The individual time trial on Wednesday gave Tony Martin the stage win and a new rider put on the race leader’s jersey as the Dauphiné passed the half way point in racing.
Reigning world time trial champion Tony Martin stormed the 32.5km super-flat course to earn the win with a best time of 36:55, a full 47-seconds ahead of second place finisher Rohan Dennis of Garmin-Sharp. The consolation prize for Dennis was the yellow jersey as the young Australian rider took over the race lead by five seconds to Christopher Froome of Sky. Rounding out the GC top three is Froome’s teammate Edvald Boasson Hagen.
RADIOSHACK LEOPARD TREK’s best performances came from Tony Gallopin and Haimar Zubeldia but both were just outside the top 20. Team director Allain Gallopin: “We have no time trial specialists here so the stage went as expected. We hope to arrive with Haimar in the top ten overall. Tomorrow’s mountains will change everything a lot. We had no high placings today but we did better than Valverde, Fuglsang and Contador and we look now to the climbs."
An early best time on the course from Villars-les-Dombes to Parc des Oiseaux was set by Jan Barta of NetApp with a time of 38:30. Some 50 more riders came in before Martin stormed the course and set the bar too high for others to reach. He was challenged by Dennis and Froome, but his commanding 47-second lead kept him at the top throughout the stage.
There is still plenty of racing ahead in the 2013 Critérium du Dauphiné as the difficult mountain stages are still to come including tomorrow’s uphill finish on the HC climb to Valmorel at the end of 143km of racing.
