Watching today on Versus and enjoying. Clicking back and forth from the Wimbledon's Men's Final.
Todays TTT report...
Contador under pressure
Whilst Garmin-Cervélo can celebrate, one man sure to be under pressure is Alberto Contador. The defending champion lost more valuable time in the test against the clock with Saxo Bank-Sungard finishing eighth – 28 seconds behind the stage winners, giving the Spaniard more than a sour French public reception to consider.
Saxo Bank was the first team off and set a good but not spectacular time. Soon after, it was time for the eventual winners to lay down a time in pursuit of the stage victory.
Going through all intermediate splits the fastest, a smooth, consistent performance from Garmin-Cervelo ensured the American team set a time that would ultimately prove hard to overcome.
That first intermediate check was safe until Team Sky’s men set a time of 9:02 for the opening nine kilometres, although they couldn’t match Garmin-Cervélo’s second intermediate split, sitting four seconds behind after 18.5km and seven men with which to ride to the finish. They were down to five by the line, the quintet recorded the second best time to that point of 24:52. Close but quite fast enough.
Disaster struck HTC-Highroad early in its ride, with the experienced Austrian Bernhard Eisel coming down in the first corner – the team's misfortune was reflected in a first split of 9:11. Meanwhile, RadioShack also recorded an opening intermediate split of 9:11 but was 10 seconds down on Garmin’s time by the finish – not bad for overall favourites Levi Leipheimer, Andreas Klöden, Janez Brajkovic and Chris Horner – but not good enough for a stage win.
Soon after, and with Mark Cavendish charging down the final 300 metres, HTC-highroad recovered well to take third on the line with a time of 24:53. It would eventually be good enough for fifth, after the arrival of Leopard-Trek and BMC Racing.
The latter of those two squads, boasting green jersey Evans and experienced heads such as George Hincapie and Marcus Burghardt, set the third fastest first intermediate with 9:04, demonstrating that this American squad has come with serious intentions to put Evans into the overall ascendancy during this Tour de France.
Leopard-Trek took third on the line from HTC-Highroad by mere hundredths of a second, with time trial world champion Fabian Cancellara towing his men through the 23km to ensure the Schleck brothers wouldn’t lose too much time overall. It was enough to keep the Luxembourg team in fourth by day’s end and a solid performance, despite missing the stage victory by five seconds.
Soon after Evans, Hincapie & Co almost stole the show with a stunning finale to finish just four seconds behind Garmin-Cervélo. Whilst the team had dodged a bullet with a seemingly awkward middle sector of the course, the final kilometres were ridden strongly and like fellow GC contender Wiggins had done before him, Evans pulled his charges along in stunning fashion.
Nevertheless, nobody could match Garmin-Cervélo’s superiority and for the man who wears the rainbow jersey, tomorrow will be all about another colour – yellow.
