Armstrong misses yellow by a fraction

July 8, 2009

Armstrong misses yellow by a fraction

It was like visiting history, Armstrong has done it in the past and almost did it in the time trial stage again. US Postal and Discovery were lead by Lance to achieve the amazing team time trial results and he did it again with Astana. I guess but the gods were with Fabian Cancellara as he retained the yellow with just two tenth of a second separating him and Armstrong. The stage also witnessed an excellent finish by Garmin – Slipstream who lost the four riders in the first half of the race. But its was the relentless pace that Garmin – Slipstream delivered and increased the tempo for the day, the remaining five riders – Bradley Wiggins, David Millar, David Zabriskie, Christian Vande Velde and Ryder Hesjedal delivered an excellent time taking them to a second place in the stage.

astana - Armstrong

The Schleck brothers lead team Saxo Bank finished third and are now places second in the race behind Astana. The stage also witnessed Team a not so good performance by Team Colombia-HTC which was pushed to a fifth place by Team Liquigas. The stage was a big disappointment for Cadel Evans of Team Silence – Lotto and RABOBANK rider Denis Menchov as the poor result in the team time trial pushed them down in the overall ranking. Team Silence – Lotto finished a below par at the 13th sport, 6 minutes and 51 seconds behind the leader and Rabobank took the 11th position. Another disappoint of the day was defending champion Carlos Sastre who after a poor at stage 1 time trial slipped further down as his team finished sixth.

The day truly belonged to the excellent time trial by Astana with excellent riding has place five of there rider in the top ten. Armstrong, Contadorm, Kloden, Leipheimer and Zubeldia are in the top ten which is a clear sign how this team has eclipsed the race results so far.

There were no changes in the green, white and polka dot jersey standings. Stage five has two category 4 climbs and one might see some aggression and also a change in few positions.