17.4 kilometer around Sheffield will decide the Tour of Tasmania. An individual time trial, with a small hill to climb. Hagen going into the stage as GC leader, but will he also leave the race as GC winner?
Vlatos with an early start and obviously setting the benchmark: 22 minutes and 52 seconds.
Verona second at nine seconds, Korsaeth third at thirteen. Haugard disappointing with only the fourth time.
A challenger appears in Kittel, who posts the same time as Vlatos on the split. He continues with the exact copy, though he classifies second based on milliseconds.
Virtual third place for Kwok at four seconds.
Good time for Campenaerts, five seconds for fourth place.
Sütterlin is one second faster than Campenaerts, taking that fourth place away from him.
Malori the best of the Tinkoff riders, currently sixth at six seconds. Vorobev eighth at seven seconds. Yatsevich with a terrible time, struggling to even make the virtual top ten with a lot of contenders still to come.
The best time at the intermediate is smashed by Ukrainian champion Zmorka, who goes ten seconds faster. At then end of the stage it's eighteen, for a new best time of 22'34.
By the time he made it to the hot seat, Fiedler passed the line and obliterated his time by 23 seconds. Who will be able to get under 22'11?
Not Dal Col, with another underperformance from Team Tinkoff.
Not Hepburn, who also fails to make the current top ten where he realistically belongs.
Not Boaro, but with a decent time which places him in virtual fifth.
The hill might have some effect on performance. Brown beats a lot specialists. He's 43 seconds slower than Fiedler but still that's virtual fifth place ahead of Boaro.
Dennis lost more time than he wanted, and also comes way short of the stage victory today. 46 seconds, currently in eighth.
Wow, Teklehaimanot goes to third place. That hill is definitely the reason for some surprise performances.
Youngster Haig supports that hypothesis. He now takes third place, losing 30 seconds to Fiedler but only seven to Zmorka, and also seven ahead of Teklehaimanot.
By the same token, Cattaneo should do well by his combined climbing and time trialling capacities but fails to make a lasting impact. He posts the eleventh time at the moment.
And now it's time for the GC favorites to set off. Six riders with a chance to win the race: Izagirre is the furthest down of all but also one of the better time trialists; Kangert with a surprisingly strong performance yesterday; Trofimov the former winner with a chance to return to his glory days; Bobridge under pressure from the home crowd to finally take the victory; De Bie with a slight advantage but only a moderate time trialist; Hagen in the yellow jersey which should give him a boost in performance;
By coincidence they start with one rider in between each time. Will they be able to catch that rider and profit from them?
Izagirre the first to reach the intermediate. We'll use his 12'47 as reference to the others.
Kangert is three seconds slower. With his sixteen second advantage overall he has some room for error.
Trofimov two seconds slower as Kangert, thus losing his GC position at the moment. He needs to pick up the pace in the second part.
Bobridge with the fastest time out of them and also sixth overall at the split. Four seconds faster than Izagirre.
De Bie in danger, losing 26 seconds to Bobridge which is just about all the head start he had before going into the stage. We can cross him off as possible winner.
Hagen doing very well, posting the same time as Izagirre thus only losing out on Bobridge. If he doesn't implode he should be able to maintain his lead. He even managed to get close to Mohoric already.
Virtual GC top ten:
1
Edvald Boasson Hagen
Air France - KLM
8h41'12
2
Sean De Bie
Aegon - Lavazza
+ 34
3
Jack Bobridge
Bennelong - Mitchelton
+ 35
4
Tanel Kangert
Gazelle
+ 42
5
Yuri Trofimov
Team UBS
+ 44
6
Matej Mohoric
Isostar - Slovenija
+ 45
7
Simone Ponzi
Hugo Boss
+ 48
8
Wilco Kelderman
Team Puma - SAP
+ 51
9
Ion Izagirre
Iberia - Team Degenkolb
+ 55
10
Peter Sagan
Moser - Sygic
+ 1'04
Rosskopf has the best time trial of the riders who finished at 1'44 yesterday (14th place, + 48), and thus takes virtual thirteenth place. That might even be higher if the likes of Barbero and Sagan have horrible time trials.
Boswell with the next best time trial and then Kump surprisingly good today as well, keeping van der Hugenhaben behind.
Bibby and Keinath with the best times from the 2'17 group but not fast enough to catch all of them in the GC. Pretty disappointing times today from these riders as you might expect them to challenge for a top ten given the profile, but instead they finish around 30th place.
Izagirre managed to overtake Van Stayen on his ride, and finishes in 22 minutes and 58 seconds, thirteenth place on the stage so far.
Kangert got close to Barbero but just failed to overtake him. He finishes four seconds behind Izagirre, but that's enough to keep him behind GC-wise.
Barbero with the worst time trial of the current top ten. He does manage to stay ahead of Rosskopf in the GC by four seconds. Eleventh place is a surprisingly good result for him.
Kelderman does alright, he was faster than De Bie at the split. 1'10 to Fiedler, 23 to Izagirre. Unfortunately for the Dutchman it means the Spaniard is past in the GC by seven seconds.
Trofimov with nine seconds loss to Izagirre, 24th on the stage. He does manage to keep Izagirre behind by seven seconds but Kangert is ahead of him, as was already clear at the halfway mark. Nevertheless a good result in the relegation battle for UBS, should be close between them and Tinkoff for the last safe spot now.
Sagan staying just ahead of Bobridge on the stage. In the GC he tumbles behind Kangert, Trofimov and Izagirre, and stays just ahead of Barbero. Tenth place it will likely be for him.
Bobridge then, with all the Australians behind him. 22'52 is the sixth time on the stage, still 41 seconds behind Fiedler, but ahead of Kangert. Bobridge is the new virtual GC leader!
Ponzi had a small advantage due to his bonus seconds on stage one, but not enough to be a factor in today's stage. 44 seconds behind Bobridge, which drops him three seconds behind Kelderman but still ahead of Sagan and Barbero.
De Bie is not in great shape today. His time is even slower than Ponzi's, five seconds. Overall that's the same time as Izagirre, but he will be ranked behind him on milliseconds.
Mohoric did manage to stay ahead of Hagen. Did he go faster or Hagen slower? Anyway, his lead in the youth classification was not in danger despite setting a time which is even worse than Barbero's. But he might be a bit disappointed in dropping to eighth in the GC, behind Ponzi.
Hagen the last one to cross the line. His yellow jersey was never really at stake today, he lost a bit over the course to the likes of Bobridge but he was allowed to given the margin he had. He posts the 22nd time of the day, losing 52 to Fiedler and 11 to Bobridge.
Jakob Fiedler wins the time trial with a great performance. He leaves the competition well behind, with Zmorka best of the rest at 23 seconds. Haig can look back on a great day with a third place. Teklehaimanot fourth, Vlatos fifth, Bobridge sixth, Kittel seventh, Brown eighth, Kwok ninth and Sütterlin rounding out the top ten with the same time as Dennis.
Edvald Boasson Hagen crowns himself winner of the Tour of Tasmania for the second time in his career, after 2015. His victory on the second stage gave him enough advantage for the time trial. Bobridge falling short of the victory again, finishing second at 28 seconds. Kangert the slight surprise on the podium, at 38 seconds. Then Trofimov, Izagirre, De Bie, Kelderman, Ponzi, Mohoric and Sagan completing the top ten.
Points classification goes to Ponzi, mountains classification to Tratnik, young rider classification to Mohoric and teams classification to Gazelle.
