Omega Pharma - Quick-Step Cycling Team rider Sylvain Chavanel finished in the top five, and Peter Velits in the top 10, in the 41.5km 9th stage of the Tour de France. Chavanel was 5th, and Velits 7th.
Bradley Wiggins (Sky ProCycling) had the best time of the Tour, at 51'24." Christopher Froome (Sky ProCycling) was 2nd, 35" back, and Fabian Cancellara (Radioshack-Nissan) was 3rd, 57" back.
Tony Martin, experiencing bad luck for the third time at the Tour de France, was forced to make a bike change in the first 5km of the time trial due to a rear flat. He still held the best time for quite some time, despite also having a broken scaphoid in his left hand. He finished 12th in the stage.
The following are comments from Chavanel, Peter Velits, Martin, and Levi Leipheimer:
"It was a great crono," Chavanel said. "I finished very well. I had power on the climbs and I was really focused.In the final I had a point of reference in front of me, a Katusha rider, so it was a little bit easier. I think it was my best TT ever at the Tour and it confirms the good progression I had this year in the TT since the beginning of the season. Prior to the Olympics, this is not so bad, I have a good condition and I think I can fight for a medal at the olympics. It would be great. As concerning the Tour, I tried again a lot of times and for sure I will try again when I have the chance. Even as a team we did a great performance. We are definitely among the best in this discipline."
"I think it wasn't so bad, the ride," Peter Velits said. "I didn't make any major mistakes. Maybe I wasn't so fast at the end, but I guess it worked out OK. Tony is world champion, Sylvain is the French champion, and I'm Slovak champion. I guess we are all good time trialists. But unfortunately, there is no team time trial in the Tour de France. I expected something better from me in the first part of the Tour, but in the last two days it is going better and better. I hope I will have better days. I will try to fight as much as I can with the best in the next days."
"At about 4 or 5km I had a flat tire again," Martin said. "It was again a disappointment. I tried the whole race to keep on fighting even if it wasn't so easy to maintain the concentration and motivation. I could feel the pain in my hand every hole I hit. I was lucky the roads were not too bad so I was OK. But, I still have pain and today I was riding without protection, so it was even harder. It's unbelievable so much bad luck happens to me, but I think it's not something we have to think about. We have to keep looking to the future. It's not a time to be disappointed."
"It was a really tough course," Levi Leipheimer, who was 32nd in the stage, said. "I had to change rhythm a lot and the climbs were explosive. It was not my favorite kind of course. I was just trying to keep it together and do my best. It wasn't the best time, but it wasn't that bad. We will see the next days in the big mountains."
