Tour Day 3

[TeleAl]

The Tour Day 3

Pretty boring until the last 25km. Feel free to organize your finger nail clippings, water the plants, sort your videos, and generally chill in front of the TV. That's what I did; but it was raining where I live today.

All through the beginning it was a QuickStep day, with US Postal pushing through to the front towards the end. Phonak showed their colors once or twice on the perimeter.

After that it got a bit more interesting with a few falls.

Yellow man Cancellara ran the pack for a few km at the end defending his jersey.
Then the sprinters did their last minute sprint thing.

Robbie McKeown took the stage/etape.
Thor (from Norway) took the Yellow & Green.
Cancellara kept and now wears White.
Everyone else finished within a few seconds.

Someone feel free to post more comprehensive results below.

The race starts in the mountains. Anything before that is all show.

[Artie Fufkin]

Stage 2 Top Ten:

1 Robbie McEwen (Aus) Lotto-Domo 4.18.39
2 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Crédit Agricole
3 Jean-Patrick Nazon (Fra) AG2R Prévoyance
4 Danilo Hondo (Ger) Gerolsteiner
5 Stuart O'Grady (Aus) Cofidis - Le Crédit Par Téléphone
6 Jaan Kirsipuu (Est) AG2R Prévoyance
7 Erik Zabel (Ger) T-Mobile Team
8 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Fassa Bortolo
9 Gerrit Glomser (Aut) Saeco
10 Mario Cipollini (Ita) Domina Vacanze

GC

1 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Crédit Agricole 9.05.42
2 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Fassa Bortolo 0.08
3 Robbie McEwen (Aus) Lotto-Domo 0.17
4 Lance Armstrong (USA) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 0.18
5 Jens Voigt (Ger) Team CSC 0.23
6 José I.Gutierrez Palacios (Spa) Illes Balears - Banesto 0.24
7 Oscar Pereiro (Spa) Phonak Hearing Systems 0.27
8 Christophe Moreau (Fra) Crédit Agricole 0.28
9 Bobby Julich (USA) Team CSC
10 George Hincapie (USA) US Postal p/b Berry Floor


Tomorrow's another flat day, though there are a couple pave sections. I believe the TTT is Wednesday. We'll see if the Blue Train can throw down another performance like last year. I think this year there is a rule that a team can lose no more than 2:30 in the TTT. Bring on the climbing!

[L7]

Yea there's a new rule for TTT that says no team can lose more than (may be) 3 minutes. But apparently it's on a sliding scale so various teams based on some sort of performance level get losses capped at 1.5 minutes (I think) going as high as the 3.

They toss the 2.5 around because it applies to most teams in the running or something.

Are the organizers trying to make this like figure skating and bring in a subjective component or what? JUST THE CLOCK OR DITCH THE TTT! Mucking with it like this is stupid.

The last two days I love the way Cancellara pulled the pack in the last kms to set up the lead out men and ultimately his team's sprinters. Gotta love wearing yellow and still doing full on domestique duties.

I like this guy, I look forward to seeing much more of him in the years to come.

[tywhy]

Originally posted by L7
Yea there's a new rule for TTT that says no team can lose more than (may be) 3 minutes. But apparently it's on a sliding scale so various teams based on some sort of performance level get losses capped at 1.5 minutes (I think) going as high as the 3.

They toss the 2.5 around because it applies to most teams in the running or something.

Are the organizers trying to make this like figure skating and bring in a subjective component or what? JUST THE CLOCK OR DITCH THE TTT! Mucking with it like this is stupid.

The last two days I love the way Cancellara pulled the pack in the last kms to set up the lead out men and ultimately his team's sprinters. Gotta love wearing yellow and still doing full on domestique duties.

I like this guy, I look forward to seeing much more of him in the years to come.

i agree, that is such a stupid adjustment to the rules. add that to the list of things the tour organizers are doing to make it harder for lance to ride to paris in yellow.