Prologue - Bentong > Bentong The prologue is back to 2km after being more than 4km long last season. The top favorite though remains the same, as Chavanne should be tough to beat. The prologue specialist will both aim to repeat last year's victory on this first day and to gain as many seconds as possible to hold off potentially dangerous sprinters, who may grab yellow tomorrow. There's no real competition for Chavanne, but of course he has to be focussed to play his overwhelming strength for the win.
As for the GC contenders, any seconds gained may be crucial eventually, so guys like König and Suaza will surely fancy their chances to gain a first advantage on other climbers like Pinot.
Pökälä with an early start and as he beats the early competition easily, his time will be a first indicator, of how the things go today:
2'38" for him..
Richeze just a second slower as 2nd then.. Martinez even better, but slightly slower than Pökälä.. Hochmann finishes with the same time as Richeze.. Szalontay with the same time, ahead of Hochmann though!
Laizer next on the road and he may hope for a shot at the Top-5 maybe:
6'38" just like Pökälä, but he finishes behind him and also Martinez by the smallest margin of less than a second!
Kovalev as one of the most promising riders today and he delivers the new best time:
6'37" and a second faster than the previous best time!
Dahlberg comes in just a few moments later, as the next starter on the course. He's surprisingly strong:
new 2nd at the finish, less than a second slower than Kovalev!
König as the first GC favorite and we while it's probably the least decisive stage today, we may take a look at how some climbers did so far:
König + 6" to finish as 46th eventually Brajkovic + 5" and only a second faster than König Cataldo + 7" Rodrigues + 8" Diaz + 8" Panayotov + 9" Costagli + 10" Pinot + 10" Anacona + 10" Elissonde + 14" as 130th
No real surprise to see only small gaps, so even someone like Elissonde didn't really lose anything today..
Chavanne next and so we have the big favorite on the road now. He dominated last year's prologue, which was longer than this year's and so it's probably more important to deliver a great time, if he wants to keep the leader shirt even after tomorrow's first flat stage:
5 seconds faster than Kovalev! New best time and yap, in a dominant way..
Downey + 7" with a rather disappointing showing outside the Top-10 today!
Bodnar + 7" as well.. Bouet + 7" Kreuziger + 9" and outside the Top-25..
Johansson as another possible contender for Chavanne, but he's clearly slower as well:
+ 6" to finish right behind Lazier as 5th at the finish right now..
Aregger as the next podium contender, but he's a tiny bit slower than Johansson:
+ 6" as provisional 6th at the finish..
Beukeboom showing Adastra's colours and while he looks quite good in his attempt, he will only fight for a Top-10 result eventually:
+ 6" to place himself right behind Aregger!
Ahmad Zamri + 9" as 30th - he might have hoped for more..
Dzervus with minor hopes to fight for a Top-10 or Top-5 here. He's going stronger though:
+ 3" as new 2nd! A great performance to finish two seconds ahead of Kovalev!
Suaza as the last big GC contender and he will end up finishing as the best:
+ 9" as 31st on the stage - two seconds faster than König, one second better than Brajkovic!
Van Poppel with a late start and he goes for a great time:
+ 5" to complete the Top-5 just ahead of Pökälä!
Manninen + 8" as 24th - not a special result, but as almost everyone else, he's in striking distance for yellow tomorrow. Only a few guys lost more than 20 seconds on Chavanne in this short prologue and one of them is Guillén, who finished the stage as second-to-last with 24 seconds lost. Just slightly better than Coutinho, who finished last. So that's actually two promising sprinters, who would need additional bonifications to attack the GC lead with a possible stage-win tomorrow!