The Tour de Romandie kicks off this year with a 6km prologue around Genève. The tour overall though will be decided in the 2 mountain stages later on. The riders that will challenge in the mountains are:
Obviously not all these riders will be in the final group, but they are all great climbers and have the skill to get over the mountains with the best. This race however, won't be fully decided in the mountains, the time-trial will also be a factor and because of the, my favourites for this tour are Klöden and Brajkovic.
Anyway onto todays stage, the 6km prologue. The outright favourites are Zabriskie, Rogers (both Fed-Ex) and Millar (Accumalux). These 3 are way above the rest in terms of ability, but it should be a tight battle between them.
Laidler (AG2R) was the fastest man at the start, posting a very good time of 5'16, which is only a couple of senconds slower than the winner of the practise session yesterday.
Unfortunatley for him the next man through, was a man on a mission. Supposedly worse than Laidler at time-trialling yet he put the performance of a lifetime in to beat his time and register a 5'12. This rider was named Elijzen (France TV).
Brian Vandborg of Discovery Channel was the next rider who looked close to beating Elijzen's time, and he did, with milli-seconds seperating them both. The Danish TT champion put in a great performance and thoroughly deserves the lead.
Disaster strikes for the Danish rider, he sees on the moniter that Nuttli (Accumalux) is flying down the course. Nuttli takes the course by storm and beats Vandborg's time by 6 seconds, so the lead time is now at 5'06, that is as close to unbeatable as it gets, surely.
Unbeatable, it is proving, numerous rider go past with slower times, his own teamate Intxausti goes through in 6th at 5'18. Now though, the big guns are out. Michael Rogers has taken to the road and will easily take the lead...but, no he's slowing up near the finish. What will his time be??????
Michael Rogers comes through in...5'10!!!!! It's slower, Nuttli is still in the lead, poor riding by Rogers.
The next rider to be looking good is Dario Cioni (Domina), in fact he looks very good. He comes accross the line in 5'04!!!
Nuttli looks devastated, but the leader is now Cioni. Yet more bad luck for the leader though, as both Millar and Zabriskie take to the course. Millar is coming to the line very strongly, will he take the lead???
NOOO!!!! 5'17, Millar comes accross the line in 9th place, that's a terrible ride and the manager should be very angry there. He looked good to the line but he must have ridden the first half very slowly.
I have watched Zabriskie all the way though and he looks about as good as Cioni. It will be very tight for the lead, will Zabriskie save the pride of the favourites???
YEA...oh wait...NO!!! Awful day for the favourites. Zabriskie comes through, at 5'06 in 3rd place.
The next best rider to come through is Karpets (Virgin) but he can only manage a 5'12. It is looking increasingly likley for a Cioni win, there are only a couple of specialists left.
Brajkovic (France TV), is coming towards the line, he looks good, very good, can he take the lead away from Cioni???? What do you think. No, he comes in 4th at 5'06.
A frenchman is the next best rider through and takes 5th place with 5'07, his name is Vaugrenard (Saturn).
The big favourite for the tour, Andreas Klöden is next out of the block, and he looks strong. Halfway through his ride, and his times are looking great. If he rides at this pace for the rest of the course he will take the lead by 1 second, it's going to be extremley tight, can the big German do it????
YEEEESSSSS!!!! We finally have a new leader, and he comes accross the line in 4'59!!!!!!! A monster of a time he gained speed towards the end, that surely is unbeatable, but so many suprises have happened so far, i'm not going to predict anything.
There are only 2 riders that can beat him, left. They are Bonnet (AG2R) and Botero (Fed-Ex), both are supposed to be better time-triallists but there have been a lot of great failures today that abilities mean nothing. Bonnet is coming to line, can he take the lead???
Nope, 5'03 for him and a 2nd place. It's all down the Botero now, can he get a win for Fed-Ex after technically they should've had a double?
Again, no. 5'09 and 8th place for him
A great win for Klöden, and shows that he is the man to beat. The favourites were awful and deserve all the hate-mail they receive.
