FanPost

Tour de San Luis- Stage 4. Nibali Takes the Lead

I am back again with the Tour de San Luis Report. Not a lot to report today as we had the ITT. The course was reasonably short with 19Km. Start was in down town San Luis then straight ahead to the road after a 90 degrees turn, a long straight and back. The course was also reasonably flat gaining less than 100 m on the first half and loosing them all on the way back. 

How it unfolded on the flip.

Temperature was high and there were some crosswinds once in the road as Robert Bengsch (Ger) registered and early best time of 24 min and 22 seconds. Veteran and former world ITT champion(2002) and polka dot winner (2000) Santiago Botero did a nice effort which put him in second position temporarily, it was not enough to win as he slipped to 10th place at the end of the stage but it was sufficient to get him a 6th position on GC.

At the end of the stage temperature was going down as Nibali set the best time of 24:18 to win the stage. Bengsch still finished second and brazilian Pedro Nicasio (Funvic-Pindamonhangaba) and argertinean Jorge Giacinti (Scott) finished with the same time (24:29) tied in 3rd.

Nibali's win catapulted him to the top of GC, followed by Giacinti and Jose Serpa (Diquigiovanni blablabla). Former leader Rafael Valls (Footon) is now 9th at 1:22 and the chicken is 12th at 1:59.

Full results.

Interestingly some of the riders were not using their time trial rigs, including Rafael Valls who apparently was using a regular road race bike with aero bars and lenticular disc rear wheel.

Tomorrow we have mountains again. Will Valls strike back? Can the chicken perform?