The 24km TTT has no splits but it does have a couple of hills that should not be underestimated.
Coming into the finish, Agritubel had 5 riders left, having dropped Vigano and Dekkers. Zaballa hung on and the strong TT squad led me Gutierrez Palacios and Pena set the target of 34'24.
Barloworld kept all 7 riders but Pavel Brutt led them across at 34'59, well down on the french team. My control team finished over 3 minutes back, safely in last. Wiesenhof set a disappointing 35'48 time, 84 seconds behind Agritubel.
Volksbank came to the Meditteranean with Irish TT Champ Gallagher and Austrian TT Champ Trampusch. Bram Tankink led them over in 3rd out of 5, with 35'05. Luca Mazzanti led a strong Tinkoff squad into 2nd, 34'37 could well keep them in a high position for the rest of the stage.
35'10 for Une Orbitel puts them only ahead of Wiesenhof and the Control team, in 5th. Nippo went worse though with 35'33, having dropped one of their lead TT guys, Mottin, before the finish.
Caldwell led the Slipstream team over in 34'51. Thats 3rd for now and there will be no repeat of the Qatar victory. Landbouwkredit came in with 6 having dropped Bongiorno many kilometres previously. 34'44 gave them 3rd.
With 35'12, the French filled PCMdaily Jobs.com squad was able to beat Nippo and Wiesenhof. HealthNet also beat Nippo/Wiesenhof but finishing with 5 riders they could not beat the Frenchies 35'25 for HealthNet. To continue our theme of poor performances: Panaria. 36'19 meant they only beat the Control team, A severe blow for the squad who only brought 6 men anyway.
SouthAustralia.com were significantly better, going 6th with 35'01. DFL went quicker, 34'56 slotted them into 5th. The fact that Marco Polo finished with 7 shows how bad they went, with 3 riders under 60 TT stat! They saved Panaria's blushes by going 1 second slower with 36'20.
Designa Kokken could only manage 9th with 35'09 while 35'21 gave Benfica 12th. Maxbo Bianchi could only go 10 seconds quicker, taking 11th with 31'11. Finally, Letua. Daniel Martin led them over having dropped Casper and a SUPERB performance of 35'42 gave them a position that was worse than Nippo.
So Agritubel win having led from start to finish! Tinkoff are 2nd, and Landbouwkredit 3rd. Pietro Caucchioli takes the Leaders jersey while Tinkoff's Tom Stubbe is the best young rider.
