Jakob Fuglsang has been a very consistent rider until now. The Danish rider has tasted victory in every season so far, something not many riders have accomplished. Jakob has never changed teams and has always had a leading role in the Leopard and then Radioshck teams. His rookie year was very successful, as he was able to take 2 stage wins in the Tour de France and was 2nd in Paris - Roubaix and 3rd in Lombardia.
Fuglsang soon showed that he liked the long distances better than most riders in the peloton, but 2010 was not a small disappointment for him. Leopard had three very good riders in Peraud, Frank Schleck and Fuglsang that season and the season didn't end as good as expected. Jakob could only take home a stage win in Poland and several top 10s.
In the first part of 2011 it seemed that the story would repeat itself, although Fuglsang had taken a 4th in the Fleche Wallonne. However, he was able to take his most important win of his career so far in July by taking the Clasica Ciclista de San Sebastian. That win and several other good results placed him as the best Radioshack rider of the season.
This season, Fuglsang has improved his record a little farther. Radioshack labeled him as the team overall leader and he responded with a great win in the first of the monuments: Milano - Sanremo. Such an important win is a major achievement for any rider and Fuglsang's level hasn't decreased after that. He has already had a good Vuelta al Pais Vasco and won a stage in Romandie. His main target for the late season seems to be Vattenfall Cyclassics, but that means that he will also be fit to defend his win in San Sebastian.
Wins:
2009
- 1st Stages 3 and 20 Tour de France
2010
- 1st Stage 4 Tour de Pologne
2011
- 1st Stage 1 Vuelta al Pais Vasco
- 1st Clasica de San Sebastian
2012
- 1st Milano - Sanremo
- 1st Stage 6 Tour de Romandie
Other notable results:
- 2nd 2009 Paris - Roubaix
- 3rd 2009 Giro di Lombardia
- 10th 2010 Tour Down Under
- 7th 2010 Tour de Pologne
- 9th 2010 Vattenfall Cyclassics
- 7th 2010 GP Cycliste de Montreal
- 10th 2011 Vuelta al Pais Vasco
- 4th 2011 La Fleche Wallonne
- 7th 2011 GP Cycliste de Quebec
- 6th 2012 Vuelta al Pais Vasco
The fourth stage in Switzerland looks good for a mass sprint. Even though there is one extremely tough start of the stage, as the riders have to go up the St Gottard, the long flat areas should allow the bunch to control the race. The mountains will probably get some fatigue in the worst climbing sprinters though and we could see some surprises in the sprint.
After a very fast start of the race a group of 7 riders got a good advantage climbing St Gottard. They got to the first intermediate sprint (98 km to go) 4' 40'' ahead of the pack. Among the riders in the break were Michael Albasini (Radioshack), Stefan van Dijk (Rabobank), Julien Simon (Ag2r) and Niki Terpstra (Movistar).
Saxo Bank, Discovery and Lampre were the teams most interested in chasing and they had reduced the gap to 2' 10'' at the top of the Sattelegg. The break split in the climb and only 5 riders remained a in front with 49 kilometers remaining.
The bunch soon caught the break when they hit the flat. There were 21 kilometers remaining and the first pure sprint in Switzerland was unavoidable now. Some sprinters have suffered quite a bit to get through the climbs, like Tyler Farrar, so it is hard to guess who will dominate the sprint.
BMC had the best sprinting train by far today, as a classy rider like Alessandro Ballan was towing Sacha Modolo. Behind the Italian, Yauheni Hutarovich and Tyler Farrar were trying to get advantage of the American team.
Sacha Modolo and Yauheni Hutarovich proved to be the strongest by far today, as they were clearly ahead halfway through the sprint. Ballan was still third while Simone Ponzi was the best of the rest but nowhere to be seen in the picture.
Sacha Modolo wins in Stafa! The Italian holds Hutarovich behind and takes not only his 3rd stage win of the season, but also the leaders shirt. The rest of the riders couldn't match their speed by far, as Joost Van Leijen took the third place and Kocjan the fourth.
Modolo will have it really difficult to retain the yellow jersey tomorrow, as the arrival to Serfaus is too hard for him. Hermans is now second with the same time as the Italian. In the mountains classification, Julien Simon got a lot of points but it is rather difficult seeing him reach the end of the race on the top of this list.
The most important stage of the Tour de Suisse along with the final time trial has to be this one, ending in Serfaus. The finish line is only a couple of kilometers after the top of the climb to the Fisser Joch. Considering the stage also has the Albergpass, this is a real mountain stage. The climbers will need to do a good job to put a good distance to the time trialists if they want to contend in the GC.
A rather big group of 14 riders formed the break of the day. The group was rather weak, but there were some good riders, like: Michael Matthews (Garmin), Juanjo Cobo (Sky), Jose Joaquin Rojas (Lotto), Andreas Kloden (HTC) and Rinaldo Nocentini (Katusha). The group had a nice advantage of 6' 50'' in the first intermediate sprint of the day (112 kilometers remaining).
The bunch was a bit slow on reacting to the break and it had to be Rabobank who put Gesink and Kreuziger in front after BMC wouldn't put a chasing pace. The difference at the top of the Albergpass had gone down to 4' 35'' with still 60 km to go. The front group had only 11 riders at the top of the tough climb.
The situation didn't change in the flat towards the Fisser Joch, but Frank Schleck didn't waste too much time and attacked in the first kilometers of climbing. The Luxembourgish had already won here 3 years ago. The break had split in two groups, the first of them having 6 riders was 45 seconds ahead of the other. Schleck was losing 2' 10'' with 7 kilometers remaining and the bunch was losing 2' 40''. On the back of the group, Cadel Evans was again disappointing and lost contact when more than 100 riders were still in there.
As the break crossed the 5 kilometer banner Rinaldo Nocentini was alone in front with Van den Broeck. The two of them had 40 seconds on a chasing group of 3 including Rojas. Meanwhile, Frank Schelck had cut his loss to 1' 15'' and the bunch was already losing 2' 55''. Frank's lead was starting to be worrisome to some riders in the bunch.
Steven Kruijswijk didn't feel like waiting for Schleck to increase his gap even more. The Movistar rider soon joined the chasers. Meanwhile, with 3 km to go Frank Schleck had left Van den Broeck behind and was within 15 seconds of Nocentini. Kruijswijk's group was 1' 40'' back, while the bunch was 2' 50'' behind. Rob Ruijgh is clearly not taking advantage of his Rabobank teammates work.
Nocentini and Schleck reached the last kilometer together. They were going to play for both the stage win and the leader's shirt. It would be a major achievement for Nocentini, as he arrived in Switzerland to work for Menchov and he is going to end the day in a podium place.
Frank Schleck wins in Serfaus! The Radioshack rider takes his second win in the Austrian town to take the lead and a great step in his bid to retain the overall win in Switzerland. Rinaldo Nocentini will meanwhile be second in the GC. The Italian will have a hard time defending this podium place but it is doable.
Steven Kruijswijk was the other winner among the favorites, but he will still have to get rid of Jurgen van den Broeck to get into the podium. However, with only 26 seconds between them and such a long time trial still in the race it seems like the Dutch has an excellent chance.
Elsewhere we can talk of huge disappointments. Especially in the Discovery Channel team, who had to work hard three days ago after a crash by Evans to bring him back to the pack and paid the price today.
A fairly easy stage will be the test for the riders on the day after the queen stage of the Tour de Suisse. A 6 laps route around the city of Bad Zurzach with only a small hill on the way should either allow a break or a mass sprint to take the win.
Not many important riders were present in the break of the day. It was a group of 11 riders including Thor Hushovd (Garmin), Gregory Rast (Sky), Romain Feillu (Euskaltel), Tom Boonen (Lotto) and Stefan van Dijk (Rabobank). As they climbed the hill for the fourth time the gap with the bunch was 6' 20'', but they still had a long 81 kilometers to the finish.
The last lap arrived and, although many teams were looking for the mass sprint, the break had quite a few chances of making it to the finish line. Gregory Rast led the front group through the last mountain sprint (21 kilometers remaining). The group was now down to 9 riders.
The 9 of them reached the last kilometer with enough time on the peloton. The gap is still more than 2 minutes, which means that Romain Feillu could jump into the top 10 of the GC. The French and Gregory Rast are in theory the fastest of the men in the break, but everything can happen after 180 kilometers.
Lars Peter Norhaug leads the sprint in the last kilometer. Behind him are Thor Hushovd, Maxim Iglinskiy and Anthony Roux. That would be the first win of the season for any of the riders in the first places of the sprint.
Lars Peter Nordhaug wins in Bad Zurzach! The Norwegian gets the first win in the story of the Ag2r team. Surely Chavanel had been expected to make that landmark but Nordhaug settles the sprint in a dominant fashion. Gregory Rast pushed very hard but had to settle for the second place in the stage while Anthony Roux was third.
Sacha Modolo wins the sprint of the group, showing that he is on top shape. The Italian extended slightly his lead on the points competition but he will have it very difficult to get the jersey in the end considering he will probably not get any more points.
The GC has been changed a bit, as Romain Feillu and Carlos Betancur jumped to the fifth and sixth positions. Both of them will have it difficult to remain there on Sunday.
Tour de Suisse Stage 7: Bad Zurzach - Vallorbe Juraparc
The seventh stage of the Tour de Suisse ends in the natural resort of Vallorbe Juraparc. Although the race ends in this hill, the rest of the stage is pretty easy for the bunch to control. Therefore, not big differences among the favorites are expected. Only the uphill finishers could have an edge and try to squeeze a few seconds in the finish line.
12 riders formed the break of the day on the way to Vallorbe. Very good flat riders among them, including Johan van Summeren (Quickstep), Alessandro Ballan (BMC), Lieuwe Westra (Rabobank), Matthew Goss (Saxo Bank) and Bernhard Eisel (Vacansoleil). As they entered the second half of the race they enjoyed a big gap of 8' 10'' on the peloton.
Lotto and Katusha took the responsibility to chase once the first climbing began, as Radioshack hadn't been able to reduce the gap enough. With only 17 kilometers remaining the break still enjoys a good 3' 25'' gap, what suggests that they are going to get the stage win.
The break reached as a group to the final climb after Tony Martin (Sky) had tried a solo win without success in the previous climb. The gap with the bunch stands at 1' 45'', more than enough time on the hands of the break to play for the win.
Lieuwe Westra launched the final attack at about 1.5 kilometers to the finish. The Dutch is followed by Johan van Summeren, Bernhard Eisel and Alessandro Ballan. Meanwhile, the bunch pace is high but no attacks happened so far.
Bernhard Eisel wins in Vallorbe Juraparc! The Austrian went past Westra in the last meters alongside Ballan and took his first win of the year. A rather surprising win, as Eisel is more of a sprinter than an uphill finisher. Alessandro Ballan took the second place while Lieuwe Westra was third.
Things got more interesting in the main group, as Damiano Cunego, Chris Froome, Rob Ruijgh and Steven Kruijswijk attacked and crossed the line 1' 03'' behind the winner. Another group were Frank Schleck arrived 1' 20'' behind, including Hincapie, Machado, Vanendert, Menchov and Van Garderen. The leader arrived 2' 03'' behind the winner, giving a bad impression.
The GC has therefore compressed a bit, as there are now 8 riders within 1 minute of Schleck. Some of them, like Kruijswijk and Westra can be dangerous in the final time trial. Before that, the final mountain test in Crans Montana should clear the GC a little bit before the final stage.
Tour de Suisse Stage 8: Le Sentier - Crans-Montana
Another stage with only the final climb will be the last chance for the climbers to put some time on the time trialists ahead of the last stage in Switzerland. The final climb today is Crans-Montana. The race will be mixing some of the more straight climbs towards the ski resort and will leave us with a very long climb at more than 20 kilometers but with many rest areas in the ascent.
The break of the day has some interesting riders, but none of them is a great climber. The group of 11 included Jose Joaquin Rojas (Lotto), Joost van Leijen (Rabobank), Simon Gerrans (Quickstep), Sebastian Langeveld (Vacansoleil) and Chris Anker Sorensen (Saxo Bank). They had a gap of 6' 20'' with 90 kilometers remaining.
Nothing interesting happened until the start of the climb of the day. The bunch started the climb with a loss of 3' 15'' on the break. Radioshack didn't put a good pace and therefore Katusha and Movistar took the responsibility for the chase. Considering the good lead the break could have a chance to make it to the finish line.
After more than 10 kilometers climbing the break has shrinked to 6 members, the best climber among them is Juanjo Cobo. Meanwhile, Steven Kruijswijk and Miguel Angel Rubiano have a small gap on the bunch. They have greatly reduced the margin of the break, as the duo is 1' 25'' behind.
Kruiswijk and Rubiano were soon caught back, as the pace by Menchov was quite strong. The break survived with 6 kilometers remaining, but their gap had shrinked to 35 seconds. At the same time, Tiago Machado tried yet another attack. The Portuguese was very combative in this climb but not very successful.
Steven Kruijswijk attacked again in the last slopes of the climb and reached the final flat 3 kilometers 15 seconds ahead of the favorites group. The last members of the break were finally caught shotly before. Kruiswijk's movement is a very dangerous one, as he is third in the GC 23 seconds back. Frank Schleck tried to follow but he couldn't keep the pace of the Dutch.
Tiago Machado was finally able to leave the group behind and joins Kruijswijk as they cross the final kilometer sign. They lead the favorites group by 20 seconds, so Kruiswijk can even gain the leader's jersey.
Steven Kruijswijk wins in Crans-Montana. The Dutch is on course to set his season counter running as he takes the first win of the season and the leader's jersey with only the time trial to end the Tour de Suisse. Along him arrived Tiago Machado, who also gains places in the GC.
The group of favorites arrived only 21 seconds behind led by the HTC riders Chris Froome and Andy Schleck. That loss of time leaves Frank Schleck trailing Kruijswijk by 8 seconds. Nocentini kept the third position overall, 9 seconds back. The only top 10 rider to fail today was Jurgen van den Broeck, who lost 1 minute and falls to the 16th place overall.
The last stage of the Tour de Suisse is a flat time trial around the city of Bern. This is a stage for the specialists, as the route of the stage is very flat except for a small hill in the last couple of kilometers. Steven Kruijswijk should seal his overall victory here, as he is a decent time trialist and the best ones are quite behind in the GC.
Samuel Sanchez (Katusha) wasn't very lucky with the wind conditions and could only set the 11th best as he crossed the finish line. The Spaniard was 34 seconds slower than a surprising Geraint Thomas, who was unexpectedly leading the way in the finish line.
Cameron Meyer (HTC) started right behind Sanchez and, even if he improved on Sanchez's time, couldn't beat Thomas. The Australian set the 3rd best time in the second intermediate but lost time due to the head wind in the run back to Bern to end 5th 14 seconds behind.
Levi Leipheimer (HTC) was closer to getting the first place, but failed by only 2 seconds and got the 2nd provisional place in the stage. The American had set the best time in the second intermediate.
The conditions improved again as the third of the HTC great time trialists, Chris Froome, departed. The British was outstanding today and set the best time everywhere. Carlos Barredo was first in the finish line before Froome arrived and his time was crushed by a massive 50 seconds. Froome had left Leipheimer, one of the best time trialists, 1' 29'' behind.
Denis Menchov (Katusha) was also strong in the time trial, but not as much as Froome. The Russian set the 2nd best time in the finish line, 38 seconds behind the British.
Lieuwe Westra (Rabobank) was the fifth last rider to depart. Tejay van Garderen had set the third best time in the stage, but Chris Froome was still the leader in the finish line 9 seconds better than Tiago Machado as the Dutch arrived. Westra clocked the 13th provisional time, losing 1' 30'' on Froome. It was not a bad result, but he was overtaken by several riders in the GC.
Bernhard Eisel (Vacansoleil) was never a good time trialist and he could only set the 47th time, 2' 15'' behind Froome. This result will probably take him out of the top 10 in the final GC.
Rinaldo Nocentini (Katusha) was slightly better than Eisel, but he still lost 2' 12'' in the finish line and set the 45th best time so far. Anyway, the Italian has the 5th provisional spot in the GC among those that finished, so he will be in the top 10.
The second in the GC was Frank Schleck (Radioshack). He did what you expect of him on a time trial: mess it all up. The Luxembourgish set the 57th provisional time, 2' 24'' behind Froome. This result will probably give him the 8th final position in the GC. This is rather disappointing after his dominant win on Serfaus.
Steven Kruijswijk (Movistar) was the last rider to depart. Things didn't go well in the second intermediate point for him, as he was losing almost his entire advantage on Chris Froome. The British was still the best rider to have finished.
Kruijswijk's time was very close to losing the race as he approached the final kilometers of the race. When he crossed the line his time was... 7 seconds too slow to win the race. Chris Froome took the stage and the GC in Switzerland! An amazing performance by the British gives him the overall win after crushing his rivals in the last time trial.
The Tour de France returns after two years absent from the World Tour calendar. A new route has been prepared by the organization with few importance of the time trials and a very long first week. There will only be one ITT, on the penultimate day of the race around the town of Grenoble, and one TTT on the second day of the race. Moreover, the time trial in Grenoble is not really for specialists, as it has a couple of tough climbs. Regarding the mountains, they will only start in the 12th race day, with a mountain top finish in Luz Ardiden. The other mountain top finishes of this edition will be Plateau de Beille, Galibier and Alpe d'Huez. These stages should give the climbers quite an edge for this year's yellow jersey.
Among the favorites for the win, several names have to be taken into account apart from the 4 picks I made. Pieter Weening, the winner of last year's Giro arrives as a question mark. He crashed out of the Tour de Suisse, so his fitness might not be as good as it could be. Rob Ruijgh will have his first big test, but he has been poor through the season so far. Levi Leipheimer will probably have to help Andy as the lack of time trials won't help his chances. Frank Schleck has a shot if he keeps the shape he showed in the climb to Serfaus, but maybe the long first week will put a levi on his chances.
Favorites:
- Bauke Mollema (Vacansoleil): Bauke Mollema arrives in France as the great favorite for the final win in Paris. The Dutch has done a great season so far with 4 wins, including the GC in Tirreno - Adriatico and Dauphine. He did his first good performance in a GT last year when he was 5th in the Giro and he seems to have greatly improved this season. His only problem will probably be his team, as none of his domestiques seems to be a good enough climber to support him in the mountains.
- Mikel Nieve (Discovery): Mikel Nieve was already in the podium last year in the Giro and he aims to improve that performance in the Tour. The Spaniard has had a good season so far, including the 2nd place in Pais Vasco, but without any win. Therefore, he needs a quality performance in France to round his season. Discovery has a great team and he shouldn't lack for support from Cadel Evans, John Gadret or Janez Brajkovic.
- Hubert Dupont (Saxo Bank): The French will be very motivated to defend his Tour crown in front of his people. French cycling seems to be in a crisis this year, as only Tony Gallopin has obtained some results. However, Dupont will not be enjoying the best of the moods in his own team. The team has been largely wasteful so far this season, especially Farrar and himself, and Tiago Machado had to come to the rescue with a podium finish in Switzerland.
- Andy Schleck (HTC): Andy has been doing what he does best in the run to the Tour: mess around and get nothing (this must be hardcoded in the game). His best result so far has been a 5th in the Amstel Gold Race so he better does something good if he wants to keep the leading role in the HTC team, especially after exhibitions from Froome in Switzerland. HTC has the bonus of being massive favorites for the TTT, so he should get a head start on his rivals in the second stage.
Tour de France Stage 1: Passage du Gois - Mont des Alouettes
The Tour de France doesn't start with a prologue this time. The very flat stage that the organizers have programmed takes the riders from the Atlantic coast to an uphill finish in the Mont des Alouettes (2.4 km at 4.25%). This finish will allow us to see the best uphill finishers looking for the win. The stage is rather important as it will settle the starting order for tomorrow's TTT.
Only 2 riders formed the break of the day: Robbie McEwen (Garmin) and Niki Terpstra (Movistar). The Australian took the first points and bonus seconds in the intermediate sprint of Avrille, where they had 7' 35'' on the group. The day was very windy and overcast but that didn't translate into cuts in the peloton so far.
The break was soon caught, with 31 kilometers remaining. A lot of teams were interested in controlling the race and looking for the win and the leader's jersey. Today's finish is very open and maybe some important riders will look for bonus seconds.
The approximation to the Mont des Alouettes was very difficult, as many teams were trying to position their riders. Radioshack was in front, as Jakob Fuglsang was positioning Frank Schleck and he was followed by Bauke Mollema. Sebastian Langeveld was towing Peter Sagan and Jose Joaquin Rojas, while the other strong train was the BMC one as Sacha Modolo was positioning Damiano Cunego and they were followed by Alexandre Vinokourov.
Frank Schleck leads the way up to the Mont des Alouettes entering the last kilometer of the stage. The Radioshack rider is followed by Dries Devenyns, Bauke Mollema and Pieter Weening. It seems like the top riders are trying to get something out of the first day of the race.
Frank Schleck wins in the Mont des Alouettes! He shows the good shape that took him to win the queen stage of the Tour de Suisse in a dominant fashion. Even though, it looked halfway through the climb that Dries Devenyns was going to take the stage win.
The first movements for the final GC also occurred as Bauke Mollema was third and got 4 bonus seconds. Pieter Weening also joined the sprint to be fourth. Due to having 2 men in the top 4 Quickstep has obtained the last spot in tomorrow's TTT. They will be precede by BMC. On the other side of the table, Euskaltel will be the first to depart, while Mikel Nieve's Discovery will be the fourth team to hit the road.
Tejay van Garderen has been the revelation of the season in the UCI World Tour. The American has jumped to the spotlight in the recent stage races after making some special results for someone that wasn't more than a domestique one season ago.
Tejay started in the World Tour in 2010 joining Garmin - Cervelo, a team dominated by the big sprinter star Alexandre Vinokourov and Thor Hushovd in a second leader role. That season was big for the team, as they ended 4th in the World Tour and obtained a huge 9 wins throughout the season. However, Tejay's performance that season was rather anonymous. His best result of the season was the 2nd place in the young riders classification in Tirreno - Adriatico.
2011 was not as sweet for the team as the previous year. Vinokourov completed another good season ending in the top 10 of the World Tour again but the rest of the team was nowhere to help the team get more points. However, Van Garderen climbed to the podium at the end of a stage race by winning the mountain jersey in the Vuelta al Pais Vasco. The team ended in a catastrophic 14th place in the World Tour rankings and the budget for the next season decreased due to the less prizes money. Garmin couldn't retain Vinokourov, who departed to lead his home country Astana team.
Garmin decided to place a bet on Peter Kennaugh, who arrived from Sky, for the sprints and Tejay van Garderen for the stage races. The American mainly focused on his time trial abilities and it has paid off notably. Tejay won the Tour de Suisse prologue and came second in the long time trials in Romandie and Dauphine. Those performance meant that he ended in the podium (2nd) in Romandie, 4th in Tour de Suisse and 5th in Dauphine. He will probably find the Tour de France harder, as there is barely any time trialing available for him to make a difference but one can never tell after seeing how good he has been throughout the season.
The bad news for Garmin are that Tejay ends his contract at the end of the season, so they better find some money to retain their rising star. It will be difficult at best.
Wins:
2011
- 1st Mountain jersey Vuelta al Pais Vasco
2012
- 1st Stage 1 Tour de Suisse
Other notable results:
- 9th 2012 Liege - Bastogne - Liege
- 2nd 2012 Tour de Romandie
- 5th 2012 Criterium du Dauphine
- 4th 2012 Tour de Suisse
UCI World Tour Rankings:
- 2010 Team Garmin - Cervelo: 89th (7.11 pts)
- 2011 Team Garmin - Barracuda: 75th (25 pts)
Tour de France Stage 2: Les Essarts - Les Essarts (TTT)
The first important point of the Tour de France is reached as early as the second stage. A rather short team time trial will set the first small differences among the favorites. The route is rather easy, at only 23 kilometers in a very flat terrain in the surroundings of Les Essarts. The teams with the best time trialists should get an advantage today.
Discovery Channel started early in the day. The American team set the best time in the second intermediate, but couldn't match a surprising Euskaltel team that had taken the lead in the finish line. Discovery came home 2nd, 2 seconds behind Euskaltel. A good result for their leader Mikel Nieve.
Rabobank was also an early starter today. The Dutch team performed as expected from them to take the lead on the finish line from Euskaltel by 2 seconds. Rob Ruijgh will be very grateful, as he is not the best time trialist around and will save this day without a significant loss.
Astana started without much hope of a good result today. They didn't lose much time tough, as they crossed the finish line on the 6th provisional position 12 seconds behind Rabobank.
HTC were the favorites for today's stage and turned out being the biggest disappointment. They were third 5 seconds behind in the second intermediate but dropped to set the 8th provisional time in the finish line. They lost a quite big amount of 15 seconds. Andy Schleck will not be happy about this, as he expected to finish this stage ahead of his main rivals for the Tour.
Saxo Bank was even worse than HTC. The Danish team lost 19 seconds to Rabobank in the finish line setting the 10th provisional time.
Team Radioshack was also one of the favorites for the stage and they delivered a good performance, but not enough to go ahead of Rabobank. The Luxembourg based team took the third provisional place in the stage 3 seconds behind the Dutch guys. This result will probably allow Frank Schleck to keep the leaders jersey.
Liquigas is having a horrible year and this time trial was no better. The Italian time set the 10th time, 17 seconds behind.
Vacansoleil were also outsiders for the victory, but even though Mollema gave everything to take his teammates to a good result they could only be 8th so far, 12 seconds behind Rabobank.
BMC are a team that does a better job in all kinds of uphills than in time trials, but quite surprisingly they did very well today. They were 4th, only 4 seconds behind. George Hincapie will probably be their man for the GC and he must be grateful for the few TT kilometers in this year's TDF.
Quickstep was the last team to start. The Belgians were not supposed to do well today and they raised quite a few eyebrows as they got the stage win with a margin of two seconds on Rabobank. This is a most surprising result that takes the victory count of the Belgian team to 10 this season.
With Quickstep's stage win Dries Devenyns climbs to the top of the GC, 1 second ahead of Frank Schleck. It is always doubtful whether it is good or bad to take the lead so early in the race, as the team will suffer a big fatigue in the many flat stages that will follow. Probably Quickstep will try for a sprinter (even Tony Gallopin) to take the lead in the next days.
The third stage of the Tour is the first that looks as a clear mass sprint. With the strength of all riders almost intact, it is difficult that a break will get to make it to the finish line. The only small difficulty of the day is the climb to the Pont de Saint Nazaire, classified as a 4th category climb.
The break of the day was rather large today at 12 riders. Among the most important riders in the break are Cameron Meyer (HTC), Kenny van Hummel (Rabobank), Tom Boonen (Lotto), Kanstantsin Sivtsov (Katusha) and Christopher Sutton (Garmin). Meyer won the intermediate sprint in Saint-Hilaire-de-Chaleons (94 km to go), where they were enjoying a gap of 6' 05'' on the group.
However, the break was doomed today. The last rider to be reeled back was Tom Boonen at about 15 kilometers to go. Astana was doing a great job to put Vinokourov in a position to get the stage win and they were joined by Quickstep and Saxo Bank mainly.
Several teams were positioning their sprinter in the front of the peloton as the sprint approached. BMC was leading the way, as Alessandro Ballan was leading Sacha Modolo. In Vacansoleil, Sebastian Langeveld was leading Peter Sagan, while the third train was the Astana one, as Filippo Pozzato led Alexandre Vinokourov. The sprint is really messy anyway, with riders everywhere in the road.
Jose Joaquin Rojas put Andre Greipel in the lead as they head for the last kilometer. The Lotto duo are followed by Yauheni Hutarovich and Sebastian Langeveld as many sprinters have lost a bit of track in the final approach to the sprint.
Yauheni Hutarovich wins in Redon! The Belarusian narrowly beats a charging Tyler Farrar, who came a little late to take the win. This is the first win of the season for Hutarovich, what shows what a poor season for a lot of sprinters it has been. Probably they will take revenge in this first part of the Tour.
Andre Greipel lost some track in the final meters but was strong enough to take the third place in the stage. Meanwhile, Alexandre Vinokourov could only be 6th after Filippo Pozzato lost some track while positioning the Kazakh. Astana should probably leave a couple of riders with fresh legs to tow Vinokourov in the finish, as they used all the team in chasing today.
