The final TT of the MG season will see an epic battle between some of the best timetrialist and some of the best puncheur of the world to win the GC of this Tour of Tasmania. Roman Senyenov currently has a lead of 25 seconds over Ponzi, 33 over Bakelants and 37 over Jack Bobridge, the rider that might be starting the day in the best possible place to win the race. The Australian has a 25-second gap to the defending champion Jerome Coppel and to Taylor Phinney, the two best timetrialists in the world. We can’t forget about Keizer or Gazelle’s army, who has Koren as a threat for the stage win and a top5 in GC, and Senyenov still in the race lead. The Kazakh lost last year 1’22 to Coppel in this same course, 20 seconds more than what he currently has. But what can he do this year with the motivation of winning a PT stage race. Rumours say that this might be Gazelle’s final season in the peloton, so their riders want to impress other managers for the upcoming tranfer season.
Before the GC battle starts, there are several timetrialists that lost time in either S1 or S2, and have lost any chances of a decent GC result.
The best of them so far is Jack Haig. The young Australian lost time in the flat stage, and now he might just be setting a time that helps his team-mate Bobridge later, but he has beaten by less than a second the time of Greek champion Panagiotis Vlatos. Behind them it’s Thomas de Gendt in third place, 8 seconds behind both riders, narrowly beating two Porto riders, Jacob Fiedler and Nelson Oliveira. Seeing the rest of the current top10 having riders as Dees or Cattaneo, it’s obvious that to perform in this timetrial you need both timetrial and climbing skills
Some riders like Herklotz or Vakoc are close to be half a minute behind Haig’s time, but with their times, they are unlikely to finish in the top20 in GC, with most of the good timetrialist yet to do their race.
And the first one is the Dutch champion Keizer. He has an incredible chance of winning a PT stage race if he does the best timetrial of his life. He puts the best time when crossing the finish, but it doesn’t seem good enough to compete against Coppel, Phinney or Gesink when those riders do their times. He has only beaten Haig by 1 second
Goos puts the current eighth best time, being 21 seconds slower than Keizer. But that’s a time that can make him fight for a Top15 in GC. And right after him, Haugard Jensen does the same as him! That was so unexpected that the TV cameras didn’t caught him during his course
Kristjan Koren just loves this timetrial, and after being second in last year’s stage, he has been only 4 seconds slower than Keizer, fourth best so far, but second between the GC riders. That almost guarantees him a Top10 spot in GC.
Some decent puncheurs have also finished their race, with Schreurs losing 1 minute to Keizer, Koretzky losing 1’22, Skujins losing 1’11 and Gastauer 1’03.
Last year’s GC winner it’s on course. And Coppel looks to be really quick today. And yes he was!! He has smashed Keizer’s time, beating him by 28 seconds! That was amazing...
Really great day for Keinath, as he sets the second best time, 20 seconds behind Coppel’s time
Decent timetrial for Izagirre, who is 35 seconds slower than Coppel, but is fifth among those who fight for GC places
Obviously Ginanni and Boswell lose almost 1’30 to Coppel, but not great shows by Gallopin and Sicard, as neither of them can finish close to the stage top10, losing between 45 and 50 seconds to Coppel
Lutsenko finishes within one minute of Coppel, but Gesink comes right after the Kazakh...
... and the Dutchman can’t beat Coppel! He’s 13 seconds slower, sitting in second place. That leaves only Phinney as the only one who can steal the stage win from Coppel, and also Bobridge and Senyenov to take the GC win from Coppel
Third best time for Lars Boom! He has beaten Keinath by 1 seconds, as his time was 19 second slower than Coppel’s. His team-mate De Bie finishes after him, but his time is quite bad, one minute slower than Boom. Also Kelderman’s time isn’t the best, as he couldn’t finish within a minute of Coppel
Not the greatest day for Kangert, who had a great chance for a Top10 result today, but he hasn’t been able to make it, being 38 seconds slower than Coppel
And the next one to finish will be the ITT World Champion, Taylor Phinney. He has already lapped Ciolek, but i don’t get the same feelings of pure speed as i had with Coppel. Let’s find out if i was wrong...
And i wasn’t wrong, because Phinney can’t even beat Gesink’s time! He is only third, 14 seconds behind Coppel, who has now the stage win secured.
The Frenchman now only needs to wait for Bobridge and Senyenov to see if he wins Tour of Tasmania for the second consecutive year
Not a good time by Trofimov, who won’t finish in the GC Top10 for sure, and might struggle to do it in the Top15. He’s 40 seconds slower than Coppel
Time for Spilak to give Festina hopes of winning the PT title. It looks good for the Slovenian, oh yeah it does. Second best time for him, beating both Gesink and Phinney, and setting what could be a 1-2 in GC for Festina if Bobridge doesn’t have a good day today
And again as with Phinney before, i don’t get good feelings from the Australian rider. Smirnovs is a pathetic TT rider, and he has barely overtaken him in the final 2 kms of the stage, when he should have done it way earlier. But let’s see his time. Remember he has a 25-second gap to the rest of riders.
Well, again i was right. His stage time is just bad, but with the time that he had gained in the hilly stage, he is provisionally in the podium, just one second behind Spilak, and three ahead of Gesink.
So now just the Top3 in GC left to finish Tour of Tasmania. The first one to finish will be Bakelants. He loses 1’12 to Coppel, which makes him drop outside Top10 in GC for sure. Not what Strava needed from this race if they wanted to avoid relegation, though Tinkoff, Porto and Ayubowan had way worse races
Ponzi’s time is even worse than Bakelants, so the Italian will drop in GC even further than the Belgian, despite being a little ahead pre-stage in GC
So just Roman Senyenov left to finish his race. It doesn’t look like he will lose less than 1’02 to Coppel to not lose the GC win, but his fight might be more about podium/Top5 as it stands.
Maybe it was the pressure, maybe he’s that bad in timetrials, but his time is really awful, losing 1’44 to Coppel in just 15 kms. And it’s very likely that he won’t finish in the GC Top10 neither
So this means that Jerome Coppel wins 2017 Tour of Tasmania! And with Simon Spilak finishing second in GC, this can be the turning point in the PT title battle! Jack Bobridge completes the podium of the race, but he can’t really happy about a third podium in the race knowing he had the win in his hands, but he just chocked.
Gesink is fourth ahead of Phinney, with Boom, Keinath and Keizer next. And Koren and Izagirre round up the top10 of the race. Kangert, Trofimov, Senyenov, Bakelants, Sicard, Ponzi... those are the riders barely missing on a top10 here
Spilak wins the Points jersey ahead of Senyenov, Ponzi and Coppel. More big points for Festina in this race...
We already knew that Gougeard would be the KoM winner, but it’s never a waste to time to remember it
At least Senyenov wins the U25 jersey as a consolation price for losing the GC win, and even the GC top10
We have just seen probably the most impressive performance by a team in a stage race (no one can forget what Evonik did in GP Moscow though), as Festina takes 1st and 2nd in GC, Points jersey, Teams standings. The amount of points that Festina will take from this event is just insane for only 3 RD
