Joost!

Joost Posthuma did well in today's stage of the Tour. It was an individual time trial, a discipline in which he excels.

In the ITT, racers depart in reverse order of the overall standings (this is the yellow jersey competition, also called the general classification). Since Joost was placed in the lower half, he got a relatively early ride. I kept up with blog entries giving the intermediate and final results as they scrolled onto my screen this morning and tried to keep my cool as it became apparent how very well he'd done. He held onto second position until the big-name time-trial favorites began to arrive at the finish, and even then, he dropped only a bit. In the end, his position was higher than that of Dave Zabriskie and Vladimir Karpets who were among a handful of riders whom Bernard Hinault had picked as potential winners. He also surpassed men who are favorites to win the Tour including George Hincapie and Levi Leipheimer.

Floyd Landis, another of my short list of unassuming top athletes, took second place in the race.

Here are the race results showing Joost in 10th position, one min. 44 secs. below the winner.

Pos. N° Name Surname Nat. Team Time Gaps
1 023 HONCHAR Serhiy UKR TMO 01:01:43:600
2 071 LANDIS Floyd USA PHO 01:02:44:220 à 00h 01' 01"
3 044 LANG Sebastian GER GST 01:02:47:870 à 00h 01' 04"
4 026 ROGERS Michael AUS TMO 01:03:07:470 à 00h 01' 24"
5 156 LARSSON Gustav SWE FDJ 01:03:17:080 à 00h 01' 33"
6 027 SINKEWITZ PatrikGER TMO 01:03:22:250 à 00h 01' 39"
7 042 FOTHEN Marcus GER GST 01:03:25:370 à 00h 01' 42"
8 021 KLÖDEN Andréas GER TMO 01:03:26:860 à 00h 01' 43"
9 051 MENCHOV Denis RUS RAB 01:03:27:500 à 00h 01' 44"
10 057 POSTHUMA Joost NED RAB 01:03:28:010 à 00h 01' 44"
11 061 EVANS Cadel AUS DVL 01:03:32:990 à 00h 01' 49"
12 096 KARPETS Vladimir RUS CEI 01:03:35:280 à 00h 01' 52"
13 018 ZABRISKIE David USA CSC 01:03:40:190 à 00h 01' 57"
14 024 KESSLER Matthias GER TMO 01:03:46:370 à 00h 02' 03"
15 031 MOREAU Christophe FRA A2R 01:03:47:060 à 00h 02' 03"
16 025 MAZZOLENI Eddy ITA TMO 01:03:48:210 à 00h 02' 05"
17 079 PENA Victor Hugo COL PHO 01:03:52:580 à 00h 02' 09"
18 014 SASTRE Carlos ESP CSC 01:03:54:190 à 00h 02' 11"
19 009 SAVOLDELLI Paolo ITA DSC 01:03:55:800 à 00h 02' 12"
20 157 LÖVKVIST Thomas SWE FDJ 01:04:19:390 à 00h 02' 36"
21 072 GRABSCH Bert GER PHO 01:04:21:760 à 00h 02' 38"
22 002 EKIMOV Viatceslav RUS DSC 01:04:23:830 à 00h 02' 40"
23 097 PEREIRO SIO Oscar ESP CEI 01:04:24:520 à 00h 02' 41"


This photo, from Joost's personal site, shows him in the ITT race.