We are here in Romania as stage 3 or the 2013 Sibiu Tour gets underway. After yesterday’s mountain stage today we have a TTT, which could shake up the GC a bit. The teams tipped to do well today pre-stage are British - African Squad Jaguar - Eritel, Bouygues and CSC.
First team to set off is Iberia. They don’t really bring any strong time trialists, nor have any GC riders to ride for. In the end they set a time of 14’30. We’ll have to see how it holds up as more teams set a time.
Credexbank are next out of the start. The team lacks quality, but does have a couple of decent riders on this terrain in their squad in Alois Kanovsky and Daniil Fominykh. They seem to be cooperating quite well early on, but seem to misjudge their efforts, finishing 5 seconds down on the Spanish squad.
Then the light green jerseys of Boeing - Vivacom roll out of the starting gate. The Bulgarian team has only one rider in the top 30 overall in Edwin Parra Bustamunte (25th @ 5’52”), so they don’t really need to ride for any major GC hopes. Still, they manage to beat Iberia’s time by 4 seconds by setting a new best time of 14’26”.
Evian - Miat have had a disappointing tour thus far, with pre-race overall contender Jose Serpa lying in 19th overall, 2’49 down. Their fortunes don’t improve as they can’t beat Boeing’s time, finishing just milliseconds down on the same time.
German squad Rothaus - Aegon didn’t bring the strongest squad here, and haven’t surprised much. Rob Ruijgh (21st @ 2’50) is their best GC rider at this stage in the race, and he will probably be trying to achieve a top 20 overall here. As they cross the line they fall just behind Boeings time but overtake Evian’s by less than a second. That means another team is given the time of 14’26”.
Here’s a look at the standings after the first five teams have finished:
1
Boeing-Vivacom ProCycling
14'26”
2
Rothaus - Aegon
s.t.
3
Evian-MIAT
s.t.
4
Iberia - Communidad Valenciana
+ 4"
5
Team Credexbank
+ 9"
After the matter of the weaker teams has been dealt with, now the stronger teams should start coming through. That process should begin with Volkswagen - Mapei starting. They have some strong riders against the clock in their team in the form of Vadim Ratiy (15th @ 2’45”) and Matthias Brandle, which shows as they set a new best time of 14’21”.
After the German squad finishes another team, this time Indonesian, in the form of Bintang come in. They seem to have a weaker squad in terms of TT ability, but they deliver a very good time to keep Jose Alarcon (9th @ 24”) in the hunt. The time is 14’15”, a new best time by 6 seconds! A great ride from them.
CSC – Orbea are next, and after yesterday’s disappointment they should be raring to go today. One of the pre-stage favourites, they should be lead well by stage 1 winner David Abal (13th @ 1’53”) and assisted by the likes of Oliver Kaisen. They stop the clock on 14’08” which is once again a new best time, and this time it looks fast.
Ukranian continental team PrivatBank have had a decent race up to this point, with Marios Athanasiades taking a surprise 11th on stage 1, and Ricardo Mestre sitting in 20th overall, 2’50” down. Those two help the team to a very respectable provisional 3rd, finishing with a time of 14’15”.
Damiano Caruso produced a stellar ride yesterday to win the stage and take the leader’s jersey. His Cisco squad will be trying to keep his jersey today, but they aren’t as strong as some others. Nick Clesen and Dimitri Gruzdev both put in big efforts but the time they produce isn’t top quality as they can only manage 14’26. It remains to be seen whether that will be enough.
After half the teams have set a time, here are the provisional standings:
1
Team CSC-Orbea
14'08"
2
Team Bintang
+ 7
3
Team Privatbank
s.t.
4
VolksWagen-Mapei
+ 13
5
Boeing-Vivacom ProCycling
+ 18
6
Cisco Cycling Team
s.t.
7
Rothaus - Aegon
s.t.
8
Evian-MIAT
s.t.
9
Iberia - Communidad Valenciana
+ 22
10
Team Credexbank
+ 27
The big favourites for today Jaguar – Eritel have a very strong time trial squad. Ian Stannard, Andrew Tennant and Ian Bibby (5th @ 18”) will all be big helps as they try to win the stage and along the way put Bibby into the leader’s jersey. The time they have to beat to do that is 14’07”. As they cross the line, the clock stops on… 14’04”! They move into the lead and provisionally put Bibby in Yellow.
Vueling Airlines are next to set off. Big GC contender Thomas Dekker (12th @ 1’46”) was caught napping yesterday and could have thrown away his GC chances. Today he will hope to claw back some time with the help of riders like Emilien Viennet. Their time as they finish is 14’21”. They slot into fifth for the moment, on the same time as Volkswagen.
Another big favourite is riding now, it is Bouygues Telecom. The French team will be looking after Rein Taaramae’s (4th @ 17”) GC hopes. If they can beat Jaguar’s time by two seconds they can even put him into Yellow. Tony Martin helps a lot on the 10km run and as they pull into the finishing straight the clock ticks on. 14’06”, 14’07”… it finally stops on 14’08, putting them into provisional 2nd. It also puts Taaramae into 2nd overall, ahead of Caruso.
Next, Swedbank arrive as the overall battle gets serious. Thomas Lofkvist needs his team to finish in 4’09” or better to take Yellow at the end of the day from Bibby. As they ride their TTT, Johan Lindgren and Jonas Bjelkmark both take long turns. They stop the clock on… 14’08”! Lofkvist now is the provisional leader, and his team slots into third.
Pivovarna set off next. Their GC hope is Stijn Devolder (11th @ 1’22”), who they’ll hope to move up the rankings. They don’t have any big rouleurs but they have strength in depth, which shows as they stop the clock on 14’10”, putting them in provisional 5th.
With 5 teams to come, the standings are as follows:
1
Jaguar - Eritel
14'04"
2
Bouygues Telecom
+ 4
3
Swedbank-PEAB
s.t.
4
Team CSC-Orbea
s.t.
5
Pivovarna Lasko Cycling Team
+ 6
6
Team Bintang
+ 11
7
Team Privatbank
s.t.
8
VolksWagen-Mapei
+ 17
9
Team Vueling Airlines
s.t.
10
Boeing-Vivacom ProCycling
+ 22
11
Cisco Cycling Team
s.t.
12
Rothaus - Aegon
s.t.
13
Evian-MIAT
s.t.
14
Iberia - Communidad Valenciana
+ 26
15
Team Credexbank
+ 31
Russian squad Tinkoff set of 5th last, with a decent team. Their best GC rider is Sergei Kolesnikov (10th @ 57”). At the finish their time is 15” slower than the lead, which should be enough to retain that top 10 overall for now.
Yaroslav Popovych (7th @ 19”) is another rider that could overtake Caruso in the GC battle. His Metinvest squad probably isn’t strong enough to grab the lead overall but you never know. The time they turn in is 11” back on Jaguar’s who look like today’s winners. That is only enough to put Popovych into 5th overall at the moment.
Another Russian team, LukOil has Vladmir Karpets (6th @ 18”) to protect. They have some strong riders to help Karpets like Maxim Iglinski and Aleksandr Bespalov, but nothing near enough to challenge the best teams. In the end they manage to equal metinvest’s time, 14’15”.
Second last to finish is the team of Andrei Kashechkin (2nd @ 7”), Repsol – Cativen. They aren’t known to be the strongest team in the time trials; they specialize on the climbs more. Still, they set a decent time of 14’26”, which should keep Kashechkin in the GC hunt.
Last out are Teams Classification leaders Meiji. Their GC hope Jianhua Ji (8th @ 23”) is their priority, and keeping him in the top 10 will be their priority today as they are not as strong as many other teams on this terrain. Their time as they cross the line is 14’23”, which puts them 13th. That means…
Jaguar - Eritel win Stage 3 of the Sibiu Tour! A great ride from their team today helped them to the win and on the way the put Bibby into second overall.
They could not take Yellow though, that title goes to Thomas Lofkvist. Thanks to a great ride from his Swedbank squad he leads the race going into the mountainous stage 4.
