Question no.1 is obvious. Who will win the GC? Best chances has Timofey Kritskiy, who has a nice gap and belongs to the best time trialists as well. Behind him it`s still very close. Runner-up Caruso definitely doesn`t belong to the best in this discipline and so he has to fight against Karpets (+9) and Plaza (+14) for the podium. One will lose this fight for sure.
Also the next fight between Nazaret (5.), Iglinski (+39) and Rohregger (+1'31) will be excititing. It`s about the last top5 spot and while Rohregger is the best time trialist followed by Iglinski, they have to gain time on Nazaret first.
Then there are lots of riders that still fight for the last top10 positions. Richardson, Vrecer, Cabreira, Costa, Suaza and Ivars might be the riders who have to share the last 3 spots. So 3 of those won`t.
And last but not least stage favourite Reus, who lost too much time to enter the top10. But how much will he improve from his 21st at the moment?
Gretsch did an excellent prologue and also wants to show a good time trial today. As he is a better prologue rider than a time trialist, we will have to wait what his time is worth. So far he takes the first in 45'16.
Konovalovas showed a good race here in Portugal. Unfortunately for him the mountain stage yesterday was too much for him and he lost more than 12 minutes and all his GC ambitions. Good for the team that they have another GC rider in Richardson, who rode excellent.
Back to Konovalovas. He just lost 8s at halftime and 2 more until the finish. This is the 2. for him 10s down. Not that much, so we should expect much better times later on.
Meier showed a pretty anonymous race for Alstom, where Ivars and Boily were the more focused riders. But today he shows his worth and impresses with a great time: 45'09!
That`s 6s faster than Gretsch and means a new best time. Regeneration seems to be important after 9 hard stages already.
Reus on the road. Next to Kritskiy, Plaza and Karpets the stage favourite today. His time loss yesterday cost him a great GC but nevertheless he is not too far behind and can improve quite a lot.
Already his intermediate time is huge in just 19'50 and he continues until the end. 44'11 in the end and obviously the first place 57s faster than Meier. Was this already the winner time?
But now we come to the fight for the top10.
Ivars with a solid race here even though he might have hoped for a top10, which will be hard to acchieve.
2nd at the intermediate and just 14s down. 42s in the end. This is the 2nd at the moment and should be a time to improve from his 14th at the moment.
12 riders left on the road and now the real GC fight starts.
Suaza (12./+4'54)
Costa (11./+4'52)
Cabreira (10./+3'57)
Vrecer (9./+3'46)
Richardson (8./+2'57)
8.-12.: Fight for the last top10 places. Costa is probably the best time trialist follwoed by Suaza and Vrecer.
Intermediate sprint and Costa has the fastest time there:
Costa
Suaza +8
Vrecer +14
Richardson +1'00
Cabreira +1'12
Coming closer to the finish the order stays like this. So who takes the last top10?
Vrecer wasn`t the fastest of those today, but he climbed up to 8th.
Costa indeed jumps up to 9th and is the best placed Portuguese as Cabreira is one of todays biggest losers dropping down to 14th.
Richardson takes the last top10 and repeats his good performance from last season.
Suaza climbs a bit but can`t jump into the top10. The hilly stages and the missing team support did not help him here.
Reus makes the biggest jump from 21st to 12th. This should be a good result for UPC and probably the maximum for him.
Ivars just goes up one spot while Silva also loses a bit but with two Mobil riders in the top15 the team can be very happy.
Coming to the next fight. 3 riders fight for the last top5 spot.
Rohregger (7./+2'35)
Iglinski (6./+1'43)
Nazaret (5./+1'04)
To be honest the time gaps between those riders aren`t the smallest but as their time trial strength is upside down their GC position this might become interesting.
At the intermediate Rohegger already gained 19s on Iglinski and 34s on Nazaret. So far the positions stay unchanged but the gaps will become bigger in the finish.
Rohregger comes in first and he is just beaten by five riders yet as he takes the provisional 6th. Great time trial by him. Now he has to wait for the others to finish their race.
Iglinski comes in 36s down, so he gained 16s too less to overtake the Kazakh.
Nazret loses much more time in the end. But good for him that he had a bit of a gap as he stays in 5. position by 8s to Iglinski. So we have found the first top5 rider.
5.-7.:
Spoiler
5
Magno Nazaret
Team Bintang
6
Maxim Iglinski
LukOil-Rostelekom
+ 8
7
Thomas Rohregger
Magna-Ryanair
+ 24
Who will stay on the podium? Let`s continue with Caruso, Karpets and Plaza.
Plaza (4./+45)
Karpets (3./+40)
Caruso (2./+31)
Just 14s divide those three and in especially the fight between Plaza and Karpets should be thrilling. 5s difference and very similar time trialists. In the prologue actually Plaza was 3s faster and seeing the length today it might be possible for him. On the other hand Plaza showed a bit weakness yesterday while Karpets looked stronger.
Caruso might have looked the strongest but his time trial disadvantage can`t be forgotten.
Intermediate and Plaza is just 1s faster than Karpets. As said, thrilling until the end. Caruso though lost more than 30s already and so he will lose his podium most likely.
Plaza and Karpets both finish fast and both showed a good race until the very end. In the end a small surprise. Karpets finished 1s faster than Plaza and so he goes up to 2nd while Plaza has to be happy with the 3rd just 6s down.
Caruso lost more than 1min and so drops to 4th. Still a very good result by him.
Also good news for UPC. None of those were able to beat Reus` time and so the Dutch is still in the lead of todays stage and just Kritskiy can beat him.
Kritskiy has a good gap. Still the others went fast and he isn`t allowed to relax.
His 2nd with just 1s down to Reus at half time shows that he isn`t relaxing at all. He wants to secure his overall win and also the stage win it seems.
But he loses a bit time in the end and finishes 10s slower than Reus, who can finally celebrate a great time trial win. Though Kritskiy comes in 2nd gaining another few seconds on Karpets and secures his 1st before tomorrows last flat stage.
So we have seen quite a few changes today. Tomorrow will be a chance for the sprinters. Eventually even for the pure sprinters as it might be the easiest stage. So we don`t expect any GC changes. Still, you never know.
