Owen Hannie

The Swiss ‘gladiator’ proves he’s the best against the clock

Switzerland’s Olympic Time Trial Champion, Fabian Cancellara, fresh from his overall victory at the Tour de Suisse and the Swiss Road Championship, put a season of injury and illness behind him in Monaco yesterday, winning the opening stage of the 96th Tour de France to reinstate his status as the worlds best cyclist against the clock.

The course was not really suited to his talents, with a tough 6% climb on the first half of the 15.5km TT circuit, with the 80kg Swiss gladiator setting the third fastest time at the top of the climb, which was six seconds slower than Astana’s Alberto Contador. However, Cancellara’s weight advantage and tremendous average power output of 536 watts saw him annihilate his competition.

Sure, he must have taken a few risks around the twists and turns of the demanding Monaco Grand Prix circuit but in the end Cancellara was untouchable, putting clear daylight between himself and Contador, the overall favourite.

My most surprising ride of the day came from Bradley Wiggins, the Belgian-born British track cyclist, turned professional road cyclist for team Garmin-Slipstream. Wiggins, who won three medals on the track at the Athens Olympics, and a further two gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, came home just 19 seconds off the pace of Cancellara. Maybe, I should not have been so surprised, because the 29 year old has a very impressive résumé especially against the clock, although most of it was over 4 000m on a velodrome.

Mr. Lance Armstrong, at the age of 37 also raised quite a few eyebrows yesterday. The Texan went off very early in the 180-man field, and set a time that caught the attention of most of the peleton (20minutes and 12 seconds), which would eventually be good enough for 10th place (not bad for a guy that has come back after a 3½ year retirement and a shattered collarbone earlier this year).

Today’s stage should be one for the sprinters, unless a fortuitous breakaway spoils the day for the speed demons.

Mark “Manx” Cavendish, winner of four Tour stages last year will be the marked man on the stage and on paper is definitely the man to do the job. However, the opening sprint of any tour can be a lottery with nervy riders making some daft decisions in the mad dash for the line. Also keep an eye on Tom ‘ Everything keeps going right’ Boonen and Thor ‘The Hammer’ Hushovd for the stage victory in Brignoles.

Team Saxo Bank have their work cut out for them today, as they will have the unenviable honor of trying to protect Cancellara’s 18 second Yellow-jersey advantage, with their domestiques doing just enough work over the 187km stage to entice the sprinters teams to take over the work load towards the end of the stage, but there is always the possibility that a breakaway may spoil the sprinter parade. Saxo Bank Director Sportif, Bjarne Riis, is a very wily manager and with his experience, he will make sure that the yellow jersey remains in their camp until Tuesday’s stage, a 39km Team Time Trial.