The chicken has wings

Rasmussen delivered the goods and saved the maillot jaune. He did not crack under the pressure of ongoing doping allegations or his dubious time-trialing abilities. I bet that was the best TT of his entire career. He finished a surprising 11th and conceded only 2'55 to Vinokourov. I could not quite believe my eyes when he passed Valverde out on course! Unfortunately, that also raised a few red flags for me. Either Rasmussen is doping or Valverde is not.

So what happened to Valverde today? How did Valverde lose so much time? His lackluster performance dropped him from 2nd into 11th, ouch!

The BIG story today was Vinokourov. The man is on a serious mission. He has the entire country of Kazakhstan behind him and definitely proved today that he should not be counted out just yet. His blistering performance blasted him from 19th to 9th overall. After the race Vino said: "I am finding my legs again. Now I want to attack in the Pyrénées." His rivals should be shaking in their boots over a comment like that.

Astana's two other top dogs, Klöden and Kashechkin, rode amazingly well considering that they both crashed. If Klöden had not crashed he surely would have finished 2nd.

I love that Discovery Channel's Yaroslav Popovych and Alberto Contador both beat Levi against the clock. Is that mean of me? Contador now sits in 3rd position with the Pyrenees still to come. This guy has the goods and will go far. I would love for him to finish ahead of Levi in the final GC.


Not to be overlooked is Cadel Evans, who sits exactly one minute behind Rasmussen in 2nd place.  The next couple of stages should be really interesting, especially since Discovery has two riders and Astana has three men in the top 10.

It is too bad that the rain and slippery roads took some of the time trial favorites, such as Cancellara, out of the running for the stage win. I wonder how the standings would have looked if the roads were dry.

The race is so exciting this year!