Team Time Trial
What a DAY!
The past two years Lance's US Postal team has
won this event.
Today's mostly flat stage runs 67.5 km from Tours
to Blois.
The Team Time Trial was a part of the Tour for
many years, then
disappeared. It was put back into the Tour in
2000, and is one of the
most exciting stages. Each team in the Tour consists
of nine members.
For the Team Time Trial, each team starts the
race at five minute
intervals. Each member of the team is credited
with the time of the
fifth team member to cross the finish line. The
teams must cross the
finish line with five members to get a time.
Traditionally, each team
received the exact time it recorded in that stage.
But last year, they
changed the rules. The only team that received
its actual time was the
winning team; the trailing teams received set
time penalties based on
their placings in that stage - for example, riders
in a team that
finished six minutes behind the winner might
lose only three minutes in
the General Classification (GC). This was widely
viewed as an attempt
by the Tour organizers to prevent Lance's US
Postal team from gaining
too much time over the other riders. The most
time any team can lose
now is 3 minutes, even if they finish 7 minutes
behind. (What the hell?)
The teams leave the starting block in order of
overall standings. Team
Discovery leaves 2nd to last since Lance is 2"
behind CSC's Dave
Zabriskie who is in the Yellow Jersey. CSC starts
last since they are
riding with the Yellow Jersey.
The stage begins with fast times being set, which
continue to get
bested as the day goes on, but also more teams
end up dropping members
along the way - the pace being too much for some
to keep up with.
7:50am PDT - Jan Ullrich, last years 2nd place
Andréas Klöden, and
Alexandre Vinokourov's team T-Mobile drops one
man and sets the best
time at 1h11'14", with Phonak, Team Discovery,
and CSC still on the course.
7:55am - Discovery is clocking at 6" behind CSC at the 46k mark.
8:00am - Phonak has dropped 3 riders, with CSC
dropping one. Discovery
is still intact with all nine riders.
8:02am - Phonak crosses the line at 1h12'10".
8:05am - Discovery powers across the line at 1h10'39" sweeeeeeeet!!!!!
8:07am - CSC is clocking at 2" behind Discovery.
8:09am - HOLYCRAP!! Dave Zabriskie has CRASHED
just outside the last
kilometer, which means he will NOT get the same
time as the rest of his
team (if you fall within the last 1k, you do
get the same time). It
looks as though he hooked the rear wheel of the
rider just in front of
him, the bike spinning out from under him, crashing
into the metal
barriers. He's back on the bike, but his entire
left side is shredded.
This is terrible.
8:10am - CSC crosses at 1h10'41", 2" behind Discovery.
Lance is now in Yellow, ahead in the GC by 55"
over his teammate George
Hincapie. Dave Zabriskie falls to 9th in the
GC, 1'26" behind Lance.
The Discovery Channel team has set the fastest
average speed for a team
time trial in the history of the Tour de France.
The average speed at 57.31km/h.
The previous record being that of Gewiss-Ballan
from 1995 of 54.930km/h.
Wow!