A bit of a break from the hilly stuff today as the riders have this short 9km TT to contend with today.
It's a bit of a strange one being at Prologue length at the middle of a fairly split GC already, that being said the chrono men will take all they can get against the hilly punchaers who have been dominating proceedings.
The main contenders today appear to be Jacob Fiedler Joost Posthuma Mathieu Bernaudeau Andrew Tennant Koen De Kort
and Thomas De Gendt
all judged to be riders who at this stage of the race will still have the energy left to challenge. The condition of Posthuma is a bit of a question mark it must be said.
31 seconds seperate our leading pair Jan Bakelants
and Frank Schleck
and whilst Schleck, a rider who has developed a reasonable ability against the clock over the years, probably will gain time on Bakelandts it is doubtful he can gain that leaders jersey today. Though he knows any time he can get on him may get the Belgian with in time bonus reach by tomorrows big queen stage.
The riders will be relieved that this is set to be a 15 minute leg warmer because again the fickle weather is against them.
Early on we have several decent TT men who probably will hope to nick a decent result on this time test.
Morgan Kneisky
Gregor Gazvoda
and
Dimitri Champion
set some early times:
1
Champion
6.16
12.39
2
Gazvoda
6.20
12.47
3
Kniesky
6.20
12.48
It's been a quiet race for UBS, just the sort of anonymous effort they'll be hoping to avoid if they want a solid first year in the Protour. They had a pretty decent transfer season and despite coming from a fairly low place in the CTour to promote they do have chances of staying here. Today though these times are soon made to look modest ...
Patrick Gretsch
and a former Maglia Rosa wearer (a label that may curse the poor Dane) Michael Faerk Christensen
blast their way to the top of the leaderboard.
1
Faerk Christenson
6.13
12.32
2
Gretsch
6.16
12.38
3
Champion
6.16
12.39
4
Gazvoda
6.20
12.47
5
Kniesky
6.20
12.48
Wikipedia have been known for wheeling out great time triallers over the years, they seem to have taken a step back from that this year but Reinhardt Janse van Rensburg
is still a decent young tester from South Africa.
He is closely followed by a new best time set by Freddy Johansson
1
Johansson
6.12
12.30
2
Faerk Christenson
6.13
12.32
3
Gretsch
6.16
12.38
4
Champion
6.16
12.39
5
Janse van Rensburg
6.20
12.46
It's a bit of a nearly race here for Sony Ericsson who chose to race defending champion Trofimov in Paris Nice which actually has parcours similar to the 2011 T-A so seems a sensible decision.
Johansson's time stands in the lead for some time despite pressure from Ramunas Navardauskas
Kristof Vandewalle
and Morten Reckweg
none of the three can get under 12 and a half minutes a decent benchmark appears to have been set.
1
Johansson
6.12
12.30
2
Navardouskas
6.12
12.32
3
Faerk Christenson
6.13
12.32
4
Vandervalle
6.13
12.34
5
Reckweg
6.14
12.35
Festina are having a fairly hard early season with crashes holding back GC contenders, they have built a decent pack of time triallers to rival that of chrono legends Jack Wolfskin. Here Mathieu Bernaudeau
makes a name for himself by getting into the lead.
1
Bernaudeau
6.11
12.29
2
Johansson
6.12
12.30
3
Navardouskas
6.12
12.32
4
Faerk Christenson
6.13
12.32
5
Vandervalle
6.13
12.34
Unfortunately for Festina the Dutch team strike back through the rumoured to be injured Joost Posthuma
also coming through faster is a bit of a surprise Thomas Bontenackels
1
Posthuma
6.05
12.17
2
Bontenackets
6.09
12.25
3
Bernaudeau
6.11
12.29
4
Johansson
6.12
12.30
5
Navardouskas
6.12
12.32
Posthuma was labelled as a pre stage favourite and he has made quite a statement, teammate Koen De Kort
cannot beat Posthuma but Jacob Fiedler
can!
1
Fiedler
6.03
12.15
2
Posthuma
6.05
12.17
3
Bontenackets
6.09
12.25
4
De Kort
6.09
12.27
5
Bernaudeau
6.11
12.29
Two very stiff times to beat but one more rider is up to the challenge! Andrew Tennant
The Brit took a stage at Oman and sensationally manages to better Fiedler's time with a blistering 12.14!
1
Tennent
6.03
12.14
2
Fiedler
6.03
12.15
3
Posthuma
6.05
12.17
4
Bontenackets
6.09
12.25
5
De Kort
6.09
12.27
You have to imagine that the later riders being better on the hills just have more energy left after the 4 very tough stages we have had this week. Tennent has set a tricky time though and some decent chrono men are struggling to really get near to that time set.
Tim Dees
King of the Mountains Thomas De Gendt
Sony GC number 3 man Jakub Danacik
and Milka all rounder Roman Kreuziger
set good times but not the right times
1
Tennent
6.03
12.14
2
Fiedler
6.03
12.15
3
Posthuma
6.05
12.17
4
Kreuzinger
6.05
12.19
5
Danacek
6.06
12.22
6
Dees
6.07
12.23
7
De Gendt
6.07
12.23
8
Bontenackets
6.09
12.25
9
De Kort
6.09
12.27
10
Bernaudeau
6.11
12.29
None of the hilly riders can really match the TTers, Ponzi and Gilbert for example coming home at 12.45 and 12.38 respectively.
The attention turns to the GC top two battle
Frank Schleck
takes six seconds off of Jan Bakelants
at the first check and by the final Schleck finishes with 12.36 some 12 seconds clear of Bakelandts who can only set 12.48. This leaves Schleck 19 seconds behind his rival and within striking distance on tomorrows hilly stage.
