THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING »

Get the VeloNews Email Newsletter FREE

  Learn More | Archive
Home » Top Stories » Road »

Karpets wins Swiss tour; Cancellara bags final stage

By Anthony Tan, VeloNews.com
Published: Jun. 24, 2007
Karpets in yellow
Karpets in yellow
Photo: AFP

Reversing a half-minute deficit to his teammate and maillot jaune Vladimir Efimkin at the start of the day, Caisse d'Epargne's Vladimir Karpets produced a superlative time-trial performance in the streets of Bern to capture overall victory at the 2007 Tour de Suisse.

"The time trial was very difficult, so I'm really, really happy to have this yellow jersey," said Karpets. "This is my second important victory this season after winning the Tour of Catalunya. The other favorites performed as I expected, but for me, the big surprise was [Stijn] Devolder."

Less surprising was the stage victory of Team CSC's Fabian Cancellara. On Sunday, the reigning world time-trial champion showed he's not only a big favorite for the Tour de France prologue in London a fortnight away, but also the two time trials to follow.

In comparison to his prologue win eight days prior, Cancellara's time of 41 minutes, 46 seconds was not as dominant, with 20 seconds separating him and Astana's Andreas Klöden and 33 seconds the difference between Cancellara and third-placed Stefan Schumacher of Gerolsteiner. However, ever since the Giro d'Italia, he's said that he's been training for the prologue, and quite clearly, there's only one thing on his mind right now.

"There was a new UCI rule introduced that limited the height of my time-trial bars, and we had to raise them just before I started," explained Cancellara. "What makes this tour special for me was that I won the first stage, I won the last stage, and I wore the leader's jersey for three days."

Luxembourg's Kim Kirchen held onto the second place he's had for the last two days to finish the Swiss tour 1:04 behind Karpets, which couples nicely with his second overall from Tirreno-Adriatico earlier this year. Though it was a much closer battle for the final podium place: after 1252.4 kilometers' racing, Discovery Channel's Stijn Devolder, who did arguably the ride of the day, and Unibet's Matteo Carrara remarkably finished on the same time, 1:30 behind Karpets, with the former only taking third on a count-back.

Lampre-Fondital's Damiano Cunego, despite not doing anything special all week, found himself fifth. It was unusual to see early leader Frank Schleck - an outside bet to win the race - do so poorly against the clock, losing 2:50 to Cancellara and ending the race seventh overall. And Efimkin, not a time-trial specialist, clearly succumbed to nerves, losing 3:22 to finish sixth.

So did we have a Tour winner in our midst?
Before the race began, T-Mobile's Michael Rogers and CSC's Carlos Sastre were the men expected to show signs of emerging form before they launched an all-out assault at the Tour de France.

Rogers showed none of that. On Stage 4 to Triesenberg-Malbun, the Australian lost almost four minutes to stage winner Frank Schleck; two days later, on the road to Crans Montana, he ended up taking a ticket in the autobus, before pulling out of the race before the day to Grimselpass.

Apparently Rogers's knee is giving him a spot of bother, but two weeks out from the world's biggest bike race, it's hardly motivation for a team that, from the beginning of the year, has openly declared that it has built its entire Tour de France aspirations around this man.

Sastre has been better, though far from brilliant.

The day Schleck won, he lost 5:48 by the finish. The stage to Crans Montana was much better, as he nursed then-race leader Schleck up the climb to end the day 1:21 behind Thomas Dekker. Grimselpass wasn't so good, but on the penultimate stage to Schwarzsee, he spent most of the day in a break before leading the race on his own, and was only caught 7km from the line.

If one were a teacher, Sastre's report card from the Tour de Suisse would read: "encouraging, but needs to improve".

Given there's still a fortnight to go prior the start of La Grande Boucle, and another three weeks before the Alps begin, there's still a little time for both Rogers and Sastre. However, in comparison to the performances of Alexandre Vinokourov, Andrey Kashechkin, Cadel Evans, Denis Menchov and even Sastre's teammate David Zabriskie at the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré, they appear to be some way behind this lot.

Now, whether Karpets has the capacity to finish on the podium of a race like the Tour de France is a good question. He has threatened, but never been able to crack the top five of a grand tour. And as long as Alejandro Valverde is on the team, we won't know the answer - unless, of course, Valverde isn't allowed to race, which could well happen if he doesn't sign the latest UCI anti-doping charter.

Unsurprisingly, Karpets wouldn't comment on such a scenario. "At the Tour de France, the leader is Alejandro - I will work for him. But if there is an opportunity, I will go for a stage win," he said.

Karpets has age on his side; quite clearly, he has the talent and the form - but it takes a special something to finish on the Paris podium. Let's see if he has it.

And then there were six
A perfect day of glorious sunshine dawned for the final stage of the Tour de Suisse. At the afternoon start in Bern, six men were all within a minute of each other, meaning six men had a chance of winning overall.

The honor or embarrassment of being first to leave Bern's Stade de Suisse, depending on which way you looked at it, went to lanterne rouge Guido Trenti of Liquigas. Ranked 139th on the general classification, Trenti was “leading” the last-rider competition by almost four minutes from Predictor-Lotto's Leif Hoste, so it looked like his last place was for keeps.

In fact, Hoste had set the early best time of 44:34, which stood right up until Paris-Roubaix champion Stuart O'Grady stopped the clock at 44:06, some 40 riders afterwards. But with his teammate Cancellara starting nine riders later, the Aussie's mark was made to look amateurish as the world time-trial champion blasted around the course and smashed all intermediate time checks to record an amazing 41:46 - 2:20 faster than O'Grady.

Although not quite as fast as Cancellara, Gerolsteiner rider Schumacher's 42:19 was a superb result nonetheless, slotting himself into provisional second, with Cofidis's Kevin De Weert third, his 43:48 solid but doubtless nowhere near good enough to finish on the podium.

Two minutes separated the final 20 coureurs, in line with their place on the overall classification. Klöden created waves when he went through the first time check 10 seconds faster than Cancellara, although by the finish, the German had lost half a minute to the Swiss, 42:06 giving him provisional second.

Meanwhile, as the battle for the overall classification was being waged behind Klöden, Karpets was looking particularly good, passing the first checkpoint the same time as Cancellara, and going on to record the sixth-best time of the day, behind Cancellara, Klöden, Schumacher, Devolder and Gusev.

The two men behind Karpets, Kirchen and the maillot jaune of Efimkin, were not even close, recording times of 44:02 and 45:09, and thus overall honors went to the man with the flowing blond locks.

Tour du Suisse
Final stage
1. Fabian Cancellara (Swi), CSC, 33.7km in 41:46
2. Andreas Klöden (G), Astana, at 0:20
3. Stefan Schumacher (G), Gerolsteiner, at 0:33
4. Stijn Devolder (B), Discovery Channel, at 1:04
5. Vladimir Gusev (Rus), Discovery Channel at 1:05
6. Vladimir Karpets (Rus), Caisse d’Epargne, at 1:06
7. Andrey Mizourov (Kaz), Astana, at 1:26
8. Gustav Larsson (Swe), Unibet.com, at 1:31
9. Thomas Dekker (Ned), Rabobank, at 1:36
10. Kevin De Weert (B), Cofidis, at 1:57

Final overall
1. Vladimir Karpets (Rus), Caisse d'Epargne, 30:07:23
2. Kim Kirchen (Lux), T-Mobile, at 1:04
3. Stijn Devolder (B), Discovery Channel, at 1:30
4. Matteo Carrara (I), Unibet.com, same time
5. Vladimir Efimkin (Rus), Caisse d’Epargne, at 1:41
6. Damiano Cunego (I), Lampre-Fondital, at 1:46
7. Frank Schleck (Lux), CSC, at 1:47
8. Gerrit Glomser (Aut), Volksbank, at 2:50
9. Rigoberto Uran (Col), Unibet.com, at 3:16
10. Andreas Klöden (G), Astana, at 3:19