Astana’s Alberto Contador, sitting in first place in the Tour de France, completed today’s individual time trail from Bordeaux to Pauillac, faster than Saxo Bank’s second-place rider Andy Schleck. Beat him by half a minute over the 52-kilometer (32-mile) course running alongside the Gironde River and sealed the overall competition for the yellow jersey. But that was not the only story of the ‘race of truth’ this afternoon, there would be several.
Alberto’s superior TT ability was considered fact – and a big time gap was wildly expected. However, the 31 seconds between their finishing times today was not nearly as big a gap as predicted and served to highlight the exact time gap that was erased by Contador’s controversial attack against Schleck when his chain fell off while ahead on the last climb up Port de Balès in stage 15. Surely, Alberto would like to put those 31 seconds out of everyone’s mind and didn’t mean to conjure them up again with today’s gap. Without it, there would still just be 8 seconds separating these two, which would tie the smallest margin of victory ever in the history of this race.
Another story on the day was Team RadioShack’s overall standing in the team competition. Though the strenuous efforts of the last 3-weeks had an impact, Team RadioShack riders all finished in good times today, which helped them maintain their first place in the overall team standings, still just 9’15” ahead of Caisse d’Epargne coming in to tomorrow’s final stage. And Chris Horner’s time was easily good enough to keep him well in 10th place, just missing 9th place by some 8 seconds. Hats off to all the Shack riders – here’s how they did today:
19. MURAVYEV, Dmitriy 1h 05’ 34”
31. POPOVYCH, Yaroslav 1h 06’ 24”
41. LEIPHEIMER, Levi 1h 06’ 55”
67. ARMSTRONG, Lance 1h 08’ 01”
69. HORNER, Chris 1h 08’ 04”
70. BRAJKOVIC, Janez 1h 08’ 05”
87. KLODEN, Andreas 1h 08’ 31”
90. PAULINHO, Sergio 1h 08’ 45”
117. RAST, Gregory 1h 09’ 41”
Yet another story was the predictability of Saxo Bank’s Fabian Cancellara when it comes to winning time trials. He’s becoming about a sure a bet as Mark Cavendish is in the sprints. Just as the smart money presumed, Cancellara cooked the field in today’s time trial with a blistering average speed of 50.9 km/h. He blew everyone out of the water this time but for one, HTC-Columbia’s Tony Martin who came in just seconds behind. Here’s what the top ten looked like for the stage:
1. CANCELLARA, Fabian 1h 00’ 56”
2. MARTIN, Tony +00’ 17”
3. GRABSCH, Bert +01’ 48”
4. KONOVALOVAS, Ignatas +02’ 34”
5. ZABRISKIE, David +03’ 00”
6. MOERENHOUT, Koos +03’ 03”
7. KIRYIENKA, Vasil +03’ 10”
8. TJALLINGIL, Maarten +03’ 21”
9. WIGGINS, Bradley +03’ 33”
10. THOMAS, Geraint +03’ 38”
Andy Schleck was a story unto himself, riding the time trial of his life today proving to the cycling world that with his continued improvement in all cycling disciplines there is no longer a single dominant stage racer in the pro ranks. Andy’s effort made it a real unpredictable contest today when so many considered this stage a foregone conclusion. Through the first half of the course he was gaining on Contador’s overall time and was within 2 seconds of virtual yellow at several time checks along the route. He charged out at a very high cadence, probably with full knowledge that he’d never held this speed for this distance before. Knowing that he had to do this to claw back the lead from Contador, it left him no choice but to hope for some divine intervention in the last 10 kilometers giving him new reserves he’d never had. There were times when it looked like he was going to pull it off, then the collapse came and he started dropping time fast, with no intervention occurring.
Contador, to his credit, never panicked, stayed within his ability and seemed to sustain a consistent effort that in the end proved strong enough. Even with these amazing rides, and all the TV time devoted to them, they both finished quite a ways down in the days standings, 35th and 44th place on the day, showing just how many capable powerful professionals are out their pedaling in the pro circuit these days.
Rabobank’s Denis Menchov wrote his own story today, taking command of his fate and powering through an excellent performance in the time trial to take 3rd place away from Euskaltel’s Samuel Sanchez, who couldn’t hold on after his gutsy comeback off the pavement on the last mountain stage. Difficult loss on the podium for Sanchez, but another great ride by the tough-as-nails Russian.
Perhaps the most poignant story and image of the stage, was watching Lance Armstrong mount the starting ramp, adjust his helmet and glasses, and stare forward into his last time trial at the Tour de France. The most dominant time trialist of his generation, having won scores and scores of these races – 11 in the Tour alone, with 4 more TDF victories in team time trials on his way to 26 overall TDF stage wins, he knew what this moment meant and had to have thought just a bit, about never doing this again. Certainly many of us viewing did. You wished you could somehow make the moment last longer. Watching him in full TT mode slicing forward through the air for this one last hour was a joy and a heartache for many. You wanted to stretch this one last time out for much more and even so, knew you’d want more. Knew you’d be longing for a next year.
Being as competitive as he is and holding himself to such a high standard, Lance was probably not pleased with his performance. But I bet millions of his fans would disagree, appreciating the effort, the moment, the ride. I’m sure many would say it was enough Lance. Thank you for all of it. It was enough.
By George Hurst, staff writer
Beautifully written article. Thank you!
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