Phinney vs. Coppel. Possibly the two best time trialists in the PT field. Who will win this battle today? Or can someone else beat them? Ford or Tenorio would be the best bets for that.
GC wise most top climbers are very good time trialists here. Riders like Alarcon, Denifl, Martin, Dombrowski, Henao, Morton, Pinot the ones that might suffer the most today.
While the early starters Malori, Ghyselinck, Ford or Sütterlin were all doing okay, none of them really stood out. So it was a bit surprising to see Danacik going for the fastest time a couple of seconds faster than the others.
Coppel though easily did beat all his times at the splits and also in the finish he is almost 1min faster. New best time. But is this enough for the win?
Phinney is the World Champion and surely wants the win. Though he has lost 10s on the first split going for 2nd there.
And also Tenorio is not able to beat Coppel at the first split. +17s and 3rd. So apparently those 3 will make the winner.
Both lose another 7s in the 2nd section. So it`s looking good for Coppel to win today. Also Dekker not able to beat him while Madrazo having a real bad day losing far more than expected with Spilak going pretty strong.
When Phinney comes in he has lost another 5s which sums up to 22s in total. Tenorio a bit later losing 34s to Coppel. So the French is taking the opener.
Festina can be happy as also Spilak as 5th is doing okay losing 1'03 but staying 3s ahead of Dekker.
Madrazo disappointing losing almost 2min and finishing even behind a very strong Daniel Martin today.
