Nice work there by Saxo Bank, winning both a stage in Volta a Catalunya and Dwars door Vlaanderen. Not a fan of Saxo/Nuyens/Contador myself, but they really rode well. And yes, I bet the radio ban did help the Nuyens/Thomas/Amorison to keep in front - making the race interesting to watch after all.
Not a good job of HTC though, I don't think they had a single man in the first chase group in DDV. Degenkolb and Ghyselinck were in the second group tho.
But what a great finale, the last km was so smart by Nuyens, knowing that he had too go really early, saw that his gap was good enough and forcing Thomas to the lead by holding in a bit and then finish it..
Great to see Nuyens back on his game, few difficult years and to break trough that in this way, amazing..
1º 11 CONTADOR, Alberto ESP SAXO BANK SUNGARD 13:05:55
2º 162 LEIPHEIMER, Levi USA TEAM RADIOSHACK a 23
3º 102 SCARPONI, Michele ITA LAMPRE-ISD a 23
4º 153 MARTIN, Daniel IRL TEAM GARMIN-CERVELO a 35
5º 163 HORNER, Chris USA TEAM RADIOSHACK a 35
6º 142 URAN, Rigoberto COL SKY PROCYCLING a 38
7º 41 BASSO, Ivan ITA LIQUIGAS-CANNONDALE a 38
8º 31 TONDO, Xavier ESP MOVISTAR TEAM a 38
9º 51 EVANS, Cadel AUS BMC RACING TEAM a 50
10º 75 MOLLEMA, Bauke NED RABOBANK CYCLING Tea a 01:12
11º 135 SEELDRAEYERS, Kevin BEL QUICKSTEP Cycling Te a 01:12
12º 85 KADRI, Blel FRA AG2R LA MONDIALE a 01:12
13º 132 DE MAAR, Marc NED QUICKSTEP Cycling Te a 01:12
14º 77 TEN DAM, Laurens NED RABOBANK CYCLING Tea a 01:12
15º 161 ZUBELDIA, Haimar ESP TEAM RADIOSHACK a 01:12
16º 78 WEENING, Peter NED RABOBANK CYCLING Tea a 01:12
17º 1 DI LUCA, Danilo ITA KATUSHA TEAM a 01:20
18º 165 BRAJKOVIC, Janez SLO TEAM RADIOSHACK a 01:20
19º 146 POSSONI, Morris ITA SKY PROCYCLING a 01:20
20º 14 SORENSEN, Chris A. DEN SAXO BANK SUNGARD a 01:20
Heh. Basso had been saying for a while that he wanted to beat Contador at Catalunya.
That's one plan down the drain.
The preceding post is ISSO 9001 certified
"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
What happened to Cadel tirreno's form? This man can climb hills with less days of racing and can't climb mountains with more days? What a classics man we have in Cadel Evans...I think he doesn't realise it.
Seing the highlights it seems that everyone was caught napping as Contador made the decisive move a few kms to the end. From then on it just looked like an uphill TT with Alberto pushing everyone to lactic mode.
Evans and Basso could be named has the main losers here but on the other hand Leipheimer seemed in a pretty good shape as he was the only one to follow Contador.
There's just one thing I don't get about this stage: why does Vallnord get a HC with 8.2km 6.5% avg 9% max?
Edited by CrueTrue on 24-03-2011 09:50
