Strong rides in the 18-mile individual time trial on Tuesday catapulted Christian Vande Velde, left, and George Hincapie into 6th and 7th place overall at the Tour de France.
But it was Germany's Stefan Schumacher riding for Gerolsteiner who stole the show at Stage 4 in Cholet with his stage win, which also put him in first place in the general classification, just 12 seconds ahead of Team Columbia's Kim Kirchen.
In fact, half the riders in the top 10 are members of the two US-based team in this year's Tour de France. Here's the overall Top 10 breakdown with the US teams bold-faced:
1. Stefan Schumacher (Ger) Gerolsteiner
2. Kim Kirchen (Lux) Columbia, 0.12
3. David Millar (GBr) Garmin Chipotle – H30
4. Cadel Evans (Aus) Silence-Lotto, 0.21
5. Fabian Cancellara (Swi) CSC-Saxo Bank, 0.23
6. Christian Vande Velde (USA) Garmin Chipotle – H30, 0.37
7. George Hincapie (USA) Columbia, 0.41
8. Thomas Lövkvist (Swe) Columbia, 0.47
9. Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas, 0.58
10 José Iván Gutierrez (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne, 1.01
How important was this individual time trial? Suffice to say that the top 5 finishers on the day ended up in the same position in the overall category.
For Vande Velde, his performance boosted him from 25th place at the beginning of the day to 6th place. Hincapie was in 19th at the start of the day.
William Frischkorn, the US cyclist for Garmin-Chipotle who almost won Monday's stage, dropped from 3rd place overall down to 57th based on his time trial showing that was 4 minutes slower than Schumacher's.
You can see that the favorites like Silence-Lotto's Cadel Evans are rising to the top; he's in fourth place overall.
Although he's not in the top 10, another favorite, Denis Menchov of Rabobank, rose from 57th overall to 11th place, just 1:12 out of first place. He finished 6th on the day, after losing time Monday when he was caught behind a crash.
One of the big losers of the day was Alejandro Valverde. The Spanish cyclist who held the yellow jersey after the first two days struggled on Tuesday, finishing in 1:34 behind Schumacher in 23rd place. Overall, he's in 17th place, at 1:27 behind.
Team-wise, the “wild card” Garmin-Chipotle is again ranked first in the team competition by 1-minute-44.
Here's the top 10 finishers on the Stage 4 individual time trial:
1. Stefan Schumacher in 35:44
2. Kim Kirchen, 18 seconds behind
3. David Millar at 18 seconds
4. Cadel Evans at 27 seconds
5. Fabian Cancellara at 33 seconds
6. Denis Menchov at 34 seconds
7. Jens Voigt at 35 seconds
8. Christian Vandevelde at 37 seconds
9. George Hincapie at 41 seconds
10. Vincenzo Nibali at 47 seconds
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