Team Time Trial
Quick notes on the TTT.
That was a wicked course. It had a lot of turns, a couple moderate inclines that pulled weak climbers off the pace, and a few roads that were dangerously narrow.
Astana was awesome on the course and most of the talk now is about how Lance Armstrong is only a fraction of a second off the lead. Yeah, that's important, but right now I'd like to applaud Fabian Cancellara. Overlook the natural tendency to be awed by Lance to realize just how good a cyclist Cancellara is. He's won stages before and worn the yellow jersey several days. He's a world champion at the time trial. While people are going nuts over Armstrong's rise to third place in stage 3 and into second after stage 4, think about what Cancellara did. He also made the jump to the lead group that held off the peloton in stage 3--just like Lance. In the TTT Saxo Bank had an off day, not a disasterous day, but not a great day like Astana. With 10 km remaining Armstrong was actually 1 second ahead of Cancellara's time. Cancellara was the guy who anchored his team to hold off the charge and keep the yellow jersey by the slim margin. Against the odds of a superior team in Astana, Cancellara picked up the slack of his own team to save his lead.
Garmin looked awesome today too. Liquigas was a nice surprise. Things keep getting worse for Menchov and Rabobank.
That was a wicked course. It had a lot of turns, a couple moderate inclines that pulled weak climbers off the pace, and a few roads that were dangerously narrow.
Astana was awesome on the course and most of the talk now is about how Lance Armstrong is only a fraction of a second off the lead. Yeah, that's important, but right now I'd like to applaud Fabian Cancellara. Overlook the natural tendency to be awed by Lance to realize just how good a cyclist Cancellara is. He's won stages before and worn the yellow jersey several days. He's a world champion at the time trial. While people are going nuts over Armstrong's rise to third place in stage 3 and into second after stage 4, think about what Cancellara did. He also made the jump to the lead group that held off the peloton in stage 3--just like Lance. In the TTT Saxo Bank had an off day, not a disasterous day, but not a great day like Astana. With 10 km remaining Armstrong was actually 1 second ahead of Cancellara's time. Cancellara was the guy who anchored his team to hold off the charge and keep the yellow jersey by the slim margin. Against the odds of a superior team in Astana, Cancellara picked up the slack of his own team to save his lead.
Garmin looked awesome today too. Liquigas was a nice surprise. Things keep getting worse for Menchov and Rabobank.
posted by uberschuck at 7:55 PM
1 Comments:
That was Team Astana versus Cancellara, and Cancellara won. He is that good. He took long pulls up front and held on to the maillot jaune with almost no team support.
Be awed. He earned the jersey today.
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