Today a 42.5 kilometer long time trial was at the programme of the Critérium du Dauphiné 2011. A kind of special time trial around Grenoble since it was exactly the same race route as for the final and decisive time trial of the Tour de France 2011.

The weather had quite big influence on the result of this individual time trial, even though it's not surprising to see the specialist Tony Martin (Team HTC-Highroad) win it, where Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) took the yellow-bleu jersey of the general classification.

The summary of the 3rd stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné : Grenoble > Grenoble - time trial

The time trial around Grenoble will have been a good test for the riders who will participate in the Tour de France 2011 because on 23 July, they'll find the same parcours the day before the end of the Tour in Paris. Indeed, they've been able to discover the race route under race conditions and note a reference time with their current condition.
It's not at all sure however the conditions will be the same, both from a weather perspective as for the race conditions, after 19 days in the race and at the end of the Tour instead of 3 racing days which preceded the time trial in the Dauphiné where it took place in the middle of the race.

Today, Tony Martin (Team HTC-Highroad) could show he's one of the specialists of long time trials on a dry road while other favorites had to be much more cautious because they ran it in the rain.

This was for example the case for Bradley Wiggins but the British rider of Team Sky finished 2nd anyway, ahead of Edvald Boasson Hagen who also ended with a good time, at 43 seconds behind Martin.

David Zabriskie (Team Garmin-Cervélo) finished 4th at 58 seconds and he was the last rider to finish at less than one minute from the winner. At the 5th place, Janez Brajkovic (Team Radioshack) ended up 1'17" behind while one minute and twenty seconds separate the winner from Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) at the 6th place. Best French rider was Christophe Riblon, at the 8th place behind Geraint Thomas (Team Sky), at 1'37" and followed at the 16th place by Jérémy Roy of FDJ who also had a good time, at 2'38" behind the winner of today's stage.

Tony Martin's comments

After having received the flowers as the stage winner, Tony Martin, who took his 6th victory of this season and -after yesterday's stage win for John Degenkolb- the 60th for his team, commented: I found a good rhythm from the start and it all went really well.

It was a good test for me, and I'm feeling very confident now for the Tour de France time trial, too.

Of course there will be some other top names there but hopefully I'll be going a little bit faster, too.

This win means a lot for me because it shows that step by step my build-up for July is going well.

I've had four weeks of no races so the first few days of racing here were really hard for me, but now I'm feeling really good.

The classifications after the 3rd stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné 2011

The stage classification

The top 10 of this time trial was as follows:

1/ Tony Martin (Team HTC-Highroad) - 55'27"
2/ Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) - +0'11"
3/ Edvald Boasson Hagen (Team Sky) - +0'43"
4/ David Zabriskie (Team Garmin-Cervélo) - +0'58"
5/ Janez Brajkovic (Team Radioshack) - +1'17"
6/ Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) - +1'20"
7/ Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) - +1'36"
8/ Christophe Riblon (AG2R La Mondiale) - +1'37"
9/ Rein Taaramae (Cofidis, le crédit en ligne) - +1'56"
10/ Rui Alberto Faria da Costa (Movistar Team) - +2'00"

The general classification after the 3rd stage

This time trial pretty much shuffled up the top 10 of the general classification where the yellow-bleu leader's jersey is taken over from Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana) by Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky). Wiggins ended today's time trial at the 2nd place, 2'07" ahead of Vinokourov who finished 14th.

1/ Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) - 8h41'37"
2/ Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) - +1'11"
3/ Janez Brajkovic (Team Radioshack) - +1'21"
4/ Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana) - +1'56"
5/ Rui Alberto Faria da Costa (Movistar Team) - +2'12"
6/ Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) - +2'25"
7/ Jurgen van den Broeck (Omega Pharma-Lotto) - +2'28"
8/ Christophe Riblon (AG2R La Mondiale) - +2'45"
9/ Ben Hermans (Team Radioshack) - +2'46"
10/ Jérôme Coppel (Saur-Sojasun) - +2'52"

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Critérium du Dauphiné 2011 | Criterium du Dauphiné

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