After yesterday’s exciting mountaintop finish, today brings yet another key day for the GC riders. It is a 10.6km long time trial that should sort out the GC places very nicely. Several riders have come here specifically for this stage and the biggest favourites to the bookkeepers are Dempster, Stannard and Aramendia.
Just like in the Giro del Capo, the first man out in the time trial is Serafin Blanco. Once again he sets a pretty lacklustre time of 15’36”.
It doesn’t take long until the first time trialists come out, however. The first of these is the aging Irish time trial champion David O’Loughlin, probably in his last season. He sets the best time of 15’01”.
He can’t celebrate this last moment of glory for long, however, as the rider right behind him is jasha Sutterlin, who goes 7” better with a new best of 14’54”. He will surely relay all the information he can back to Rolland for later.
Out of the riders who went into today with a chance to win it, the first one is Ivan Kovalev. He blazes along the course and should give us a good idea of what the winner should be aiming for.
He sets a great time of 14’29”, easily the best so far!
After Kovalevthere is a short wait before the time trialists start coming thick and fast. The first one is the British time trial champion Ian Stannard. He loves these short time trials and has been performing well in them all season.
Indeed, he sets a new best time of 14’27”. That should be hard to beat based on the times others have been setting.
The next big time trialists to come out today is one of the other three favourites – Zakkari Dempster. Can he best the Brit?
Indeed he can! He goes 2 seconds faster, coming through in a time of 14’25”.
Hayden Roulston is out on the course as Dempster finishes. He was incredibly aggressive in yesterday’s stage so he has been feeling good. He can never be ruled out of a time trial, as his national champion’s jersey shows.
He sets a time of 14’42”, which is not too bad but will not challenge the favourites. Speaking of the favourites, only 4 men behind him on the road is one of the big three riders for today’s stage - Javier Aramendia. He looks good out there, will he challenge the best time of 14’25”?
Not quite! His 14’27” is enough to put him just behind Stannard, in provisional third place for the day.
After Aramendia there are a few other decent time trialists who go out. Mazur sets a time of 14’38”
Which is the same time that Veloso manages.
But both are beaten out by Australian Jack Bobridge, who gets a great time of 14’32”. Looking at the riders still to come he should be able to easily stay in the top 10 for today. He was also 19th at the start of the day, so he will almost certainly be moving up the ladder.
And now the top 10 riders start. First up we have Ryder Hesjedal and Nicholas Roche. They are both tied on the same time, 3’04” down on our leader. Hesjedal is first out on the road and he sets a fantastic time of 14’44”, which puts him 9th on the provisional leaderboard.
Roche doesn’t seem to feel the pressure of this, however, and he sets an even better time of 14’35”, provisionally 6th.
These two will certainly be moving up the rankings today, because in 8th place overall is Bjorn Selander, who still holds three jerseys. He is not a time trialists at all so today was always going to be tough for him.
No one realised how tough though, as he sets a time of 15’27”, and that means he will be falling a fair way down the overall rankings.
Our next rider is 7th place Amael Moinard. He held on as well as he could yesterday and has been rewarded with a strong GC place. He just has to ride fast enough to ensure that Roche doesn’t catch him. He can afford to lose 26” to Roche without giving up his 7th place overall.
Disaster! He loses 27” to Roche with a time of 15’02”! He will drop a place on GC today.
The next rider on the road is Massimiliano Maisto. He isn’t a strong time trialists, but he just has to avoid a truly hideous time to keep his spot.
His time of 15’15” proves to be good enough to hold on to sixth for the moment.
Now we come into the top 5. They are all tightly packed, and it is worth recapping their current standings:
Navarro
---
Rolland
+41”
Van der Velde
+51”
De Greef
+55”
Sousa
+59”
Sergio Sousa is the first of these men out of the gate.
He sets a great time of 14’47”, which really will force the others to work hard. Next up is Francis De Greef. He just seems to be shocked at being this high up on GC.
The pressure is clearly too much for him as he puts in a time of 14’59”, which means that he slips below Sousa’s time.
Ricardo Van der Velde would probably have been considered a weaker time trialists than any of the three other riders around him, so it will be interesting to see how he does.
He clearly managed to save some energy after yesterday because he sets a solid time of 14’55”, keeping him ahead of De Greef comfortably, but not ahead of Sousa, who will move onto the podium tonight.
The next man up was considered an outsider to take this stage win by some people. Pierre Rolland could realistically close the 41” gap to Navarro and take the yellow if he rides his heart out. He certainly looks great out on course.
And what a time! He sets the new best of 14’24”, just 1 second faster than Dempster’s previous best. So Rolland will take the stage today, but more importantly we now know that our leader needs a time of 15’05” to hold on to his jersey.
Daniel Navarro is out on course.
His time is 15’16”, meaning that Rolland takes the yellow jersey as well as the stage! What a great day for the Frenchman. Not only that but Rolland will also take the points jersey thanks to his stage win, depriving Selander of one of his jerseys.
