Serguei Gonchar was definately the strongest man on the road today winning with a full minute margin over Floyd Landis. This is the first time a Ukrainian has had the Yellow Jersey in the history of the tour. Floyd had mechanical problems early in the race taking precious time out of his effort. It will be interesting to see what the situation was in the end. He ended up having to switch bikes on course. Even if it was timed perfectly, it would have cost him at least 30-60 seconds and precious energy making the switch and re-accelerating.
The next few days will be very interesting to watch as positions on teams have changed completely as have the overall mixes. Team Discovery for instance now has Paolo Savoldelli as it’s top placed rider in 13th on G.C. at 2′10″ behind stage and yellow jersey winner Serguei Gonchar. George fell to 17th on G.C. an additional 20″ behind Salvodelli.
TMobile really dominated the stage placing 4 riders in the top 10 finishers for the stage, and 6 in the top 20. They have taken a commanding liead in the team competition now. Only four other teams placed more than one rider in the top 20 — each with two riders in the top 20 finishers for the day — Gerolsteiner, CSC, Illes Balears (CEI) and Discovery.
I really liked the performance of Tom Boonen. He did a solid time trial for a sprinter and gave a good ride for his last day in Yellow.
Update: Bobby Julich’s crash was pretty hard on his wrist but there aparently are no fractures:
There are apparently no fractures,” CSC team director Alain Gallopin said. “Nevertheless, they will keep him overnight and he will have a little surgery to clean the wound properly. You could see the bone and the tendons, so the wound is rather deep.
Ouch! I’ve broken my wrist twice, including once on the bike hitting the pavement hard right at a curb, essentially like Julich. Somehow I think I would take a broken bone over exposed bone and ligaments. In my case a car cut me off coming around a bend into an intersection where I had right of way. To avoid endo-ing over the car I cut harder into the corner, leaning the bike even further. Unfortunately I didn’t pull my inside pedal up. It’s amazing how the pedal becomes a fulcrum so fast and efficiently. Probably a big part of why I love my Speedplay pedals so much — gotta replace the cleats though, they’ve got quite a few years wear on them right now.
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[...] Serguei Gonchar wraps up the tour winning both time trials and spending 3 days in yellow with a great ride today. Only Andreas Klöden could come within one minute of Gonchar’s finish at 41″ back. Klöden’s great ride, along with a 20th place ride by Carlos Sastre, allows Klöden to replace Sastre as the third place in the GC and take his place on the podium in Paris. [...]
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