Chavanel delivers on final time trial

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Sylvain Chavanel of Omega Pharma-Quickstep blasted his way to the win in the closing time trial of the Three Days of De Panne to take the overall title. Lieuwe Westra of Vacansoleil-DCM was a close second on the day, with Svein Tuft (GreenEdge) third.

Chavanel's gap was enough to jump him from 12th to first overall, with Westra moving up to second. Maciej Bodnar of Liquigas rounded out the overall race podium. Alexander Kristoff (Katusha), who had led the race going into the stage, finished 1:19 behind Chavanel, and dropped out of the top ten.

"First of all I am super happy with this victory," Chavanel said. "This year I did not win until now, and a lot of our riders have already won. It was a little disappointing that I was riding well but unable to win a race.

"I am also happy because this victory came at a time trial," he said, explaining that his previous strong results in the race against the clock which netted him the French title in the past hadn't been coming because of a back problem. But by working with his new bike sponsor Specialized, he was able to improve over the winter.

"Now we are starting to see some results. I was 4th in Argentina, 6th in the Stage 1 Paris-Nice time trial, so I am reaching my objectives with my time trial bike."

Travis Meyer (GreenEdge) set the early best time of 18:32 over the 15 km course, with Nelson Oliveira (RadioShack-Nissan) coming in only one second slower.

However, young rider Artem Ovechkin of RusVelo topped that by four seconds, only to be soon dropped to second when Thomas Vaitkus (GreenEdge) sailed across the line in 18:20.

Svein Tuft blew them all away by 14 seconds, coming in at 18:06, looking to be a strong bet to give GreenEdge another victory. Niki Terpstra (Omega Pharma-Quickstep), winner of Dwars Door Vlaanderen, came in one second down.

But then it was Tuft's turn to be pushed down into second place, as Vacansoleil's Lieuwe Westra cracked the 18 minute barrier and finished in 17:53. Almost immediately, however, Chavanel chopped four seconds off that time, crossing the finish line with a time of 17:49.

Chavanel's blistering time set the gauntlet for Alexander Kristoff of Katusha, who had won the morning's half-stage to maintain his leader's jersey, and was only 12 seconds ahead of the Frenchman. The young Norwegian proved himself not up to the challenge.

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