I love watching a time trial because it’s several hours of exciting racing on top of watching the riders warm up.
Philippe Gilbert rode the course twice in the morning, each time smiling and waving to Fien and I who were of course the only ones there and cheering for him.
We yelled like idiots when Taylor Phinney warmed up and he gave us a little wave.
Lars Boom, the race leader and defending champion.
I had been having a surprisingly hard time picking Bradley Wiggins out of the peloton lately, but once I heard he’d put on 15 pounds in preparation for next month’s time trial world championships in Florence, I can spot him again. His face has completely changed shape. It’s no longer an exaggerated oval and his cheeks are almost a little chubby.
Wiggins’ teammate Bernie Eisel.
Maciej Bodnar warming up.
It took Daniel Oss a moment to recognize us but when he did, he gave a big toothy smile. Right: Manuel Quinziato.
Klaas Lodewyck and our new friend, Michael Van Staeyen.
Tyler Farrar and Robbie Hunter both looked relaxed during their warm up.
The 150+ remaining riders started the time trial at one minute intervals in reverse order of their general classification ranking. The final 10 riders went off at 2 minute intervals.
Robbie Hunter.
Bradley Wiggins. He set the fastest time by far to this point.
Guillaume Boivin.
Albert Timmer.
Gregory Rast.
Amaël Moinard.
Frederik Veuchelen.
Alex Rasmussen.
Laurens De Vreese in the black combativity jersey.
I tend to take the photo either way too early or way too late when I’m excited and I was going crazy as Svein Tuft approached the finish line. His time out him in 3rd place but he was bumped back to 21st place by the day’s end.
Johan Vansummeren.
Raymond Kreder.
Nick Nuyens.
Australian time trial (and road) champion, Luke Durbridge. His face says it all.
Dominique Rollin.
Hugo Houle.
Koldo Fernandez.
Jesse Sergent. The young kiwi was absolutely killing it and his time put him in first place for much of the afternoon.
Francois Parisien. This is another good example of me getting distracted by cheering for someone and not paying attention to taking photos.
Dutch time trial champion Lieuwe Westra.
Daniel Oss with Karsten Kroon hot on his heals.
Julian Kern.
French time trial champion Sylvain Chavanel came screaming by so fast that I could only catch a photo of him as he crossed the finish line. He knocked 4 seconds off of Jesse Sergent’s time, putting him in the lead.
Soon after, Tom Dumoulin just about caught Alexey Tsatevitch with a time that put him in second place.
Sebastian Langeveld.
Jan Bakelants.
South African time trial champion Daryl Impey.
Taylor Phinney.
Tyler Farrar.
Philippe Gilbert.
Zdenek Stybar.
Arnaud Demare.
Andre Greipel.
Lars Boom.
Sylvain Chavanel’s time proved to be the fastest, with Tom Dumoulin and Jesse Sergent rounding out the top 3, respectively. Below: Sylvain on the podium for his stage win.
None of the 3 jerseys changed hands today. Lars Boom remained the race leader, Andre Greipel kept the points jersey, and Laurens De Vreese held onto the combativity jersey.
We figured most, if not all, of the teams were long gone by the time the podium ceremony was over but decided it was worth checking. We found Omega Pharma-Quick Step, Belkin, and Topsport Vlaanderen were still in the parking lot. Alessandro Petacchi was chatting with some people and I was able to get a photo with him. This makes up for him not signing my flag the other day!
We stood on the parking lot and debated whether or not to wait for Lars Boom when the driver in the Topsport Vlaanderen bus honked and waved us over. He was curious why 2 young women were hanging out in the parking lot and we ended up having a long conversation with him and Laurens De Vreese, the winner of the combativity jersey, who was sitting shotgun.
UPDATE! I’ve added a few more photos, including shots of Assan Bazayev and Marcel Kittel signing autographs, to the Eneco Tour stage 4 post.