29,6km time trial to decide the GC. Can Impey stay ahead or will he drop? He has a 44s gap to the next couple of sprinters and 1'12 to the strong time trialists.
Before the 1'12 riders start we have the following finish times. Stelly Robert leading closely ahead of Salas and Mojica. But this is probably not enough for the stage win.
Gretsch, Johansson not able to beat Robert`s time though and so it`s Steensen, who sets the new best 2s faster.
But the huge surprise came a bit later. Cruz with a monster time. 1st and 11s faster than Steensen. This will deliver a rather surprisingly well GC for Mobil. Neither Haugard nor Balloni can beat this.
Stannard as one of the best against the clock. And he proves it by going into the lead. 42s faster. So we are in the next range of times it seems.
A bit later Dumoulin, who goes into 3rd behind Cruz looking for the U25 jersey. And as he did beat Haugard, it`s looking secured.
Bookwalter is Kenya`s main hope for the GC possibly as he should be much faster than Impey later on. It`s a close one but in the end 3s faster than the Brit and the new lead.
Van Winden and Reus with rather disappointing times. No good day for the Dutch. Losing more than 45s to them. End of top10 probably.
Here comes the top favourite though. Fiedler by far the best time trialist and he justifies it by going faster than all previous riders. 15s only to Bookwalter but it`s enough for the provisional race lead.
Dempster as next being 56s slower. This is still 4th at the moment.
Schädlich also one of the best time trialist. Therefore his time is not that good. 4th for him behind Bookwalter and Stannard as well and +49s.
Behind him another big surprise. Bonnet just like Cruz earlier with a huge overperformance. He even beats Schädlich in front of him and goes 11s faster. Huge 4th for him!
Seeing all those gaps, Impey and the other sprinters know, they won`t get a good GC here. He already lost more than the 1'12 at the first split. In the end it`s the 30th in the GC for the South African.
Good for the team that Bookwalter jumped onto 2nd.
Race winner though Fiedler as expected, while Stannard completes the podium.
Bonnet, Cruz surely the biggest surprises in the top10.
