Aussie TT champion Michael Rogers got through the course in 3'08.
LL. Sanchez overtook Rogers' lead by four seconds.
Sanchez was in turn beaten by Alberto Contador, who ended up winning the prologue. No Discovery riders placed among the top ten, but our guys are obviously not far back in terms of time.
Today's winner
Results
1 Alberto Contador Astana Cycling Team 3'03
2 Luis León Sánchez Caisse d'Epargne + 1
3 Svein Tuft Garmin - Slipstream + 3
4 Lars Bak Team Saxo Bank + 4
5 Mikhail Ignatiev Team Katusha + 5
6 Michael Rogers Team Columbia - High Road + 5
7 Marco Pinotti Team Columbia - High Road + 5
8 Dominique Cornu Quick-Step + 6
9 Ivan Basso Liquigas + 6
10 Alejandro Valverde Caisse d'Epargne + 6
On the final stretch, Nic Roche and Isasi were fighting for the lead.
The two of them kept their advantage all the way, with Roche winning the stage and the yellow jersey! My tip, Bazayev, was 3rd while Brajkovic followed the wheels to record a 6th place finish.
GC
1 Nicolas Roche AG2R La Mondiale 3h16'07
2 Alberto Contador Astana Cycling Team + 2
3 Luis León Sánchez Caisse d'Epargne + 3
4 Svein Tuft Garmin - Slipstream + 5
5 Lars Bak Team Saxo Bank + 6
6 Marco Pinotti Team Columbia - High Road + 7
7 Mikhail Ignatiev Team Katusha + 7
8 Michael Rogers Team Columbia - High Road + 7
9 Laszló Bodrogi Team Katusha + 7
10 Alejandro Valverde Caisse d'Epargne + 8
Stage 3 Vienne - Bellegarde sur Valserine: 188.5km
Tactics meeting
Yesterday's winner and race leader Nic Roche is probably smiling. This stage fits him perfectly. The last half is stacked with hills, and we could see a small shake-up in the overall. You have to be exceptionally good to get away on your own though, so my bet is a sprint in a small group. Said Roche or maybe someone like Valverde are favourites today.
There was no real action before the last big climb, but then it all exploded. Contador went on the attack and was followed by Vandevelde, Basso, Brajkovic, Armstrong and others.
Christophe Le Mevel was the only survivor from the early break. He was the first to cross the last mountain sprint. But he was not far ahead of the attackers.
Three riders managed to get away from the peloton on the climb: Contador, Brajkovic and Basso. They were chasing Le Mevel and were 30sec ahead of the pack.
With 7km remaining, Le Mevel was caught and, more worryingly for us, Brajkovic was dropped.
We took control over the field and put the hammer down during the last kms. Contador and Basso was not going to slip away this early in the race!
Our work paid off, as the race came together again 4km before the line.
The two riders going fastest under the red kite were Del Nero of Fuji-Servetto and Igor Anton.
Jesus Del Nero took an important win for Fuji! Anton made sure Euskaltel was 2nd again. Roche keeps his jersey despite Del Nero now having the same overall time. The long TT awaits tomorrow!
GC
1 Nicolas Roche AG2R La Mondiale 7h54'03
2 Jesus Del Nero Fuji - Servetto + 0
3 Alberto Contador Astana Cycling Team + 2
4 Luis León Sánchez Caisse d'Epargne + 3
5 Alejandro Valverde Caisse d'Epargne + 4
6 Marco Pinotti Team Columbia - High Road + 7
7 Mikhail Ignatiev Team Katusha + 7
8 Michael Rogers Team Columbia - High Road + 7
9 Ivan Basso Liquigas + 8
10 Marzio Bruseghin Lampre N.G.C + 9
Stage 4 Bellegarde sur Valserine - Bellegarde sur Valserine: 28.0km
Tactics meeting
The real race starts today: The fight for the overall. 28km of time trial with a few climbs put in should make the classification interesting before we go into the mountains. Levi Leipheimer will probably be our strongest prospect today.
The Canadian TT champ Svein Tuft had the early time to beat.
Lance Armstrong was up to the task, recording a time 16 seconds faster than Tuft.
Surprisingly, Oscar Pereiro beat his leader by 20 seconds. It looks like Armstrong's TT performances are still lacking the spark they had before he retired in 2005. Or maybe Pereiro just rode a super TT?
Or maybe not. Brajkovic took a new provisional lead, 24 seconds ahead of his teammate Pereiro.
By the time Leipheimer hit the line, we were used to Discovery riders taking over each other's provisional 1st places. Levi beat Brajkovic by 38 seconds, and put in a good bid for the stage win.
Basso looks a lot better than he did in the Giro, slotting in between Levi and Brajkovic for a provisional 2nd.
Contador won the prologue, and he didn't want to be worse today. The Spanish champion relegated Levi to 2nd and Basso to 3rd by tackling the course 8 seconds faster than our American TT monster.
Today's winner
Results
1 Alberto Contador Astana Cycling Team 38'39 2 Levi Leipheimer Discovery Channel + 8
3 Ivan Basso Liquigas + 44 4 Janez Brajkovic Discovery Channel + 46
5 Michael Rogers Team Columbia - High Road + 52
6 Luis León Sánchez Caisse d'Epargne + 58
7 Robert Gesink Quick-Step + 1'03
8 Grischa Niermann Rabobank + 1'04
9 Alejandro Valverde Caisse d'Epargne + 1'09 10 Óscar Pereiro Discovery Channel + 1'11
GC
1 Alberto Contador Astana Cycling Team 8h32'24 2 Levi Leipheimer Discovery Channel + 25
3 Ivan Basso Liquigas + 1'02
4 Michael Rogers Team Columbia - High Road + 1'17 5 Janez Brajkovic Discovery Channel + 1'18
6 Luis León Sánchez Caisse d'Epargne + 1'19
7 Alejandro Valverde Caisse d'Epargne + 1'31
8 Grischa Niermann Rabobank + 1'33
9 Robert Gesink Quick-Step + 1'33
10 Stef Clement Rabobank + 1'42
Tactics meeting
We cross the Swiss border for the start of stage 5 before we head into France again. It's a tough mountain stage, with the 16km climb over Col de la Colombière as the last test. Alberto Contador looks great these days, so he'll be a tough opponent for anyone gunning for the stage win.
At the foot of the Colombière, the breakaway including Joly (FdJ) and Marzano (Lampre) had a distance of 2'30 back to the peloton.
Joly and Marzano kept it going quite a long way up the climb. 6km before the top, they were still out in front, having dropped their two companions.
But the main climbers were closing in. What once was the peloton had shrinked to about 15 riders.
Marzano was still hanging on to his lead with 1km of the climb remaining. Joly had hit the wall big time and was gone. Contador and the others were 30sec behind the leading Italian.
Near the summit of the Colombière, only three riders could keep up with Contador's chase: Le Mevel, Leipheimer and Gesink. Marzano was finally about to be reeled in, but he had almost made it to the top and would probably hang on to Contador & co.
Five leaders were diving down from the Colombière towards the valley below, where the finish in Le Grand Bornand awaited: Contador, Leipheimer, Le Mevel, Gesink and Marzano.
The nearest chasers were 45 sec behind: Basso, LL. Sanchez and Igor Anton.
But just 15 sec behind those three came Valverde, Armstrong and Brajkovic.
They made the junction with the Basso group, but this chasegroup of six riders were now 1 minute behind the five leaders with 6km remaining.
Almost a minute later, Ivan Basso led home the second group. World champion Lance Armstrong made a jump up in the standings and is now among the top 10.
Considering the promising stage profile, the first parts of the stage were disappointing. Nothing big happened, and the early break was caught on the way down from the Chamrousse (2nd big mountain). Heading into the penultimate climb, LL. Sanchez went on the attack.
He was joined by Vladimir Efimkin, but they never got much more than a minute to the pack.
Before the last climb to Charmant Som, it was all back together again. Now it was just a matter of climbing the mountain fastest.
Contador was looking for a another stage win to make his domination of this race complete. He attacked with 9km left to climb. Several riders jumped on his wheel, including Armstrong, Leipheimer and Pereiro from our team.
A few kilometers later, Contador's attack had eased up, and a leading group of eight riders formed. From the top ten, only Brajkovic, LL.Sanchez and Rogers were missing. Brajkovic always seem to crack on these multi-mountain stages.
The leaders were still largely together under the Flamme Rouge except Pereiro who struggled. We still had Levi and Lance left in front to battle it out for the stage win, so things were looking quite good!
Shortly before the line, Contador took off with only Valverde able to follow. Levi, Basso and Gesink managed to keep close to them while Le Mevel and Armstrong had to let go.
Contador won the sprint for the line! He even distanced Valverde in the end, and is enjoying total domination in this race. He looks good for the Tour, maybe too good?
Levi was once again our best rider, placing 4th together with Basso and Gesink, 49 seconds down on Contador. This stage was really hard on the peloton: 55 riders missed the time limit and were eliminated. Tomorrow, more mountains are looming.
Its a shame this story doesn't get as much recognition as it deserves anymore, which is a shame, but I'm just gonna say that its very good. I may know nothing about story writing but I can tell that this is a good one. Maybe it can beat the Colombia Sprtint Train.
valverde321 wrote:
Its a shame this story doesn't get as much recognition as it deserves anymore, which is a shame, but I'm just gonna say that its very good. I may know nothing about story writing but I can tell that this is a good one. Maybe it can beat the Colombia Sprtint Train.
Thanks! Not a lot of enthusiasm lately, I know, but I've been pumping out the updates at pace, so maybe people hasn't come around to commenting yet I'm enjoying the writing at the moment, so I'm not dependent on the extra motivation that nice comments gives. For now
alexkr00 wrote:
There's a good news that he's dominating though. This could mean that he won't be in top form at Le Tour.
valverde321 wrote:
Its a shame this story doesn't get as much recognition as it deserves anymore, which is a shame, but I'm just gonna say that its very good. I may know nothing about story writing but I can tell that this is a good one.
Tactics meeting
One more mountain is awaiting on the final stage, but the riders must climb it three times. We are content to keep our 2nd place with Levi as Contador is simply untouchable.
Moncoutie and Levarlet were the breakaway. On the second climb, they had a lead of 7 minutes.
On the final climb, Gesink tried to get away from the peloton!
Being 3rd in the GC, Gesink was too dangerous to let go. Levi, Contador and the rest of the big guns closed the gap quickly.
Moncoutie, the last of the escapees, was caught by the heads of state 2km before the last mountain top.
Valverde and Le Mevel (4th & 6th) were in a bit of bother towards the end of the climb.
But they managed to get up there again. On the downhill, all of the top nine had made the selection, plus Pereiro (16th) and Moncoutie (21st).
The sprint was won by Gesink, who got his first victory for his new team! Because the next group on the road came in 2'10 behind the Gesink group, Pereiro moves up into the top 10.
Lance Armstrong doesn't look too good, but he didn't shine in last year's Tour de Suisse either, and we all know what happened in July. Levi placed 2nd, 1'26 behind Contador, but the distance up to the top step of the podium can't be measured in minutes and seconds: It was simply unreachable. Marzano's great effort on stage five eventually earned him the climber's jersey.
I'm beginning to look like Bruyneel, ain't I? Placing four guys in the top ten without really doing anything at all. Over in Switzerland, another PT race has just started. Let's tune in to the Tour de Suisse and see if the Discovery riders are more aggressive there! Stay tuned!
Andreas Klöden will once again lead us in Switzerland, but this year he can't count on the support of Levi and Lance. The likes of Popovych and Larsson should provide decent backup though.
Discovery Channel Andreas Klöden Yaroslav Popovych Gustav Larsson Linus Gerdemann Egoi Martinez Vladimir Gusev George Hincapie David Millar
Tactics meeting
The race begins with 203 very boring kilometers destined to end in a mass sprint. Let's get this over with so we can start the real racing.
Three kilometers before the finish line, the race was effectively over for Cunego and Chavanel, who were caught in a crash and lost several minutes. Rabobank's Flecha also went down.
Oscar Freire won the sprint just ahead of Elmiger. A great result considering who else he beat. Boonen, Haussler and Napolitano could do nothing about the aging Spaniard.
Tactics meeting
Stage two is a bit more hilly than yesterday, and with quite a nasty climb at the end. The climb is approximately 5km long, with parts of it up towards 10%. We will surely see some gaps, and the hill should be long enough for our leader Klöden to do something.
A lot of riders struggled with all the hills today. Race leader Freire was among those who couldn't keep up with the peloton.
Towards the last climb, 92 riders were left in the pack. Freire was still missing.
On the climb, with 3km remaining, we were well placed at the front of the peloton. So were Euskaltel, watch out for Sanchez!
The first to attack was Kirchen, who stretched his legs halfway up the climb. This was also a good moment for Klöden to go, so he went with the Luxembourger. Scarponi did the same.
The three attackers got away! 1.5km before the finish, they were accompanied by Sammy Sanchez who had crossed the gap on his own.
Kirchen and Scarponi were looking strong in the sprint! Klöden couldn't quite get Scarponi's wheel, while Sanchez had used a lot of energy to get up to the leaders.
Kirchen got it! Scarponi was 2nd and Klöden 3rd. Missing out on the stage win was not important to us. What mattered was that Klöden had distanced a few rivals.
Gerdemann was first among the rest, coming in 43 seconds behind Klöden & co.
