Defending Tour of Germany champion, Levi Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner), said that Jens Voigt (CSC) should now go on to win the overall Deutschland title after Voigt's stage win yesterday.
"I have never seen Jens as good as today," said second placed Leipheimer. "He is now of course the big favourite for the overall, because he is not bad at time trialling. For me, it will be a matter of defending my place on the podium in the time trial. I don't think Jens can be displaced from his position on top any more."
Voigt looked to be struggling on the last climb of the stage yesterday when Leipheimer and Andrey Kashechkin (Astana) rode away from him and Evgeni Petrov on the first category climb with two kilometres to go. But Voigt clawed his way back with one kilometre to go and held on to win the stage by two seconds from the American. The small time gap combined with his stage win bonus gives him a 24 second lead over Leipheimer going into tomorrow's decisive 40-kilometre time trial in Bad Säckingen.
