Hello everyone and welcome to the second stage of the Tour of Bulgaria. The second stage features this tour's time trial around Unicov. 22 kilometres with a small climb in the middle. A checkpoint has been put on top of that climb.
Two narratives will be the main focus here: The stage win, and the GC lead. Mottin and Martin are the main favourites for the stage win, though Kovalev, Johansson and Christian want to get kissed by the podium girls, too. As for the GC, mainly Kiserlovski, Ratiy and König Kennaugh and Brajkovic would want to take the lead from Lehtinen- while others want to keep the gaps as small as possible.
Though one rider will likely appear in both stories: Sepulveda. Both a GC rider and time trial specialist, he will be going for both the stage win and the GC lead!
We will be reporting this stage from the finish line, though if something interesting happens at the intermediate checkpoint, we will obviously head to our reporter there, too!
The first rider to appear is already an interesting one: Kovalev, who sets an intermediate time of 14'02 and a final time of 29'41. We'll have to wait and see how good this time will turn out to be.
Seems like it's pretty good, as Johansson can't beat him: 15 seconds behind.
Mottin arrives at the checkpoint. He's 3 seconds ahead of Kovalev, can he keep that up until the finish line?
He can, and increased the gap by 7 more seconds! 29'30 for him!
Christian finishes two seconds behind teammate Johansson and is now 4th: +'27 to Mottin. No upsets from the Campari riders so far.
Stoenchev uses his home adventage well and sets a very respectable third time so far, +'11 to Mottin!
Then it's up to Martin to challenge Mottin's time. But it doesn't look like he has the legs today! +'6 at the first checkpoint, which only puts him in sixth.. Can he make up the time lost in the second part perhaps?
Nah.. Only 4th, +'24 behind Mottin and even behind Stoenchev.. What an incredible disappointment for Swisslion.
It takes a while before anyone even gets close to the top times. It's Grabovski who is the first to even remotely raise an eyebrow, as he finishes 4th, '21 behind Motton. Another rider faster than Martin. Ouch.
We're now slowly getting to the GC riders. At least some climbing ability will be needed if you want to start this late in the TT. The first one of them is Roe, who disappointed a little yesterday. But he's in for revenge: Second with +'2 at the checkpoint! Can he challenge Mottin then?
Nope. 4th with +'13. Looks like the GC riders will do well at the first part because of the climb, but slightly fall back then.
To check out this theory, here's another subject: Diaz is 2 seconds behind Mottin at the checkpoint, too!
Wow, never mind that theory, he sets the second time, '+8 to Mottin. Nice comeback in the GC by him!
Abreu can't get close to that time, but still does decently well. +'18 for him.
Time for a big gun, as Ratiy is getting closer and closer to the finish line. He had a disappoint day yesterday, and has something to prove. Though he takes it quite easy on the climb, loses 15 seconds to Mottin already, so we have to see what his time will be...
+'31 eventually. Not the TT, or actually the race, Oberfranken had hoped for...
Nothing special from Kennaugh either. Perhaps the GV favourites spent too much energy yesterday? +'49.
Medvedev with an awful time, +1'59 behind Mottin. He'll have to attack in the mountains, that's for sure...
Cataldo doesn't do much better. +1'25.
Another outsider then. Brajkovic manages to keep the time gaps low. He loses 37 seconds to Mottin.
Ahh, Sepulveda at the first checkpoint! How come I didn't notice this?
Ahh, I know why, he didn't enter the top 10... At all. Only 17th. Already 20 seconds behind. And it only gets slightly better at the finish line: 13th at +'33. No “expected upset” from him today, it seems.
Onto the GC top 5 then. As already managed, Pomoshnikov will likely be looking for damage control here, as he's the worst time trialist of the top 4 climbers. And he kinda doesn't manage that... +1'28 is probably a bit more than he had hoped for. Though we'll have to wait for the others to arrive to see how much time he will lose.
Kiserlovski is a better time trialist than Pomishnikov, but would need a top day to challenge the best. And he certainly doesn't have one: He loses 53 seconds to Mottin on the finish line! Pomishnikov can already be seen smiling a little.
GC #3 Panayotov also isn't the best time trialist, and does even worse than Pomoshnikov. +1'36 will likely force him to trigger his agressiveness on the mountains once again this season.
Only Valio's duo is left now. First of all, König. His time on the first checkpoint is promising, 12th, only 18 seconds behind Mottin.. Can he keep this up?
YES! And how! Only 9 more seconds lost. He finishes inside the top 10: 10th, +'27 to Mottin. And we can safely say we have a new GC leader!
Unless Lehtinen pulls an upset of course, but he doesn't. Actually he loses almost two minutes. Though he'll be happy with the experience (and pic!) of him in the leader's jersey. And oh, he'll keep his U25 jersey as well.
Off to this stage's winners then. First of all the stage winner: Mottin!
And then the other winner of this stage: König. As the only of the top 17 riders without a time loss in the GC in stage 1, he simply set the best time with ease and will now attempt to defend his jersey in the next stages.
Domagalski is second. He completely flew off the radar on the live report – apologies! But he sets the 12th time this stage and is just in front of a group of other GC riders, led by Ratiy
Alright, we have to leave you now for the 6 O'clock news. We'll be back in the mountains tomorrow. See you then!
Tour of Bulgaria – Stage 2
