Zabriskie powers to Romandie time trial

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David Zabriskie (Garmin-Cervélo) took time trial victory at the Tour de Romandie to claim his first win since last year’s Tour of California, while Cadel Evans (BMC) struck a potentially crucial blow in the race for overall victory by snatching the yellow jersey.

Zabriskie may have enjoyed slightly more favourable wind conditions than the very latest starters, but the American was still full value for his victory. On an undulating 20.1km course, Zabriskie’s class told over the testing terrain as he pipped Richie Porte (Saxo Bank-SunGard) for the win.

Among the day’s early starters, Porte had the best time at all of the intermediate checks, with Zabriskie the only man to threaten his marks. Eventually, the American’s strength would tell over the final 5km, and he managed to pull off the win.

The day’s other big winner was Cadel Evans. He finished 8th on the stage, but did enough to leap frog Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana) and Pavel Brutt (Katusha) and move into the overall lead ahead of the race’s final day.

"I'm very satisfied," Evans said afterwards. "Two weeks ago, I didn't do the classics races because of that training ride crash, so coming back here I didn't know where I was. But I worked hard with some good people around me and came back at a good level."

As soon as the yellow jersey Brutt began his effort, it was apparent that he was struggling with the windy conditions and rolling terrain. With the valiant Russian writing himself out of the race for overall victory, Vinokourov looked the man most likely to assume the mantle at the halfway mark.

However, the Kazakh faded over the final 10km of the course, and yielded almost half a minute to the consistent Evans, and now lies 19 seconds down in third place overall.

Tony Martin (HTC-Highroad), meanwhile, put in a solid showing to edge into second overall, just ahead of Vinokourov. His teammate Marco Pinotti now lies in fourth place, as the short but sapping time trial course took its toll on a number of riders who had animated the day’s previous punchy stages, among them Damiano Cunego (Lampre-ISD).

Another strong performer on the day was Lieuwe Westra (Vacansoleil-DCM), who put in a fine effort to finish just ahead of Bradley Wiggins (Sky), who is continuing to build his form ahead of the Tour de France.

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