Do you ever get the feeling that doping scandals only exist to piss off the media? First Pro Cycling and Cycle Sport and all the other identikit monthlies wasted two months on worthless Ullrich vs Basso covers/features, then Cycling Weekly published with "All hail Landis the hero" as the cover story on the exact same day that news of Landis's positive test results were announced. As bad as it is for Cycling Weekly, somehow we suspect the monthlies have got it harder -- rapidly having to retype their own sycophantic articles about Landis before they go to press, just so they can avoid having publishing an utterly redundant issue of their magazine for the third month in a row. "FUCKINGBASTARD LANDIS I'VE WORKED 90 HOURS THIS WEEK ALREADY" is exactly how we're expecting Cycle Sport's editorial to read.

At times like this, it feels as though we're the only cycling "journalists" not having to eat our words.

Anyway, the whole internet has exploded into a more-than-annoying flurry of stupid people saying either:
1. "I'm so disappointed in Landis. It's a big surprise."
2. "I'm so disappointed in Landis. But it's no surprise."
3. "STFU all you haters the jury is still out."
4. "You're all forgetting that he's innocent until proven guilty. Let's wait and see." Usually directly followed by them demanding: "Name me another sport which is clean!" People on the internet clearly don't understand irony.
5. "I don't think I can like this sport any more."
6. "So what? Everyone dopes."

As a result, we're going to be avoiding the internet altogether. Being a message board idiot is far worse a crime than doping to win a sporting event, surely?

Tomorrow:
Some visual comedy that has absolutely nothing to do with anything topical, meaning we don't have to go anywhere near any cycling-related websites.

We've never liked talented people. They seem so stable in their special abilities, capable of drawing or singing or whatever, and always managing to inadvertently rub our noses in it because we feel insecure about having no redeemable features whatsoever. Inadvertently rubbing people's noses in things is the worst kind of put-down because it's done without even trying, further cementing the superiority of the talented person.

But this is the first time we've ever been convinced that a talented person has outwardly tried to piss us off. Of course, they haven't actually tried to do so -- it's simply another case of us being inadvertently made to feel insecure -- but they might as well have for the strange mixture of awe and anger this art has instilled in us. Look, it's a very, very valiant Floyd Landis:



Our attention was brought to it recently, and the picture appears to have been drawn by someone who goes by the name Ferdinand Le Leon, which we hope is their real name because it's very cool. We particularly like the way that the artist didn't shirk away from making Landis looks as ugly as he does in real life. We also like the fact that the artist chose to draw a samurai sword rather than the bidon that appeared to be glued to Landis's hand, which makes his solo efforts seem far more exciting. We're hoping there'll be a second one with Floyd munching away at Oscar Pereiro's severed head, but that might be a bit much.

The artist's Livejournal, possibly. If we had this talent we'd probably just spent all day drawing pictures of Alejandro Valverde and Victoria Pendleton killing zombies.

BONUS:
We now have a Livejournal syndicated feed! Add us if you know what on Earth that means! Link

Was it three weeks already? Hasn't this year's Tour de France just flown by? Maybe they should go and do another lap or something.

Farewell, The Best Tour Ever (tm) -- we barely even knew ye. Of course, we did know it enough to realise that it was only the best Tour ever if you ignored the first ten days of utter tedium and the charmless catenaccio racing on the first three mountain stages. Or rather, it was the best Tour ever if you only include the last five stages. And even then you're including two flat stages and a time trial with a foregone conclusion.

Floyd Landis, the Mennonite Metorite (or the Mennonite Mandible, if you're a message board wag) won The Best Tour Ever (tm) with The Best Solo Breakaway Ever (tm). In fact, it was so good that we had to avoid our friends list and RSS reader just to get a break from all of the shamelessly kneejerk (and grammatically incorrect) posts claiming that Landis is a "legend". We're not even going to mention our thoughts on it all because we got so many stroppy e-mails the last time we dissed Landis.

Damiano Cunego picked up the white jersey and actually increased his lead in the competition during the final time-trial. We've no idea how he managed tenth place in his weakest discipline, but we're sort of glad he did. Sorry Marcus Fothen, but Damiano will always be the number one wunderkind.

Mickael Rasmussen won the polka dot jersey with a fabulous breakaway, and proved he was the best climber in the process. David De La Fuente was admirable in his painful-to-watch pursuit of the jersey, but Rasmussen looks as though he was born to wear it. And given his rather grotesque frame, there's probably very few other things our Mickael actually looks good in.

Robbie McEwen won the green jersey, beating such renouned sprinters as that guy from Lampre and that other fella Krusty Anderson always picks to win. He probably deserves it, but it was still pleasing to see the mighty Thor Hushovd crush him on the Champs Elysées.

And that's it for another year, when we're hoping that somebody a little more aesthetically pleasing will win.

Those Pro Tour managers, they're far too polite. "No, after you," they say. "We couldn't possibly chase Floyd Landis down." And they didn't. And now DerailedUK's least favourite rider in the world is going to win the Tour de France. We've already forwarded our own version of Martin Niemöller's most famous poem, First they came..., to all the directeur sportifs involved. We'll let you know if we get any responses. Hell, we'll probably even reproduce it here once we've run out of better things to write about.

We managed to interview Floyd Landis after his stage win today. Read on for the transcript.

Harold Turismo: Floyd, you certainly looked pretty CHARGED UP for the win today.
Floyd Landis: Yes, I was hungry for it. I knew I was better than I looked yesterday.

HT: You'd looked strong for the whole Tour, but yesterday it appeared as though your supply had run out. Today you looked as though you'd got it restocked.
FL: Definitely. I felt depleted yesterday, but I was able to dig very deep today.

HT: I understand Phonak stayed in the same hotel as Eurosport's crew last night. Did you dine with Richard?
FL: Oh no, I didn't feel like leaving my room after the way the stage went. Luckily, my good friend Lance was in town and he brought me up a freezer bag full of my favourite things.

HT: Thank you Floyd, the spirit of a champion obviously runs through your veins.

We're not implying anything at all, and definitely not that Landis is renouned as the biggest cheat in the peleton. And if we, say, completely lose all interest in the Tour as result and probably never watch it again, you can be assured that the reason is absolutely not because we think the biggest doper in pro cycling is going to win a Tour that should've been one of renewal after the high profile doping cleanup surrounding its start. We're positive on that.

5. Stage One
After the surprise of the prologue result, optimism was high in the DerailedUK Tour camp. It started well, but things rapidly got worse. Hincapie shot out of the bunch to pick up enough bonus seconds to take the yellow jersey; the sprint started, but someone forgot to tell Boonen; as well as losing the yellow jersey, Thor Hushovd managed to take an horrific injury from a PMU hand. Rumours of the US Army testing a giant green hand cannon have yet to be confirmed.

4. Stage Seven
The first time trial was the day we'd find out how well the race favourites were going. Who would emerge on top: Landis? Hincapie? Err... Wiggins? It turned out to be that old man who pushes massive gears, Serhiy Gonchar, who took the stage pushing a slightly less massive gear, as the favourites crashed and burned (with the emphasis on the "crash" in Bobby Julich's case). Landis changed bikes to bypass the last minute UCI sanctions placed on his ridiculous position, but still lost a minute despite this act of deception. Ha!

3. Stage Thirteen
Floyd Landis: 2004 23rd, 2005 9th. Oscar Pereiro: 2004 10th, 2005 10th. This stage was impressive just for the lunacy on display in seeing Phonak "give" half an hour to someone who consistently finishes a mere place below Landis's highest ever finish. The Phonak team looked hugely imcompetent whilst Landis was in yellow, and not even defending the jersey in case their weakness was highlighted was enough to piss off the French fans and riders -- and the other race contenders won't exactly be worrying for their chances after that kind of display.

2. Stage Eleven
The first mountain stage, and we were treated to five whole Pyreneean cols. Every proper cycling fan's favourite rider, Iban Mayo, was the first man dropped on the stage. But at least he didn't do it gracefully, audibly swearing at the race motorcycle and having to pay a fine as well as abandoning. T-Mobile displayed their famed tactical nous by exhausting themselves on the penultimate climb, seeming to forget there was one more to come and isolating Kloeden in the process. Denis Menchov didn't get the publicity he deserved for winning the stage, but we're expecting him to impress a lot of people yet in this year's Tour.

1. Stage Fourteen
This stage had it all. If making the riders race over melting roads wasn't enough, we got plenty of crashes too. Matthias Kessler went completely head-over-heels, and stood up wearing his jersey inside out over his helmet, looking confused to see his bike in the middle of a vineyard below. With the peleton bearing down on the two leading riders, and Vandevelde trying to bridge the gap adding to the tension, it wasn't until the podium that we realised just how aerodynamic stage winner Pierrick Fedrigo's face was. Forget blood doping, the peleton will be turning to rhinoplasty after that performance.

We've decided to review the rest day reviews! How ironic! (It's a bit long, sorry.)

In internet land, Pez Cycling News provided plenty of coverage. From the mundane (tech review) to the expected (wrap up of the current race situation) to the... err... expected again (Alpe d'Huez previews), Pez certainly got one over on its uncharismatic rivals, CyclingNews, who did some rubbish about the Etape, gossipped about some riders, and reproduced some barely passable rest day "wit" from another site:

Fat Cyclist did an obligatory "hilarious" rest day update, suggesting that this year's Tour should just restart after the rest day since all the important riders (American) have been subject to "bad luck". As much as we tried to dislike it, the update earns bonus points for having the audacity to imply that the "people left in the race [...] lurch around haphazardly from stage to stage as if they were drug addicts who had suddenly gone cold turkey".

The various Livejournal communities seemed less concerned with the race itself and more interested in sharing pictures of Thomas Lokvist and Philipe Gilbert to use as icons. There was a brief discussion of how well Savoldelli was going, before we got chastised for suggesting that his reputation as a descender might have been dented by him crashing into a spectator and having to retire from the race.

On the television front, Eurosport didn't seem to put very much effort into their rest day coverage. In fact, there was little more to it than a discussion of what riders do on the rest day. (Duffield's response? "The first thing they do is go out on their bike. Well, the first thing they do is wake up. Then they have some breakfast. They sign autographs and chat. Then they go out on their bikes. Then they have lunch...")

ITV did a highlights package. Gary Imlach presented, doing his VER-y best to over EMPH-asise certain bits of WORDS for a dry, sarca-STIC tone. We also noticed the return of his characteristic pauses ... for a similar eff-ECT.

THE WINNER:
The coverage of this second rest day was fairly reflective of this year's Tour: no real competition, with being mediocre seeming to constitute a passing grade. We'll say ITV are the winners this time, because they've got that mirror image twins thing going on between Imlach and Boardman, but the whole cycling media needs to do better.

We've been betting on which TV channel would be the first to use the Automatic's Monster in a mountain stage's highlights since we first heard the song. Yesterday, ITV consumated our anticipation, much to our utter delight. In actual fact, we probably wouldn't have warmed to this act of gross predictibility if that thing that came over the hill, one Floyd Landis, didn't look quite so much like the monster to which the song refers.

Has ITV shown its hand and attacked too early? How can Eurosport react to ITV's impressive "apt music" early breakaway? If the skeletal Mickael Rasmussen wins a stage, Inger Lorre's Haunted Hill may well be enough, but otherwise we can't think of many suitable Tour songs. At a push, Jeff Buckley's Dream Brother could be used over footage of Tyler Hamilton, but even we know that a dream brother isn't the same thing as a phantom twin.

Any readers who are in bands should take heed: it's time to start cashing in on the Tour de France in a big way. Kraftwerk have been doing so for years, and they've almost got the monopoly on cycling background music. Something cycling-related that's a little less German and a lot less pretentious could make you millionaires in a couple of seasons, we absolutely promise.

Whilst we're waiting for the onslaught of cycling-themed music to arrive (along with the royalty cheques we deserve for giving you all the idea), there must be some other apt songs that can be used in cycling coverage. Suggest some to the usual e-mail address and we'll definitely give you something really, really good as a reward.

Rubbish. We thought that the race was supposed to be more exciting without Lance, but the favourites' charmless display of catenaccio racing on the final slope of the day was hugely irritating. Please, please, please stop racing to not lose, and start racing to win, guys. We want to be dazzled by baffling attack after baffling attack, not bored by the latest efficient scientific anti-loss tactics.

Ok, so the stage was actually quite good. And a Russian beat two Americans, which should cause hairs to stand on the backs of the necks of more than a few Americans over 40 years old.

Mayo watch:
He gave up, and so do we. We're not supporting anyone in this Tour unless they sign a contract promising not to abandon.

We checked the DerailedUK inbox this week and discovered that we actually had e-mails that weren't offering us details of Nigerian pyramid schemes or penis enlargement pills. Sadly, most of these e-mails went along the lines of "How dare you say such things about Floyd Landis? He does NOT have a square head!" This one was good though. So good, in fact, that we wish we'd noticed it prior to the Tour so we could've passed it off as our own. It's from a Mr Damian Field, who we sort of know!

Here are 6 things I'd love to see at this year's Tour:

1. Millartime happening again at the prologue.
2. The big showdown between Basso & Ullrich being upstaged by The Little Prince & Balaverde.
3. Sean Kelly finally losing it with Duffers & shouting 'for Christ's sake watch the race!'
4. Tom Boonen winning loads of sprints & wearing a sexually explicit t-shirt in the post race interviews.
5. Manolo Saiz attempting a roadside protest as the race enters the Pyrenees.
6. All the American GC hopefuls falling out with each other & ensuring that there are no more chants of 'USA, USA, USA' on the Champs-Elysees.

We want to see all of those things happen too, but we now know that only number six is even remotely likely. If anyone in the Tour entourage is reading this, do us a favour and have a few rounds of Chinese whispers until all the American riders can be seen noticably grumbling "Levi said WHAT about me?" on the start line.

Send us an amusing e-mail and you too can become an official DerailedUK Derailleur.

...well, for today at least. We've never really warmed to the fact that Fat Cyclist's entries always follow the same "news report about something that would be a bit funny if it really happened, haha" script, but despite our cynicism we've been unable find any fault whatsoever with his preview of tomorrow's stage. Which is good because it means we can just link to it here rather than writing something ourselves. (Hey, it's not just a rest day for the riders, you know.)

This is how race previews are supposed to be done.

Having a website is so easy these days.

There were no opportunities for Robbie McEwen to get a sly hand sling from a team mate in today's time trial, and he happened not to win. COINCIDENCE? Well yes, actually. We just wanted to draw attention to the fact that McEwen is a cheat as well as a vinegar-faced self-aggrandising whinger.

In fact, it generally wasn't a good day for those beloved "English-speaking-riders" to which our media is so fond of referring. Just two riders from Anglicised countries made it into the top ten, despite the pre-race hype picking out mountains of English, Aussie and American riders as favourites. Sebastian Lang set the long-standing fastest time AGAIN, and eventually finished third on the stage, before Serguei Honchar won by a minute from the absurd looking Praying Landis, both of whom suffered in the final third of the course. It was all rather interesting for a little while, if only for the entertainment value of watching all the race favourites crash and burn (with the emphasis on the "crash" in Bobby Julich's case).

The best bit of the day was when Boonen caught McEwen, then they both looked as though they'd decided to sprint for the checkpoints as they rode around shoulder to shoulder. Apparently McEwen was actually psyching Boonen out, which probably would've been more effective if Boonen hadn't just put two minutes into him in twenty kilometres of racing.

Actually scrap all of that, the whole stage was pretty dull again. But at least it wasn't another sprint.

Mayo watch:
82nd on the stage, losing five minutes and thirty-seven seconds. The way we see it, Iban has two options now: don't lose any more time and attack on the Izoard on stage 15 to take a lone stage win by seventeen minutes on the race favourites; OR give up and pack before the Alps. We're kind of expecting the latter.

Shock! Horror! A breakaway nearly stayed away! Unfortunately the peleton woke up just in time, and rapidly ate away at Samuel Dumoulin and Björn Schröder's lead in the final ten kilometres. Disappointment all round.

The finish was just as chaotic as we've become accustomed to in this year's race. Boonen moved from good position to bad postition to good position, and Robbie McEwen, a master of advanced "following Boonen's wheel" tactics did the same. Oscar Friere blasted around the outside un-noticed, and Boonen couldn't quite respond. First place for Friere, second for Tornado Tom. And, strangely, Euskaltel's Inaki Isasi managed third.

Robbie McEwen's sprint went off like a damp squib, meaning that none of the commentators or pundits had any reason to talk about "English speaking riders" (although they all still did, like the disgusting profit-seeking sniffer dogs they are).

Mayo watch:
92nd on the stage. Ever get the feeling that he could win the Tour if he didn't have to do the week and a half of flat stages?

Tomorrow:
We'll stop all this staid race coverage bollocks and go back to showing you pictures of monkeys riding bikes.

Another flat(ish) stage. We're not saying they're not riveting viewing or anything, but we do feel a great urge to actually go outside and do something rather than watch four hours worth of a lot of cyclists riding at a moderate speed before deciding to try to catch a handful of other cyclists. Next year we're going to just watch old videos of the Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris-Roubaix whenever there's a flat stage on. At least that way we'd get to see Boonen win.

Today we got to see Bradley Wiggins in a break! Near the end he couldn't keep the pace and got dropped off the back. For some reason, he decided to blame this on every French rider in the race, seemingly forgetting that he rides for a French team. Shortly afterwards, the rest of the breakaway group got caught too and Robbie McEwen won the stage. What kind of Flandrian lets an Aussie win, Tom? Tom?

Mayo watch:
Crashed just before the pace lifted for the sprint and had to spend 5km chasing to catch the peleton. The sight of Mayo at the back being paced by his team-mates is already a little too familiar in this year's Tour.

When a Spanish rider is tipped as the favourite to win a race that crosses Belgium and finishes on the Amstel Gold race's Cauberg climb, you know something's gone awry. That was the weight on Alejandro Valverde's shoulders today, but he should be used to such pressure by now. Aside from being everyone's favourite to win the Tour, we've also accused him of being the solution to Spanish cycling's current crisis and some kind of man-god sent to rid the world of boring, science obsessed American riders.

Instead of winning the stage though, he fell over sideways a few kilometers from the base of the hill. For some reason he decided to break his collarbone and go home just before he was supposed to be taking the lead in the Tour. That's pretty bad race tactics if you ask us.

What could possibly cheer us up after that? Oh, Tom Boonen in yellow? Go on then.

Valverde watch:
Writhing on the floor in agony before getting into his team car. He probably won't win the Tour now, so we've decided to shift alliance:

Mayo watch:
Finished 76th on the stage! Currently 63rd overall! Punctured at one point! This is going to be a looong Tour...

According to the Tour's website:



See for yourself.

It has been suggested that the retirement of Lance Armstrong would lead to a more disorganised, chaotic Tour de France this year. So far, however, it has been business as usual for the few overall contenders who haven't been thrown out for drinking cow blood.

No, the rider whose absence has been the largest contributor to the bedlam in the Tour thus far is one Alessandro Petacchi. With his lead out train being inherited by Erik Zabel and seemingly losing all interest in the race in the process, the final kilometers have been taxing viewing. Yesterday, Boonen found himself on the front of the peleton with a kilometer to go, and Jimmy Casper defied all logic to win the sprint.

Today was marginally less scrappy, but still needed one team to take over from Milram's half-hearted efforts. After the peleton finally caught the escaped Fabian Wegmann within the last 200 metres, and also managed to take out two thirds of the group in a crash, a bunch sprint began across the road. Hushovd somehow bumped into McEwen, and contested the final 25 metres using just one leg after pulling the other out of his pedal.

Thankfully, we were spared a sprinter fistfight due to the fact that McEwen was pleased with his stage win and Hushovd had been able to reclaim his yellow jersey in the two intermediate sprints. Thor can count himself lucky -- McEwen looked quite frightening when he was threatening a small Belgian child at last year's event.

Valverde watch:
Nineteenth on the stage without even contesting the sprint. Put minutes into the like of Dekker and Ekimov and he wasn't even trying. At this rate, he's going to win the Tour by at least 17 minutes.

Stage top five:
1 Robbie McEwen
2 Tom Boonen
3 Thor Hushovd
4 Oscar Freire
5 Daniele Bennati

The overall top ten and other competitions aren't exactly riveting reading, so we're not bothering to reproduce them. If Valverde is in yellow tomorrow and therefore the competitions start meaning something, then we'll resume coverage.

Much has been written and speculated about George Hincapie suddenly developing the ability to climb. But now we all know his secret, and which stage he'll be targetting:



There's currently no sign of any other riders getting their stages mapped out in veins in the backs of their legs, but at least a precendent has been set.

This is why we love the Tour -- even in times of trouble they're not afraid to scrimp on flat stages. This year there isn't so much as a railway bridge for the riders to climb until stage ten, so we're going to try not to use up all our jokes about flat stages too early.

Today's was designed for someone like Thomas Voeckler to go on the attack in a medium sized breakaway before being caught again, with points for a fourth category climb as an incentive. We said as much on the stage preview, which we then completely forgot to upload. A breakaway of seven did get away, but it didn't contain Voeckler so we were only half right.

From within the group Fabian Wegmann picked up the mountain jersey, and Walter Beneteau picked up 16 of the 18 sprint points available on the road, and the peleton came back together with 7Km to go. George Hincapie jumped out of the peleton for the time bonus on the third sprint of the day and managed to pick up two seconds to make himself leader on the road, a move that perplexed those who suspected him of being an overall contender and infuriated those who just plain dislike him.

Favourite for the stage Tom Boonen was way behind in the lead up to the sprint finish, and his team displayed some wince-worthy tactics by dragging him to the front and dumping him in the lead position with a kilometer to go. He stopped pedalling and left the other rivals to contest the victory. Cipollini mark two?

Of all people, Jimmy Casper nabbed the stage with a well timed sprint. McEwen and Zabel took second and third places. Yellow jersey wearer Hushovd crossed the line then took up position on the floor, bleeding. His arm had been sliced open by a giant cardboard hand, which must be the most needless injury we'll see in this year's Tour.

Valverde watch:
29th on the stage, he stayed towards the front to avoid crashes but didn't contest the sprint. Just like a true champion.

Stage top five
1   Jimmy Casper
2   Robbie McEwen
3   Erik Zabel
4   Daniele Bennati
5   Luca Paolini

Overall top ten
1   George Hincapie      4.18.15
2   Thor Hushovd      +0.02
3   David Zabriskie      +0.06
4   Sebastian Lang
5   Alejandro Valverde
6   Stuart O'Grady
7   Michael Rogers      +0.08
8   Paolo Savoldelli      +0.10
9   Floyd Landis      +0.11
10   Benoît Vaugrenard

Points: Jimmy Casper
Mountains: Fabian Wegmann
Young rider: Bernhard Eisel

And so this year's Tour limped to a start. On the plus side, however, the doping scandal that has devastated the start of the Tour has left most commentators and broadcasters in no mood to crack their rubbish jokes. Mind you, even that is negated by the amount of boring discussions about drugs that we've had to put up with since.

Limped is the right word for the early developments in the stage. Sebastian Lang's time remained the fastest of the day for so long that it felt like he'd been wearing the yellow jersey for a week when the time finally got beaten. We actually wondered if the rest of the peleton had signed a pact to finish within a few seconds of one another as a show of solidarity, but it turned out they were just being dull.

The most interesting thing that happened was when "prologue contender" and "potential race winner" Floyd Landis managed to miss his start time. This prompted us to rapidly begin typing quizzical text messages asking people if he'd been named and shamed before the start. Sadly he hadn't, he just decided to ignore the race and play with a puncture repair kit instead, for reasons that are probably confusing even to him. The sight of him looking embarrassed as he belatedly rolled down the start ramp then immediately slipped into his comical "Praying Landis" position was enough to raise more than just a titter on a day that was already descending into a mess of tired cliches and grating "debates" about sporting fraud. A noble sacrifice, Floyd.

David Millar made his triumphant return after his suspension for using EPO. He set off a minute before fellow Brit Bradley Wiggins, and both came across the finish line in seventh place. But not at the same time. Once all the other riders had finished, Wiggins and Millar sat at 16th and 17th place respectively, with less than a second separating them. When asked whether he was happy to lose clean, David Millar responded, "Well yeah, but I'd prefer to win clean," thus proving himself to be the only professional cyclist who is even remotely interesting. If we were the kind of people who did that whole "talking to people" thing, Dave would certainly be a candidate for a conversation.

Impressively named Norwegian sprinter Thor Hushovd was the man who finally shattered Lang's seemingly indefeatable time, and managed to put a matter of seconds into prologue favourite Zabriskie and world time trial champion Michael Rogers. George Hincapie pushed hard, but still finished 0.73 seconds down on Hushovd's time. Even with Boonen finishing just eleven seconds down, Hushovd must stand a good chance of retaining his race lead tomorrow, given his current form.

Valverde watch:
Our Murcian hero achieved fifth place in the prologue, beating fistfulls of renouned time triallers in the process. Just four seconds down on GC, and a guaranteed win in stage 3? What could be better?

Stage/overall top ten:
1   T. Hushovd   00:08:17
2   G. Hincapie   +00
3   D. Zabriskie   +04
4   S. Lang            +04
5   A. Valverde   +04
6   S. O'Grady     +04
7   M. Rogers     +06
8   P. Savoldelli  +08
9   F. Landis       +09
10 V. Karpets     +10