Nolf isnt even thinking about top form yet so little should be expected.

Pliuschin is here just to get some race days in before Paris-Nice and decided to go on an attack for as long as possible


Between 114km to go and 84km to go he was off the front before ultimately sitting up with 60km to go and being the last finisher in 68th before the time limit kicked in.

Thomas and Verbist lasted in the front group until 53km to go with Sabatini also dropping just a couple of kilometres later. They would all finish together in positions 49-51.

Nolf was to last until 33km to go when he began struggling as the group split


He would eventually face some 25km of riding solo


21st was the result, just under 8 minutes behind the winner


And the winner was Wouter Weylandt who surprisingly outsprinted his teammate Boonen in a 4-man sprint.


1 Wouter Weylandt QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC 5h22'00
2 Tom Boonen QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
3 Nikolas Maes RABOBANK s.t.
4 Fabian Cancellara TEAM CSC s.t.
5 George Hincapie DISCOVERY CHANNEL + 1'51
6 Filippo Pozzato LIQUIGAS s.t.
7 Yuri Trofimov COFIDIS, LE CRÉDIT PAR TÉLÉPHONE s.t.
8 Marcus Burghardt FRANÇAISE DES JEUX s.t.
9 Gert Steegmans T-MOBILE TEAM s.t.
10 Nick Nuyens TEAM CSC s.t.
11 Alessandro Ballan TEAM WIESENHOF FELT s.t.
12 Matti Breschel T-MOBILE TEAM s.t.
13 Juan Antonio Flecha RABOBANK s.t.
14 Gianni Meersman DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t.
15 Leif Hoste PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
16 Luca Paolini FRANÇAISE DES JEUX + 3'24
17 Bobbie Traksel DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t.
18 Koen Barbé COFIDIS, LE CRÉDIT PAR TÉLÉPHONE s.t.
19 Tom Veelers COFIDIS, LE CRÉDIT PAR TÉLÉPHONE + 4'52
20 Philippe Gilbert RABOBANK s.t.
21 Frederik Nolf DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 7'45
22 Greg Van Avermaet LIQUIGAS s.t.
23 Tomas Vaitkus DISCOVERY CHANNEL + 9'16
24 Vladimir Gusev QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
25 Jimmy Casper UNIBET.COM s.t.
26 Markus Eichler UNIBET.COM s.t.
27 Jan Kuyckx RABOBANK s.t.
28 Gil Suray TEAM CSC s.t.
29 Kevin Van Impe RABOBANK + 11'38
30 Geert Steurs PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
49 Geraint Thomas DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 17'36
50 Fabio Sabatini DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 18'00
51 Evert Verbist DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
68 Aleksandr Pliuschin DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 21'25

Team: Nolf, Sabatini, Verbist, Thomas, Pliuschin, Stannard, Sulzberger, Henshaw

Last Year: Nolf actually took 11th, albeit 7 minutes down

Expect a similar pattern to Het Volk in terms of rider performance.

Wes Sulzberger tried to initiate a breakaway but all were caught bar Kenny de Haes who went off on a solo break for over 100km

Nolf has a poor daily form of -3 but actually felt okay on the cobbles, displaying tactical nous in following Quick Step over the top of the hills where some splits emerged


Nothing stuck though but he had strong support today from Sabatini, here shown both on the front after a hill with 43km to go


Both started to struggle on the final climb with 33km to go. Sabatini was slipping off the back of the 40 man group when disaster! He went down and was forced to abandon. He is only out until the middle of the month but this will most likely prevent him from top form in the Big 3 cobbled races.


Its a 30km flat stretch to the finish, and Nolf could only last 5km of that before the inevitable drop


He would eventually find himself in a group battling for 23rd - taking 28th.


Elsewhere for DFL, a measured approach from Pliuschin meant good energy use and he was the strongest DFL rider at the finish as he took 59th. Thomas and Verbist were in the same group while Stannard was 1km away from finishing inside the time limit.

Up front? Boonen took an easy sprint win with Weylandt not participating in the final sprint - perhaps told off over Het Volk.

1 Tom Boonen QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC 4h58'24
2 Gert Steegmans T-MOBILE TEAM s.t.
3 Kevin Van Impe RABOBANK s.t.
4 Alessandro Ballan TEAM WIESENHOF FELT s.t.
5 Yuri Trofimov COFIDIS, LE CRÉDIT PAR TÉLÉPHONE s.t.
6 Fabian Cancellara TEAM CSC s.t.
7 Juan Antonio Flecha RABOBANK s.t.
8 Nick Nuyens TEAM CSC s.t.
9 George Hincapie DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t.
10 Wouter Weylandt QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
11 Filippo Pozzato LIQUIGAS s.t.
12 Geert Steurs PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
13 Leif Hoste PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
14 Enrico Franzoï LIQUIGAS s.t.
15 Vladimir Gusev QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
16 Marcus Burghardt FRANÇAISE DES JEUX s.t.
17 Nikolas Maes RABOBANK + 2'14
18 Greg Van Avermaet LIQUIGAS + 3'06
19 Matti Breschel T-MOBILE TEAM s.t.
20 Bastiaan Giling LIQUIGAS s.t.
21 Björn Leukemans PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
22 Damien Gaudin LIQUIGAS s.t.
23 Philippe Gilbert RABOBANK + 6'43
24 Daniel Foder QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
25 Jesús Del Nero TEAM CSC s.t.
26 Preben Van Hecke PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
27 Gianni Meersman DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t.
28 Frederik Nolf DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
29 Manuel Quinziato QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
30 Pieter Jacobs QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
59 Aleksandr Pliuschin DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 14'20
64 Geraint Thomas DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 15'50
72 Evert Verbist DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.

so happy this is back

YAY!

Great to see it back. Good story.

yipee!!! The all time classic story is back!!!

Team: Pliuschin, Froome, Wegelius, Lloyd, Sulzberger, Efimkin, Verbist, Stannard

Last Year: Pliuschin had targeted the win and took over the race lead following victory in Stage 4 in Gap but could not match a suspicious Cobo on the Queen stage - still he got 2nd overall plus the Points and Young Rider jersey for his efforts.

The route: 4 hilly stages, a mountain stage going up and down Ventoux and a mountain TT are the highlights after a prologue and flat stage

Hopes: Let's see what Pliuschin can do, he has his eyes on a certain other French race this year but a Top 10 would be good here.

Stage 1

There was a major shock on the prologue as Sebastien Rosseler failed to win. 1st in 2008, 1st in 2009 but now only 2nd in 2010! Instead Dmytro Grabovskyy was the winner.

At 14th, 14 seconds down, Pliuschin was satisfied with his result


1 Dmytro Grabovskyy GEROLSTEINER 7'42
2 Sébastien Rosseler LAMPRE - FONDITAL + 2
3 Benoît Vaugrenard T-MOBILE TEAM s.t.
4 Stef Clement BOUYGUES TÉLÉCOM + 8
5 Shaun Higgerson TEAM MILRAM + 10
6 Manuel Lloret DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t.
7 Dimitri Champion SAUNIER DUVAL - PRODIR + 11
8 Tiago Machado SAUNIER DUVAL - PRODIR s.t.
9 Roman Kreuziger LIQUIGAS + 12
10 Filippo Pozzato LIQUIGAS + 13
11 Rick Flens RABOBANK s.t.
12 Przemyslaw Niemiec CAISSE D'EPARGNE s.t.
13 Alan Suchoparek DISCOVERY CHANNEL + 14
14 Aleksandr Pliuschin DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
15 Koos Moerenhout QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
16 Gianni Meersman DISCOVERY CHANNEL + 15
17 Lars Ytting Bak RABOBANK s.t.
18 Jurgen Van den Broeck PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
19 Alessandro Ballan TEAM WIESENHOF FELT + 17
20 Hector Orlando Mesa TEAM ASTANA s.t.
79 Chris Froome DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 33
110 Charles Wegelius DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 39
133 Daniel Lloyd DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 44
138 Alexander Efimkin DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 45
152 Evert Verbist DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 47
172 Wes Sulzberger DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 56
176 Ian Stannard DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 1'14


Stage 2

Filippo Pozzato raised eyebrows with his Top 10 performance in the prologue and continued to back up his form with victory in the sprint. Former DFLer Goss was 5th for Slipstream as they have a wildcard for the race.

One day Wes Sulzberger hopes to be battling up there, with better experience and form it will come, today he was 30th.

The sight of a Gerolsteiner rider in Yellow has forever been ruined by Schumacher

The stage was a tough one though as only 3 DFL riders made it home in the peleton

1 Filippo Pozzato LIQUIGAS 4h03'07
2 Juan José Haedo TEAM CSC s.t.
3 Enrico Gasparotto LIQUIGAS s.t.
4 José Joaquín Rojas CAISSE D'EPARGNE s.t.
5 Matthew Goss TEAM SLIPSTREAM s.t.
6 Alessandro Ballan TEAM WIESENHOF FELT s.t.
7 Leonardo Duque CRÉDIT AGRICOLE s.t.
8 Fabio Sacchi LAMPRE - FONDITAL s.t.
9 Matteo Carrara BOUYGUES TÉLÉCOM s.t.
10 Marco Marcato PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
30 Wes Sulzberger DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
44 Ian Stannard DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
73 Aleksandr Pliuschin DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
144 Chris Froome DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 3'22
148 Evert Verbist DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 5'43
154 Alexander Efimkin DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
157 Daniel Lloyd DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
168 Charles Wegelius DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 7'15

It's back, and you're better than ever!
You finished so many races first, but none 0th!

Stage 3



We are into the hills and attacking from the start is Charly Wegelius

Going for KoM pts he misses out by a miniscule amount to Nocentini at the first hill


The group is up to 6 by the 2nd hill and Charly wins it this time over Bettini and Nocentini. But Bettini is apparantely interested in pts too and wins the 3rd hill ahead of Nocentini - Wegelius only able to get 4th. (Incidentally, the break is now 8 riders)

Bettini also makes a dig to get the 4th while Wegelius is 3rd, unable to pass a pesky Unibet rider.

The 5th climb is the toughest and the break starts to split. Unfortunately, Wegelius is the first to drop - there pts for the first 7th so he didnt want to stay 8th. He fought hard, past Baugnies who was also dropped and briefly rejoining the group before being dropped again with Murgoitio, whom he passed right at the top in order to take 2 pts. Nocentini had already taken 1st, ahead of Bettini


Day over for Wegelius and the whole break would eventually be caught. Quite a few favourites attacked on the final hill, Pliuschin reckoned it would be pointless though and did not. Only the man of the moment Pozzato got clear.


Off he went to win another stage - by nearly 2 minutes - as Pliuschin came in 18th place in the pack of 55 which also included Chris Froome.


Pliuschin now moves into the top 10, as other riders could not keep up.

1 Filippo Pozzato LIQUIGAS 5h20'52
2 Giovanni Visconti BARLOWORLD + 1'49
3 Guillaume Levarlet TEAM MILRAM s.t.
4 Pierrick Fédrigo TEAM MILRAM s.t.
5 José Joaquín Rojas CAISSE D'EPARGNE s.t.
6 Riccardo Riccò BARLOWORLD s.t.
7 Kevin Van Impe RABOBANK s.t.
8 Steve Morabito T-MOBILE TEAM s.t.
9 Leonardo Duque CRÉDIT AGRICOLE s.t.
10 Dario Cataldo GEROLSTEINER s.t.
11 Björn Leukemans PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
12 Jelle Vanendert TEAM WIESENHOF FELT s.t.
13 Damiano Cunego TEAM ASTANA s.t.
14 Vitor Rodrigues T-MOBILE TEAM s.t.
15 Maxim Iglinskiy CRÉDIT AGRICOLE s.t.
16 Romain Feillu LAMPRE - FONDITAL s.t.
17 Santo Anzà AG2R PRÉVOYANCE s.t.
18 Aleksandr Pliuschin DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
19 Jaume Rovira AG2R PRÉVOYANCE s.t.
20 Sébastien Joly TEAM CSC s.t.
55 Chris Froome DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
57 Alexander Efimkin DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 3'46
103 Ian Stannard DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 11'04
128 Daniel Lloyd DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 13'04
163 Evert Verbist DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 21'36
167 Wes Sulzberger DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 24'56
168 Charles Wegelius DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 29'04

GC
1 Filippo Pozzato LIQUIGAS 9h31'42
2 Dmytro Grabovskyy GEROLSTEINER + 1'48
3 Benoît Vaugrenard T-MOBILE TEAM + 1'50
4 Manuel Lloret DISCOVERY CHANNEL + 1'58
5 Tiago Machado SAUNIER DUVAL - PRODIR + 1'59
6 Roman Kreuziger LIQUIGAS + 2'00
7 Przemyslaw Niemiec CAISSE D'EPARGNE + 2'01
8 Aleksandr Pliuschin DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 2'02
9 Gianni Meersman DISCOVERY CHANNEL + 2'03
10 Alessandro Ballan TEAM WIESENHOF FELT + 2'05

KoM
1 Rinaldo Nocentini CAISSE D'EPARGNE 31
2 Paolo Bettini QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC 27
3 Charles Wegelius DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED 14
4 Filippo Pozzato LIQUIGAS 10
5 José Azevedo LAMPRE - FONDITAL 9

Wow. Such domination by pozzato.

Stage 4

Another hilly stage today.

Knowing he needs to grasp every opportunity for pts, Wegelius gets in the break and takes full pts on the first climb


Unfortunately Nocentini noticed, and attacked the peleton after the climb and quickly bridging across


The group increased to 13 when more riders includign Van den Broeck got across - it would have been 14 with Brajkovic but the out of form Slovenian was dropped before the chase group caught up.

The tempo quickened on the 2nd climb and Nocentini predictably took the full pts, but Wegelius was the 3rd strongest of the group as he followed Cataldo over the top.


Nocentini continued to lead solo as the rest were caught and onto the 3rd climb where a number of favourites attacked.

Pliuschin was on a -4 day though and unable to even try to attack.

Sebastien Joly crossed with a solo lead over a group of 11 others. Nocentini was somehow still in this group but fortunately did not have the legs to go for any pts on this climb


Joly kept ahead of the other attackers and would win the stage - he had a sizeable gap of 30 seconds but the jury disagreed and would give all of the front 12 the same time. This increased the loss for Pliuschin but at least Rojas was in the peleton still to sprint and close down some of the time.


1 Sébastien Joly TEAM CSC 3h56'26
2 Jaume Rovira AG2R PRÉVOYANCE s.t.
3 Damiano Cunego TEAM ASTANA s.t.
4 Alessandro Ballan TEAM WIESENHOF FELT s.t.
5 Benoît Vaugrenard T-MOBILE TEAM s.t.
6 Manuel Lloret DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t.
7 Rinaldo Nocentini CAISSE D'EPARGNE s.t.
8 Filippo Pozzato LIQUIGAS s.t.
9 Maxim Iglinskiy CRÉDIT AGRICOLE s.t.
10 Riccardo Riccò BARLOWORLD s.t.
11 Laurens Ten Dam UNIBET.COM s.t.
12 Chris Horner FRANÇAISE DES JEUX s.t.
13 José Joaquín Rojas CAISSE D'EPARGNE + 1'35
14 Leonardo Duque CRÉDIT AGRICOLE s.t.
15 Pierrick Fédrigo TEAM MILRAM s.t.
16 Paolo Bettini QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
17 Romain Feillu LAMPRE - FONDITAL s.t.
18 Marco Marcato PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
19 John Gadret TEAM ASTANA s.t.
20 Aleksandr Pliuschin DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
21 Björn Leukemans PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
22 Matteo Carrara BOUYGUES TÉLÉCOM s.t.
23 Giovanni Visconti BARLOWORLD s.t.
24 �ngel Vicioso PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
25 Geert Steurs PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
35 Ian Stannard DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
56 Alexander Efimkin DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
59 Chris Froome DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
62 Daniel Lloyd DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
126 Charles Wegelius DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 7'09
136 Evert Verbist DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
144 Wes Sulzberger DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 9'36

Next Stop: Ventoux

Someone needs to take a bat to Pozzato. at least he didn't win this stage. Good luck with Pliuschin.

Stage 5

The only proper mountain stage of the race, going up and down Ventoux


Dan Lloyd went in the break which included Brajkovic


As you would expect, we head straight to Ventoux. Wegelius is on for a +4 day and reckons that an early attack is his best chance of KoM pts. He attacks with 18km to go to the summit


Machado and Rolland went with him but the trio were caught with 11.5km to the top. 2km later the break with Lloyd in is caught, but Brajkovic is still out there

Liquigas and Barloworld were setting tempo but eyeing around it didnt seem like there were many strong riders around, so with 5km to the summit - Pliuschin attacks! Liquigas were hardly going to go too quick in looking after Pozzato


Ricco follows as they move past Brajkovic


There is no relay from the Italian, but thats fine for Pliuschin whos pulls out a gap on the rest


And it is Pliuschin who leads over the top of Ventoux


Thats a good enough achievement for the race really, but lets go for the stage win now. Ricco takes over, and Pliuschin is now the one refusing to relay


A group of 23 follows at 50 seconds - Froome, Efimkin and Wegelius are there, but Pozzato is not (he is a further 50 seconds back)


As focus turns to the stage win, Pliuschin nows he is up against it against Ricco in a sprint so takes to the front to employ some delaying tactics


Ricco makes his move with 400m to go


It is 2nd for Pliuschin, and he will move up to 9th overall


Remarkably, Pozzato remains in Yellow. Falling for cat and mouse tactics at the end probably cost Ricco the race lead

1 Riccardo Riccò BARLOWORLD 4h40'49
2 Aleksandr Pliuschin DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
3 Maxim Iglinskiy CRÉDIT AGRICOLE + 34
4 Damiano Cunego TEAM ASTANA s.t.
5 Jaume Rovira AG2R PRÉVOYANCE s.t.
6 Giovanni Visconti BARLOWORLD s.t.
7 Domenico Pozzovivo BOUYGUES TÉLÉCOM s.t.
8 Sébastien Joly TEAM CSC s.t.
9 Hector Orlando Mesa TEAM ASTANA s.t.
10 Tiago Machado SAUNIER DUVAL - PRODIR s.t.
11 Guillaume Levarlet TEAM MILRAM s.t.
12 Javier Moreno DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t.
13 Charles Wegelius DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
14 Manuel Lloret DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t.
15 Gianni Meersman DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t.
16 Edwin Orozco BARLOWORLD s.t.
17 Sandy Casar CRÉDIT AGRICOLE s.t.
18 Przemyslaw Niemiec CAISSE D'EPARGNE s.t.
19 Laurens Ten Dam UNIBET.COM s.t.
20 Alexander Efimkin DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
21 Saul Raisin CAISSE D'EPARGNE s.t.
22 Mauricio Soler DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t.
23 Sylvester Szmyd BARLOWORLD s.t.
24 Chris Froome DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
25 Julien Loubet AG2R PRÉVOYANCE s.t.
26 Filippo Pozzato LIQUIGAS + 1'54
27 Assan Bazayev UNIBET.COM s.t.
28 Enrico Gasparotto LIQUIGAS s.t.
29 Zdenek Stybar TEAM SLIPSTREAM s.t.
30 Óscar Sánchez TEAM SLIPSTREAM s.t.
97 Daniel Lloyd DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 13'33
103 Ian Stannard DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 15'17
121 Wes Sulzberger DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 19'02
123 Evert Verbist DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.


GC
1 Filippo Pozzato LIQUIGAS 18h10'51
2 Riccardo Riccò BARLOWORLD + 17
3 Manuel Lloret DISCOVERY CHANNEL + 38
4 Sébastien Joly TEAM CSC + 44
5 Maxim Iglinskiy CRÉDIT AGRICOLE + 50
6 Laurens Ten Dam UNIBET.COM + 54
7 Damiano Cunego TEAM ASTANA + 56
8 Jaume Rovira AG2R PRÉVOYANCE + 1'01
9 Aleksandr Pliuschin DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 1'39
10 Alessandro Ballan TEAM WIESENHOF FELT + 2'05
11 Chris Horner FRANÇAISE DES JEUX + 2'15
12 Przemyslaw Niemiec CAISSE D'EPARGNE + 2'16
13 Gianni Meersman DISCOVERY CHANNEL + 2'18
14 Sandy Casar CRÉDIT AGRICOLE + 2'26
15 Guillaume Levarlet TEAM MILRAM + 2'29
16 Giovanni Visconti BARLOWORLD + 2'32
17 Mauricio Soler DISCOVERY CHANNEL + 2'35
18 Domenico Pozzovivo BOUYGUES TÉLÉCOM + 2'37
19 Saul Raisin CAISSE D'EPARGNE + 2'43
20 Roman Kreuziger LIQUIGAS + 3'35
34 Chris Froome DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 5'58
61 Alexander Efimkin DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 10'28
102 Ian Stannard DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 27'15
112 Daniel Lloyd DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 32'42
130 Charles Wegelius DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 42'46
151 Evert Verbist DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 52'22
152 Wes Sulzberger DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 52'35


KoM
1 Rinaldo Nocentini CAISSE D'EPARGNE 41
2 Charles Wegelius DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED 27
3 Paolo Bettini QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC 27
4 Filippo Pozzato LIQUIGAS 15
5 Riccardo Riccò BARLOWORLD 14
6 Aleksandr Pliuschin DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED 10

That bastard. 2nd is good for Pliuschin.

Its good yes, but it could be better