Is it Michael? Is it Ralf? No, It’s Stefan Schumacher
July 9th, 2008 by Ricky BlayneyTdF Stage 4: Cholet - Cholet (29.5km ITT)
The Tour de France got underway for real yesterday in many peoples eyes with the first individual time-trial, and stage that properly sorted out the GC. The winner of the stage though, and new yellow jersey leader, was a bit of a surprise — Stefan Schumacher — no relation to thee Schumacher (as far as I know) — who went round the 29.5km circuit in a very impressive 35′44. He was the only man to go under 36 minutes.
He beat out such time-trial specialists David Miller, Kim Kirchen and Fabian Cancellera to take the win by a margin big enough to take the yellow. Most of the others in the top five or so were names you would expect to see with Valverde, the yellow jersey man from stage one who is seen as a pre-race favourite being one of the big losers, coming in 23rd and dropping 1′34 on the stage.
Still, in the grand scheme of things, none of the big contenders lost major time but it shook things up enough to give us an idea of what various riders need to do when the big mountains arrive.
It was a great ride by Britain’s David Millar who finished 18 seconds back in joint second place (theoretically he was third on split seconds but whatever!). It puts him third on GC, and although he wont be any threat come Paris it gives him the chance, if he feels up to it, to making a move before the mountains to try capture the yellow for a day. If not he has proven to himself he has what it takes to potentially win the time-trial stage later in the race.
Today is another super flat day and will be another chance for the sprinters to do their thing. So far, only stage two, taken by Thor Hushovd, came down to a bunch sprint and even in that one Britains Mark Cavendish was nowhere to be seen. He kept his foot off the gas in yesterdays Time trial hoping to save some energy for today.
...........................................................................................................................................................................