Tonight is Stage 3 of the 2011 Tour de France. And what a cracker it is shaping up to be.
Last night Teams Time Trial was excellent. Saxo Bank went out first and scorched the 23km circuit up. Actually, many think they went out to hard and actually slowed near the end. Some of the lesser teams then went out before the big guns appeared. Watching the climbers from a lot of teams falling of the back just showed how hard the teams were pushing. Sky were probably the favourites due to Wiggins being an excellent time trialist, but they came up 4 seconds short of Team Garmin Cervelo who blitzed the short course, averaging very close to 60kph!
BMC did an incredible job to come in with a time equal to Sky and Leopard Trek, and 1 second faster than HTC Highroad.
You had to feel sorry for poor old Gilbert, his team Omega Pharam – Lotto just didn’t have the horsepower to keep him in yellow.
The God of thunder, Thor Hushovd, now gets to ride around in yellow for stage 3 with Evans just behind him in the Polka dot jersey.
Stage 3 is about as flat as they get, with a Cat 4 climb 143km into the stage. With 1 intermediate sprint point, it should be a day for the sprinters today.
