Tour Report; Stage 3

Who is this Boonen kid anyway? Two in a row now and he is making it look a lot like Petacchi did at the Giro a few years ago when he won nearly every stage he wanted. Boonen and Petacchi have claimed the title of Sprint Kings on the road.

Boonen takes a second stage, Peter Wrolich takes second and O'Grady is given third after McEwen is ruled to have impeded him in the final meters. Now Robbie gets relegated to 186th in the final and loses points towards the Green jersey competition- so now he finds himself fighting an uphill battle to win a third Green jersey by Paris. Boonen doesn't really appear to be beatable at the moment, taking both of his wins very convincingly with room to spare.

Tomorrow is the Team Time Trial and the first "big shake-up" of the this year's event should take place. Phonak has made no secret of the fact that they really want to win the TTT, but Discovery and CSC have also laid claim to tomorrow's race. Looking at how things have gone thus far, I'm going to go out on a shaky little limb here and make the following prediction;
1) Discovery
2) Phonak
3) CSC
4) Gerolsteiner
5) T-Mobile
6) Francaise des Jeux
7) Liberty-Seguros
8) Cofidis
9) Illes-Balears
10) Credit Agricole

So I'm sure that order will not be perfect, but it's still my initial guess. I don't know if Zabriskie is going to lose the yellow jersey, since CSC can really TT. But... it's going to be an interesting day tomorrow. Dave Z has been a great Yellow wearer, but the real contenders for the throne are going to be mega motivated to get closer to the crown.

We'll see who has been doing their homework and training correctly. It's always interesting to watch the teams and see who knows how to ride together. A good TTT requires an incredible amount of coordination and communication. Some teams get it right, even if not the fastest, and other teams seem to completely implode. It makes for a mighty stressful day for the teams.

Let's see who gets it right tomorrow.

Tim