Caisse d'Epargne, CSC, Credit Agricole, Bouygues Telecom and T-Mobile tried to bring riders to Eindhoven, when they were actually riding in the Tour de Suisse these riders were not allowed to start and those teams will now have a weakened chance of victory.
The Eindhoven chief had this to say:
"We are disappointed in those 5 teams who failed to read their rules and calendar, to realise that the Tour de Suisse and our race 'clash' and therefore riders could not race both. We are particularly disappointed with UCI Boss, Crommy, who did after all make these rules! We felt that we had to not allow the riders to start, but we neednt have bothered, as none of them turned up anyway - I was not about to make it a night race to accommadate the needs of those team managers"
Just to remind everyone that TTTs are judged on the teams 5th rider to cross the line.
Caisse d'Epargne are the first to finish and Florent Brard crosses the line first. The team's strongest rider was Jose Ivan Gutierrez Palacios. Caisse finished with just 5, having lost 2 riders along the way. 1h 04'20 was their time and Cardena + Perget trailed in nearly 2 minutes later.
Manuel Beltran led a 6 man Cofidis over the line in a new best time of 1h03'24. Cofidis were the 3rd team to start though, and had passed an embarrassing Ag2r on the way. Ag2r only finished with 4 riders, so their time wasnt counted until 5th man Borut Bozic crossed the line. Understandably, Ag2r finished with the slowest time so far, at 1h06'11.
Led by Nibali and Savoldelli, Liquigas with next and with 1h04'01, they took 2nd. Liquigas finished with 5 of their 9 riders left. Charly Wegelius was their 7th man to finish and he was just infront of the new leaders, 2-star favourites Francaise des Jeux. Led by Gutierrez Catalana, they also finished with 5 and set a time of 1h03'07, 17 seconds faster than Cofidis.
We had a bit of a wait for the next team Predictor Lotto, who were the 2nd team to finish with 4, having lost their 5th and 6th riders in the last kilometre. They took 5th with a time of 1h05'10.
Dave Zabriskie was too fast for his Quick Step teammates as they also finished with 4 riders, taking 6th: 1h05'21. Andrei Mizourov led Astana across the line 1 second slower than 3rd placed Liquigas, a time of 1h04'02. They managed to finish with 6 riders.
Kashechkin led debutants Unibet.com across the line, but they unfortunately lost their 5th man Khatuntsev in the last few hundred metres. They still managed 3rd though, with 1h03'37.
ProTour leaders Lampre were a disappointing 9th (Out of 10, only quicker than Ag2r) as they also finished with 4, losing rider number 5 with 500m to go. 1h04'26 gave 5 man T-Mobile 7th, but Discovery Channel were within the last kilometre as the T-Mobile team finished.
Discovery won the opening TTT in this year's Giro and as Brian Vandborg led them across the line, they were comfident of winning again. It was not to be though and a time of 1h03'08 put them 2nd. 1 second behind leaders Francaise des Jeux!
Discovery finished with 6 and the next team, Saunier Duval finished with just 3! Fortunately for them, their 4th, 5th and 6th men: Ignatiev, Schleck and Mancebo, were just a few metres behind Belohvosckis, Millar and Wielinga and they set a new best time of 1h02'52.
Milram were the next to finish and they had made a risky decision, deciding to only bring 5 riders. They almost survived intact but nevertheless, a poor time awaited them and they were 13th (out of 14th, still beating Ag2r), with a time of 1h05'46,
CSC were led home in 10th by Lars Bak, a time of 1h04'46 must have been disappointing for last year's winners. Next home were Bouygues Telecom, who, with Fabian Cancellara in their ranks, had led at the 2nd checkpoint. Ruben Plaza led the 5 men across the line but they had faded badly to 6th: 1h03'50 was 58 seconds behind the lead. Perhaps Crommy was ruing picking Stef Clement, despite him being in Switzerland?
Next to finish: Credit Agricole. They had tried to bring Boogerd, Menchov and Caruso despite them being in Switzerland and took 1h04'29. They were another team to lose their 5th rider very late on and had to settle for 11th.
The final 3 teams were continental and would not affect the points allocated out, but it would still be interesting to see if they could beat any ProTour team, such as Ag2r.
Relax-Gam were controlled by me and I set them at a slow and steady pace so that they would have no chance of beating any ProTour side. With 1h08'57, they did not. The Belgian Palmans team were also beaten by Ag2r. Spanish team Nicolas Mateos did beat Ag2r though, by 2 seconds.
