Tour de France - Souvenir Fabio Casartelli

No surprise that “Mr Time Trial” Fabian Cancellara was the best young rider in the first stage Time trial. That said, Vladimir Karpets had a great ride finishing just 3 seconds behind him. Karpets also put nearly a minute and a half into his team leader Francisco Mancebo and was his team’s best rider on the day.

Yaroslav Popovych lived up to expectations with a solid 3rd spot amongst the young riders, while both Luis Leon Sanchez and Alberto Contador (4th and 7th) out raced their team leaders Roberto Heras and Joseba Beloki. Andrei Grivko is the Champion of the Ukraine in the TT and was the 5th best placed young gun , but the big surprise was to see Tom Boonen ride so strongly and finish in 6th spot.

Todays sprint finish saw Boonen gain the bonus winning 20 seconds and leap frog over Grivko and Sanchez to move into 4th spot. Now just 27 seconds behind Fabian Cancellara , Boonen may yet take the white jersey to go with his Green one before the mountains, although the Team Time Trial will cause a big shake up and Popovych could well be in white on Tuesday evening .

So after two stages the standings are –

Young rider’s classification Stage 2

1 Fabian Cancellara Fassa Bortolo 4.13.24
2 Vladimir Karpets Illes Balears-Caisse d'Epargne 0.03
3 Yaroslav Popovych Discovery Channel 0.16
4 Tom Boonen Quick.Step 0.27
5 Luis León Sanchez Liberty Seguros-Würth 0.37
6 Andrei Grivko Domina Vacanze 0.44
7 Alberto Contador Liberty Seguros-Würth 0.55
8 Mauro Facci Fassa Bortolo 0.58
9 Thomas Lövkvist Française Des Jeux 1.04
10 Bernhard Eisel Française Des Jeux 1.06