Winners
Tony Martin
A sublime ride by the world champion as he produced the second fastest time trial in Tour de France history to take the stage victory. The German had to wait over three hours from finishing his effort until Chris Froome crossed the line, and in that time no one came close to challenging his time. After almost being forced out of the race on stage 1, Martin is still missing an awful lot of skin form his back and has been riding in pain for the last week and a half, so a stage win today will go some way to making all of that suffering worth it.
Chris Froome
He may have missed out on the stage win, but I don’t think Froome will be losing too much sleep after putting a massive amount of time into all of the other GC contenders. Going into the stage with a 1:25 advantage there was always a danger that Froome could put a huge amount of time into all of his rivals and possibly put the race to bed as early as stage 11. With his overall lead now approaching 3 minutes the Brit’s position looks comfortable, although such is the quality of climbers in this race, the yellow jersey should prepare himself for relentless attacks when the race hits the Alps.
Michal Kwiatkowski
A late addition to my preview piece yesterday, the young Pole produced an excellent ride to take fifth place in the stage, ahead of the likes of Tuft, Chavanel, and Roy. This puts him back in the white jersey which he lost to Quintana on the first day in the Pyrenees. The gap to the Colombian is slender (only 34 seconds), and Quintana seems to be the second best climber in the race, so I doubt Kwiatkowski can keep the jersey to Paris. However, he should wear it up Ventoux, and perhaps even into the second rest day.
Thomas De Gendt
The Dutchman came into the Tour with an outside shot at a top ten finish, but a disastrous opening week saw all hopes of a GC challenge fade as he went into today well over an hour down on Chris Froome. However, De Gendt produced an excellent effort against the clock and was at least the ‘best of the rest’ behind the Froome and Martin who were clearly a cut above.
Bauke Mollema
I was expecting Mollema to come in much more than 1:53 down on Chris Froome, and possibly lose his third place in GC. However, the Belkin rider can often pull a decent time trial out of the bag when needed, and this was again the case today as he came home in eleventh place. Although this wasn’t enough to take second place off Alejandro Valverde, Mollema did at least move himself to within 12 seconds of the Spaniard.
Richie Porte
After a disastrous second day in the Pyrenees at the weekend, Richie Porte will be encouraged by his performance today. With hopes of a decent position in GC now a distant memory, it would have been easy for the Tasmanian to take it easy today and prepare for a tough final week in the Alps. Instead he decided to take today’s time trial seriously in a bid to boost confidence, and fourth place in the stage should be enough to achieve this.
Losers
Nairo Quintana
Not a good day for the Columbian as he came home in 54th place, almost three and a half minutes down on Martin, forcing him to hand over the white jersey to Kwiatkowski. I had expected a better performance from Quintana, but he was losing time from the very start today and his small frame really struggled in the winds of northern France. Now lying eighth in GC, the Colombian is over five minutes down on Chris Froome. This is a large gap to close, and perhaps a top three might be a more realistic aim for Quintana, but next week’s time trial in the Alps will be more suited to his abilities.
Dan Martin
After his excellent stage win on Sunday, Martin had began to target a good overall position in Paris. However, the Irishman finished in 62nd place, losing time to almost all of the other GC contenders, and now finds himself. Although he was always going to lost time, Martin might have hoped for a slightly better performance. Obviously in good form, the 26 year old can hope to make up some of his deficit in the Alps, although he’s unlikely to be allowed as much room now that he is a clear threat for the top ten.
Mikel Nieve
Never a good time triallist, the Spaniard undoubtably produced the worst time trial of all the GC contenders. The Spaniard produced a miserable time to finish in 157th place, losing well over five minutes. Only ten seconds away from tenth place in GC going into today, the Euskaltel rider is now 2:25 off Jean-Christophe Peraud. While the deficit to the Frenchman should be manageable, he has surrendered time to the likes of Michal Kwiatkowski, Cadel Evans, and even Rodriguez and Schleck in today’s time trial, who will all be aiming for that magical tenth place.
Stage 12 Preview
The first of three long stages as the race heads south east across central France on the way to Mont Ventoux on Sunday. While Paris-Tours includes a few hills and smaller roads towards the end of the race in an attempt to split up the field, this stage is almost completely flat and mostly takes place on good roads. Furthermore much of the run in towards Tours is on long, straight roads, meaning that the break should always be within sight of the peloton.
The finish is in an unglamourous location outside the ground of FC Tours, and the final kilometres contain a few obstacles. The riders will turn right at a roundabout with 700m to go and then round a sweeping right hander 300m later on a road with street furniture down the middle, meaning that position going under the flamme rouge could be vital.
Scenario
The local man is Jeremy Roy, the most aggresive rider in the 2011 Tour de France, so I would expect to see him in the break of the day or perhaps trying something in the finale. However, with only two more opportunities for the sprinters after today and a relatively simply final 20 km this should really be a bunch sprint.
Lotto Belisol have been providing the best lead outs of the Tour so far, and with the reasonably technical final kilometre a good team performance will be vital for whoever emerges victorious. Andre Greipel is therefore my favourite for the stage, although Marcel Kittel will be on a high after his stage win on Tuesday, and Mark Cavendish can never be written off, especially is his Omega Pharma-Quickstep team can get their lead out together.
Stage Win: Andre Greipel
Yellow Jersey: Chris Froome
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