Today's stage: A short prologue
to start the Tour de France, the most important cycling race there
is, in Liege, Belgium.
Who won today's stage? Fabian
Cancellara (RadioShack-Nissan-Trek forever abbreviated RSNT)
destroyed the field winning by seven seconds over just 6.4km.
What matters in the GC race?
Cancellara does take the yellow jersey, but he often has the yellow
jersey early in the race (today is his 22nd yellow jersey
of his career and he has held the jersey in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009
and 2010) before ceding it to the overall contenders when the high
mountains start. Among the overall contenders, Bradley Wiggins (Team
Sky) is the leader after finishing second on the brief stage. Former
Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a Espana winner Denis Menchov (Katusha) is
8th overall, defending champion Cadel Evans (BMC) is 13th,
2010 Vuelta winner Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas) is 14th and
reigning Giro d'Italia champion Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Sharp, note
the team name change from Garmin-Barracuda since the Giro in May) is
15th.
What matters in other competitions?
Green Jersey (Points) –
Cancellara leads the competition, but he will be wearing yellow
tomorrow. Wiggins will wear the Green jersey. Among the actual
contenders, none scored any points and thus this will go to tomorrow
to begins forming a pecking order.
Polka Dot Jersey (King of the
Mountains) – No points available in a time trial. Tomorrow will
see this jersey awarded for the first time with four category four
climbs on the parcours tomorrow.
White Jersey (Best Young Rider)
– Tejay van Garderen (BMC) rode a scorching TT finishing 4th
overall on the stage and beating Edvald Boasson Hagen (Team Sky) for
the white jersey by 1 second.
Team Classification (Calculated by
adding the three best times on each team each day) – Team Sky
with Wiggins 2nd and Boasson Hagen 5th leads
this early over RSNT who were carried by Cancellara's great ride.
Biggest surprise: Sylvain
Chavanel (Omega-Pharma QuickStep, herefore OPQS) is the national time
trial champion of France. Still, it is a surprise that he finished
3rd today and led for quite some time. A great ride by him
and maybe a sign his form has returned to where it was two years ago
when he won two stages and held the yellow jersey on two separate
occasions early in the race.
Biggest disappointment: David
Zabriskie (Garmin-Sharp) is the US time trial champion. He has won
the prologue in the Tour de France before (2005 over Lance
Armstrong). Today, he finished 68th. Not the result he was
looking for after his second place overall finish at the Tour of
California.
Other items of note: World time
trial champion Tony Martin (OPQS) finished 45th on the
stage, but it was because he flatted during the stage and lost 20-25
seconds because of it. Considering he finished 25 seconds to
Cancellara, it would have been close between the two dominant time
trial riders in the peloton... Other than Hesjedal, riders who raced
the Giro d'Italia struggled. In particular Michele Scarponi
(Lampre-ISD) finished 129th and is already in some trouble
here at this Tour.
What is coming tomorrow? Hills,
lots of them, but not big. The stage is in Ardennes country in the
region where Fleche-Wallonne and Liege-Bastogne-Liege take place.
Tomorrow there are category four hills and it isn't a big sprinter
day with the finish a classics-like 1km uphill finish. With that
finish, there could be some attacks by GC riders looking to start
taking time from Wiggins considering the time trials to come.
Tomorrow's prediction: 1.
Philippe Gilbert (BMC). 2. Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas). 3. Robert
Gesink (Rabobank)
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