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CSC-Saxo Bank's Carlos Sastre withstood the challenge from Silence-Lotto's Cadel Evans on Saturday, defending his yellow jersey going into the final stage of the 2008 Tour de France.
A surprising Sastre ceded just 29 seconds to Evans over Saturday's 53km time trial and will enter the Tour's finale Sunday with a 1:05 lead over the Aussie, who is on track for his second consecutive runner-up finish in the Tour.
Gerolsteiner's Stephan Schumacher turned the best time of the day, besting two-time world time-trial champ Fabian Cancellara (CSC-Saxo Bank) by 21 seconds to claim his second time-trial victory in this race.
Sastre said he had believed from the start that he was capable of winning the Tour.
“I came here with huge motivation," he said. "I was better prepared than ever, and there were some circumstances that were outside my control. I managed to deal with the situation and dedicated every day, day after day through today, to win. But until tomorrow I won’t truly believe I’ve won. There’s still one day to go.”
The yellow jersey was a key motivator for the Spaniard.
“Finally I have the yellow jersey. It’s a dream come true from when I first started cycling," he said. "It’s difficult to explain my emotions. I want to continue on with my career, and I know I will have good moments and bad moments. I’m just so happy to have the yellow jersey on my shoulders today."
Evans, meanwhile, said he was astonished at the splits he was hearing during the state.
"I was really surprised when I heard the first time check from [Bernhard] Kohl, I thought I was doing good. I was in shock," said Evans. "There's three or four guys who did the time trial of their life. But what could I do? I gave it everything, and it wasn't enough."
Schumacher, meanwhile, said he was surprised to win the stage.
"But it was really a perfect course for me," he added. "I felt a great rhythm in my legs. It was the best I’ve felt the whole Tour.”
American Christian Vande Velde finished with a 1:04:55, fourth best on the stage and the best time by the GC leaders. Vande Velde moved up one position to fifth place overall and said he was happy with his ride.
"I had Matt White and Allen Lim in my ear, and I had Dave Millar’s time splits, and those guys took care of me," he said. "Of course I’ll always wonder how I would have finished [on GC] if I hadn’t crashed and lost that time, but at the same time, I came here with the goal of finishing top 10, so I have to be happy with fifth. Next year we’ll be back with a strong team and the plan is to do as well, if not better.”
The route
The 53km route was a textbook Tour time trial: it featured narrow, twisting back roads, linked by short stretches of straighter highway, with some short climbs and fast downhills in the opening half and one short climb and downhill toward the end. The route constantly changed direction on its zigzag route to the finish on the Rue Pelletier Doisy in St. Amand-Montrond.
The weather
The first riders enjoyed an overcast, cloudy day with a northwestern wind at about 10km/h. Thunderstorms were forecast for later in the day when the top riders started, but the skies were still partly cloudy when the GC favorites hit the course.
Early leaders
Garmin-Chipotle's Danny Pate set the early time to beat of 1:06:45, which put him atop the leader board for about half an hour until Gerosteiner's Sebastian Lang put down a 1:06:09.
Lang did not get time to enjoy his lead: He was on course at the same time as Garmin's David Millar and CSC's Fabian Cancellara. Millar, Cancellara's two-minute man, managed to avoid getting caught, turning a 1:05:27, which was quickly beat by Cancellara with a blistering 1:04:12.
Cancellara said that he had a good day, unlike the stage-four time trial, where he finished a disappointing fifth place.
"It was totally different," Cancellara said. "I was relaxed, calm ... the day was perfect."
Cancellara's perfect day became a bit less so when stage four's winner, Schumacher, matched Cancellara's first split time, at the 18km mark, to the second. Schumacher fell 12 seconds behind Cancellara at the second time check, but then moved 14 seconds ahead at the third, at the 47.5km mark, and finished at 1:03:50, taking 21 seconds from Cancellara.
Asked if the stage win takes the sting out of losing the yellow jersey because of a stage-six crash on Super-Bresse — the same crash that later kept teammate Bernhard Kohl from taking the jersey, Schumacher replied: “For sure, winning helps ease that. That was a painful way to lose the jersey, and the whole team was really down when that happened.
"But now, if you look at it, that crash kept Bernhard from taking the jersey, and if he had taken it and the team had ridden for him earlier in the race, maybe he wouldn’t be finishing on the podium now.”
The race for yellow
Someone hoping for a higher podium finish — just one step higher — was Evans, who called Sastre's performance in the time trial "a real surprise."
But the Aussie, who often found himself without teammates and battling the powerful CSC-Saxo Bank squad on the mountain stages, added: "It comes down also to the fact they have two, two and a half times the budget we do, and straight away that can buy much better quality riders.”
For his part, Silence-Lotto team manager Marc Sergeant said he had "expected better" from Evans.
"We expected a really tight battle and it didn't turn out like that," said the Belgian, who said his rider didn’t appear to be “at ease on the bike."
"To win the Tour we would have had to finish in the top three in the time trial," added Sergeant, who felt Evans lacked the power that allowed him to finish ahead of all of his yellow-jersey rivals during the stage-four time trial at Cholet.
"If he had raced like he did at Cholet, he would have won the Tour. Today, Cadel just didn't have the legs."
The other jerseys
- Green jersey: Rabobank’s Oscar Freire will enter Paris in the green jersey, with 244 points. Erik Zabel (Milram) is second with 202 and Thor Hushovd i(Crédit Agricole) third at 198. Neither a Spaniard nor a Rabobank rider has won the jersey since the competition began in 1953. Sunday’s stage has two intermediate sprints, worth a maximum of 6 points, plus the stage finish, with 35 awarded to the winner. Freire will hope a breakaway eats up the former before he has to fight out the latter. “People don't understand how difficult it is to win the green jersey; you have to work for it every day. If you don't win (a stage), you have to go for the points at the intermediate sprints, and you lose a lot of power that way,” said Freire.
- King of the Mountains: Gerolsteiner’s Bernhard Kohl has secured this year’s KOM jersey.
- Best young rider: CSC-Saxo Bank’s Andy Schleck leads Roman Kreuziger of Liquigas by 1:17.
—Agence France Presse and senior writer Neal Rogers contributed to this report.
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