Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Vuelta a Espana 2007 Stage 8: Grabsch grabs the TT

Grabsch takes the TT win, Devolder the overall. Menchov gained time to close to within 30secs of the lead, and although he lost time today Evans cemented a top 5 placing. He's 1m 54 off the lead. Evans is either struggling a little, which would not be surprising given his strong TdF result, or is playing his usual waiting game and only doing enough to keep in the game. Or a combination of both, perhaps. Menchov looks the strongman, but can he keep it up?

From CN:German time trial champion Bert Grabsch confirmed his strength against the clock by setting a blistering 55 km/h pace to take the win in the stage eight time trial on the long, flat, draining course in Zaragoza. On a day which clearly favoured the time trial specialists, Grabsch edged out the Hungarian time trial champion László Bodrogi (Credit Agricole) by 34 seconds to take his first Vuelta stage win. "I knew that after the Tour I had good form, but the win does come a bit surprising," Grabsch told Radsportnews.com. "I had been fourth and fifth at a Vuelta time trial before. It's nice that it was enough this time to win."