Today, we have the exciting Flumserberg TT scheduled. It’s the last Suisse stage, but it could make quite some differences. It looks as if Purito already has this in the bag, being 1’20 ahead of Nibali and 1’36 of Quintana. But this TT doesn’t favour Purito, really. The first 16km are panflat here. After that, the riders will climb the Flumserberg. Quite a constant climb, but it’s quite steep! The summit lies at 1300m. So I expect Nibali to win some time on Purito on the flat part, and then they might be fairly equal on the climb itself. So it will be interesting to see what happens today, though I still think Purito should be able to defend himself here. The fight for place 4 could be tight too. Hesjedal is currently on 4, at 3’30, but Kreuziger is 40 secs after. The fight for the last 2 Top 10 spots can be interesting too. Nerz is on 9th after yesterday’s stage, at 8’40, but De Las Campos, Bardet and Ghita are all 1 minute after. Nerz is better on the flat than the first two though, but worse when the road goes up. An interesting stage waits for us.

Favourites

V.Nibali(AST)


N.Quintana(MOV)
R.Porte(SKY)


J.Rodriguez(KAT)
R.Kreuziger(TST)
R.Hesjedal(GRS)

The Race
Of course, there are no climbers in the first part of the TT. Most of the riders are sprinters or TTists.
Gutierrez(MOV) is another TTist, but he’s able to climb a bit. After getting the provisional best time halfway the climb, he managed to keep that gap on the rest of the climb. He’s the first one completing the course within 58 minutes, clocking 57’56.
Tjallingii(BEL) is the first guy beating Gutierrez’ time, clocking 57’45.
Guys like Boaro and Sergent managed to do a great first checkpoint time. After that, they were able to keep a gap at the second checkpoint. But the raw TTists like them, seem to crack on the last part of the climb, that is where stuff gets steeper too.
This shows here again! Allrounder Pate(SKY) was a minute behind at the second checkpoint, but clocks the best final time now, 11 seconds faster than Tjalingii!
Vandborg, Durbridge, Millar. They all had that climbing curse, leaving Pate in the hot seat.
It was all a matter of waiting for the first decent stage-racer.
And there he is. German Knees(SKY) can both TT and climb well. He is the fastest rider at the second checkpoint, and even has Wurf(CAN), someone who can do both as well, in sight. While Wurf beats the final time, Knees slaughters that time too, being 39 seconds faster, clocking 56’54.
We’ve got our first strong climber on the road now, though! Llanet(MOV) is only 7 seconds away from Knees’ time at the 21km checkpoint. Despite cracking in the last km, he still sets a 56’44, the fastest time.

But Dutch Champion Westra(VAC) is coming for him, being 40 seconds faster halfway, yet a worse climber, but not bad at all! Nobody has even come close to his intermediate times yet, surely this should be the best time? Yes it was! 56’23 it is. But given that the strong climbers are starting now, I don’t think he can enjoy the hot seat for a long time.
After guys like Arroyo, Losada and Cobo finishing just a few seconds off the time, it’s finally Chaves(COL) that sets the best time, being 10 seconds faster than Lieuwe. However, shortly after, Poels(OPQ), who went under the radar, is nearly a fucking minute faster! Wow!
Chernetskiy(KAT) is the first one coming close to Westra on the 21km check. He couldn’t get close to Poels though, but finishes on the same time as Chaves.

Velits(OPQ) is another guy who can both climb and TT. He slaughtered Westra’s time checks, and is 7 seconds faster than Poels in the end! Good time by Velits! If you ask me, that time can hold out pretty long, until the quality stage-racers turn up.
Climbers Zubeldia(RLT), Caruso(CAN), and especially Frank(BMC), got close, but they couldn’t beat the time of the Slovakian TT champion.
Italian champion Cataldo(SKY) is very all-around and being just 22 seconds off at 6km to go, he has a chance to beat the time. He doesn’t though. 55’28 is his time, just 16 seconds off.
Kelderman(BEL) is the first one to beat Velits’ checkpoint time, with a small margin, though. The gaps in the GC Top 20 are fairly small. He’s 17th, and just more than 1,5 minutes away from a Top 10. He clocks 54’56, which won’t be enough for the Top 10, but which is the fastest time!
Weening(OGE) does a good job by clocking 55’04. It’s up to the GC contenders to beat Wilco’s time though!
GC contenders
Ghita(ARG) looks really strong! He beats Kelderman’s intermediate times with a distance, and looks good for a Top 10 position.
Bardet(ALM) loses 1’34 on Ghita with just 5km to go, while De las Campos(EUS) loses 1’22 and Nerz(BMC) loses 1’21. Ghita only needs to win 38 seconds for a GC, so it looks like either De las Campos or Nerz will lose his Top 10 spot today.

Ghita clocks 54’20 on the finish line, which is pretty amazing!
Bardet performs poorly today, clocking 56’04, losing 1’44. Doesn’t look like he’ll grab a Top 10, because it doesn’t look as if he’s even faster than the 2 above him.

De las Campos needs 55’53 for his time, which is still quite poor. He is however faster than Bardet. He needs to gain 22 seconds on Nerz to get a Top 10, though!

What does Nerz do???
He clocks a 56’23. Ouch! That means that he just misses out of a Top 10. Poor BMC.
Porte(SKY) looks pretty good, losing 20 seconds on Ghita at the 2nd checkpoint, while the Romanian wasn’t that impressive in the last part. Porte nearly managed to reach a disappointing Scarponi, but it wasn’t enough! He clocks a 54’27.
He however easily overtakes Betancur(ALM), who loses more than a minute today.
Kreuziger(TST) does a decent job by clocking the provisional 4th time, a 55’02, which is enough to stay ahead of Porte. But is it 40 seconds faster than Hesjedal(GRS)?

Nope. Hesjedal clocks a strong 6th time, just 8 seconds slower than Roman.

Now off to the Top 3!
Nibali is the fastest on the 2nd checkpoint, and looks good for the win today. Quintana is just 11 seconds slower, and seems to get 3rd in the GC today. Purito is 48 seconds slower, and if he loses 32 additional seconds, then the GC win goes to Nibali!

Quintana(MOV) does an amazing job by clocking 53’52 today. If that’s 16 seconds faster than Nibali, then Quintana goes up a spot in the GC.

Nibali(AST) is slower! Which means today’s win goes to Nairo Quintana! Yet, Nibali clocked a 54’01, which means he still has a better GC time.

But last up is Rodriguez(KAT). He can lose 1’20 on Nibali, and I don’t think he’ll give it away, though he certainly doesn’t look that great. He clocks a 54’52! Which means he won the GC! Congrats, Katusha!

Quintana takes a great win today, while Ghita takes a surprise podium! Kelderman, Weening and Velits do a good job by finishing in the Top 10 today. In the GC, nehind Rodriguez, it’s obviously Nibali and Quintana, completing the podium. On 4, it’s Hesjedal, and Kreuziger, Porte, Betancur, Scarponi, Ghita and De las Campos to complete the Top 10. Nerz unfortunately was 7 seconds too slow for a Top 10. He does Evans’ job well and finishes 11th, but that means no points for the poor German.

Quintana takes the KoM win by surprise after today, but the points still go to Purito. Quintana obviously takes the U25 by far, and the team classification was turned upside down today, with Sky taking it, after good performances of Porte, Cataldo and Dombrowski while the Lampre and AG2R riders disappointed today.

Results:

1	Nairo Quintana	Movistar Team	53'32
2	Vincenzo Nibali	Astana Pro Team	+ 9
3	Oreste Ghita	Team Argos - Shimano	+ 48
4	Richie Porte	Sky Procycling	+ 55
5	Joaquím Rodríguez	Katusha Team	+ 1'00
6	Wilco Kelderman	Belkin Pro Cycling Team	+ 1'24
7	Pieter Weening	Orica - GreenEdge	+ 1'30
8	Roman Kreuziger	Team Saxo - Tinkoff	s.t.
9	Ryder Hesjedal	Garmin - Sharp	+ 1'38
10	Peter Velits	Omega Pharma - Quick•Step Cycling Team	+ 1'40

GC

1	Joaquím Rodríguez	Katusha Team	31h55'18
2	Vincenzo Nibali	Astana Pro Team	+ 29
3	Nairo Quintana	Movistar Team	+ 36
4	Ryder Hesjedal	Garmin - Sharp	+ 4'06
5	Roman Kreuziger	Team Saxo - Tinkoff	+ 4'38
6	Richie Porte	Sky Procycling	+ 5'06
7	Carlos Betancur	AG2R La Mondiale	+ 6'09
8	Michele Scarponi	Lampre - Merida	+ 8'27
9	Oreste Ghita	Team Argos - Shimano	+ 9'28
10	Cristiano De las Campos	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 10'23

Points

1	Joaquím Rodríguez	Katusha Team	8	97
2	Nairo Quintana	Movistar Team	15	86
3	Vincenzo Nibali	Astana Pro Team	12	56
4	Carlos Betancur	AG2R La Mondiale	0	56
5	Ryder Hesjedal	Garmin - Sharp	4	45
6	Alex Howes	Garmin - Sharp	0	45
7	Edvald Boasson Hagen	Sky Procycling	0	44
8	Andriy Grivko	Astana Pro Team	0	43
9	Roman Kreuziger	Team Saxo - Tinkoff	5	37
10	Martin Elmiger	IAM Cycling	0	33

KoM

1	Nairo Quintana	Movistar Team	12	41
2	Vincenzo Nibali	Astana Pro Team	8	38
3	Joaquím Rodríguez	Katusha Team	2	32
4	Esteban Chaves	Colombia	0	27
5	Johnny Hoogerland	Vacansoleil - DCM Pro Cycling Team	0	26
6	Amets Txurruka	Caja Rural - Seguros RGA	0	24
7	Roman Kreuziger	Team Saxo - Tinkoff	0	20
8	Jens Voigt	RadioShack - Leopard	0	20
9	Matteo Rabottini	Vini Fantini - Selle Italia	0	12
10	Andriy Grivko	Astana Pro Team	0	12

U25: Quintana 2. Betancur, 3. Ghita
Team: Sky 2. AG2R 3. Lampre