2006 Tour De France: Taking control

Time trials originated from England in the late 19th century. Cyclists had to race one by one after the police would not let them race as a group when cart and carriage owners complained that the cyclists were scaring their horses.

Therefore it's not surprising that English speaking riders are dominating the race of truth, as time trials are called. Retirees Lance Armstrong, Chris Boardman, Greg Lemond have won a lot of TT's during their times. Current favorites in the TT's include Americans Floyd Landis, George Hincapie, Levi Leipheimer and Ausie Cadel Evans are also favored to win the overall. Dave Zabriskie, Mick Rogers and David Millar round up the TT meisters from across the Atlantic.

But the challenge from the Anglais fizzled out by the strong ride of Ukrainian Serhiy Gonchar. The 36yo T-Mobile rider simply stepped up big time into Jan Ullrich's shoes. Amazingly, T-Mobile put 5 riders in the top 11 overall with 2004 TdF runner Andreas Kloden at 6th, @1.50 minutes behind his teammate.

Of the favorites, only two showed their stuff. American Floyd Landis came in a minute behind the winner ands sits pretty at 2nd overall while Aussie Cadel Evans is now at 8th, @1.52 minutes.

Discovery Channel, Lance Armstrong's former team, was the favorite to put 4 of its riders at the top 10 but the best they could do was put Paolo Savoldelli at 11th place. George Hincapie came in at 17th, @2.30 and is now 24th overall.

But it was Lvei Leipheimer who had the worst day, losing 6 minutes in the overall and his chance to win the tour.

And so the face of the Tour has changed again. Who would have thought that Gonchar, the 2000 TT World Champion could pull a rabbit out of the hat? The enigmatic Kloden is probably the most dangerous rival of the now favorite Landis since I don't think Gonchar can wear the yellow jersey all the way to Paris.

The next few days will see a flurry of attacks from teams who lost their reputations in the 52km ITT. The worst hit was CSC who lost Bobby Julich when he crashed and broke his hand 1.5km from the start. In 1999, he also crashed while during the ITT when he was the favorite to win the TdF.

Control Of The Peloton

I guess it will be up to Phonak to control the peloton with T-Mobile in the supporting them. It will be interesting to see if they will cooperate or one will play possum.

On the other hand, expect Discovery Channel to attack every chance they have. At this point, it's the only way for them to regain their swagger.

While Landis is obviously superior to the 5 T-mobile riders individually, we'll see how strong Phonak is in defending the position of Landis. I don't think that T-Mobile is putting their bets on Gonchar. Expect them to put their eggs on Kloden. Gonhar is Ukrainian while Kloden is German. If Kloden has the same form as he did 2 years ago, he'll have a good chance against Landis.

Tomorrow is the first rest day and the Pyrenees comes on Wednesday. It would be most interesting whose will take control. T-Mobile, who is not exactly the smartest team when it comes to tactics, will most like set the pace in the mountains while Phonak will just be watching from behind. But how would I know?