Astana steamrolls team time trial

Team Astana blazed through the team time trial to win stage 4. Astana came across the line 40 seconds ahead of the Saxo Bank squad of race leader Fabian Cancellara — the exact margin by which Cancellara led Lance Armstrong on general classification. After some careful math by race officials, Cancellara now holds the yellow jersey by a fraction of a second over Armstrong. Garmin-Slipstream finished second on the day, 18 seconds down.

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Cancellara keeps the jersey by a fraction of a second over Armstrong

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$2009 TdF, stage 4: Astana approaches the finish line, looking for that last fraction of a second to put Armstrong in yellow.$

2009 TdF, stage 4: Astana approaches the finish line, looking for that last fraction of a second to put Armstrong in yellow.

Photo: Agence France Presse

Team Astana blazed through the team time trial to win stage 4. Astana came across the line 40 seconds ahead of the Saxo Bank squad of race leader Fabian Cancellara — the exact margin by which Cancellara led Lance Armstrong on general classification. After some careful math by race officials, Cancellara now holds the yellow jersey by a fraction of a second over Armstrong.

Garmin-Slipstream finished second on the day, 18 seconds down.

Astana came into the stage with four riders in the top 10 thanks to their time trialing ability, and that strength showed again on the 39km stage around Montpellier. Held largely on narrow roads, the technical course featured more than a few dicey corners that put riders from several teams on the ground.

Giro d’Italia champion Denis Menchov (Rabobank) was the first to go down, sliding out on a tight left-hand bend that soon felled World champion Alessandro Ballan (Lampre).

But Astana, having previewed the course several times, rode with precision and focused determination, avoiding any mishaps. They were rewarded for their efforts with Armstrong slotting into second overall, followed by Alberto Contador, Andreas Klöden and Levi Leipheimer in third through fifth, respectively.

“It’s a little bit of a disappointment,” Armstrong said of the narrow miss. “But the yellow jersey is on the horizon. Astana did their maximum.”

2009 TdF, stage 4: Garmin lost four riders early, but continued on with five of the best TT riders in the world.

Photo: Agence France Presse

How it played out

On stage 3, Columbia-HTC shattered the peloton with a team time trial of its own, reshuffling the general classification to bump up those who made the front split. Columbia-HTC guttered the peloton in a crosswind, riding a tight echelon on the front, and a group of 25 men — including 7 Columbia riders — made it to the finish ahead of the main group that contained GC contenders Cadel Evans, Alberto Contador and many others.

2009 Tour de France

Stage 4: Montpellier TTT
39km (24.2 miles): Stage winner: Team Astana in 46:29; Stage winner’s average speed: 50.34 kph (31.28 mph); GC leader: Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank); Points leader: Mark Cavendish (Columbia HTC); Climbing leader: Jussi Veikkanen (FdJ); Team GC leader: Team Astana; Best young rider: Tony Martin (Columbia-HTC)
Previous stage wins/GC leaders: Stage 1: Cancellara/Cancellara; Stage 2: Cavendish/Cancellara; Stage 3: Cavendish/Cancellara
Up Next:: Stage 5 is 196.5km (122.1 miles) from Le Cap d’Agde to Perpignan. The mostly flat stage includes a hilly loop in the middle of the race, but a long, flat run-in that will favor the sprinters’ teams.

Stage 4 was the actual team time trial, an event not held at the Tour since 2005, when American Dave Zabriskie crashed just outside the final kilometer while in the yellow jersey and his CSC squad lost the event by two seconds to Discovery Channel.

Katusha set the early best time of 47:27 despite losing Danilo Napolitano and Styn Vandenbergh.

With each team’s time based on its fifth rider to cross the line, squads could afford to burn up riders or leave them if a crash or lack of speed pulled them out.

With winds gusting up to 25kph, often coming as a head-crosswind, riders constantly had to remained focused.

Coming around a righthand bend, Bbox Bougyues Telecom came in hot and soon four riders were in the ditch. No one was hurt, but it took some time to get back together. Soon after Pierre Roland was dropped.

Lampre finished with five riders, two minutes off Katusha’s pace.

Last year’s runner-up, Cadel Evans, came into this year’s Tour with the team time trial as his known Achilles heel. Although Evans can often match the best climbers and time trialists mano a mano, his Silence-Lotto squad would have to deliver on par with Astana, Saxo Bank and Columbia-HTC to keep Evans high on the general classification.

It was not to be.

Just a few minutes into their race, Silence lost a rider when Jurgen Vandenbroeck touched wheels with the rider in front of him and went down. Coming down the finishing straight, Evans was on the front, giving it his all — but the effort split his team, and only Sebastian Lang could hold his wheel. His team was marked when the back half of his shattered team rolled across the line in 49:05.

Liquigas finished with five riders to set a new best time of 47:27.

Garmin-Slipstream went out hard, quickly losing Tyler Farrar, Danny Pate, Martijn Maaskant and Julian Dean. That left them with their GC hope, Christian Vande Velde, three time trial specialists — Dave Zabriskie, Bradley Wiggins and David Millar — and Ryder Hesjedal. But these five kept a tight rotation and fiery pace all the way to the finish, pegging a new best time of 46:47.

Team Saxo Bank, with race leader Fabian Cancellara, was the third from last to take to the road. They were followed by Columbia-HTC and then Astana.

The day’s general classification started with Cancellara ahead of Columbia-HTC’s Tony Martin (33 seconds), Lance Armstrong (40 seconds) and Alberto Contador (40 seconds).

2009 TdF, stage 4: Clearly the strongest team out there.

Photo: Graham Watson

Cancellara took longer pulls than the rest of his teammates, and was on the front when they flew into the same righthand bend that brought Bbox down. Saxo Bank also came in hot, and Cancellara and Gustav Larsson had to put some body English on their bikes to keep them on the road. No one went down, but the team’s formation was temporarily split.

Saxo Bank kept its 9 men together for most of the stage. Cancellara pulled six of his Saxo Bank teammates across the line to finish in 47:09.

Columbia-HTC appeared to pay for the previous day’s efforts, and despite riding a carefully orchestrated time trial finished in 47:28, which put them in fifth on the day.