The Tour speaks more and more English. Pure English like that of Bradley Wiggins, ruler of yesterday's time trial in Besançon, who at the age of 32 decided he could win the Tour, proposing indeed as the watershed between a cycling of winners who helped themselves with forbidden medicine, riders defined by Wiggins himself as fake, and a cycling, maybe less epic but cleaner, of which the English proclaims himself, coram populo, the new standard bearer.
Wiggins certainly put on a show yesterday, beating standing rivals and time trial specialists such as Fabian Cancellara and David Millar. Today, before setting off again towards the Alps, the Tour rests by meditating on what could possibly happen so that it doesn't have an already predictable ending. The race against time has been a crude but indisputable arbiter: there is an absolute king and his trusted squire, Christopher Froome, also English, ready to inherit his power in the event of an unpredictable "blackout" of the sovereign. Behind you can see only hotbeds of beaten but not yet tamed rebels (Evans, Nibali and perhaps Menchov), the rest is a platoon of "wretched" just to remember Victor Hugo who was born here in Besançon. We're just a third of the way through Great Boucle and everyone is already talking about the finished Tour, after seeing that monument of style that is Wiggins engaged in the time trial, strong on pace, never once broken down on the many ups and downs of yesterday's 41,5 km stage, formidable in reviving speed at every elbow bend. Only Chris Froome (at 35”) and Cancellara (at 57”) managed to keep the gap within a minute. Froome confirms another revelation of the very powerful Team Sky: the Kenyan naturalized English, if still not stronger than his captain, has his age and therefore all the time to become one. Four others finished within two minutes and among these is Cadel Evans, sixth, who left 1'43" on the field, a delay that takes him 1'53" away from Wiggins in the standings, even though he keeps second place for just 14” on the third which is Froome. Good performance by the American Van Garderen, who after the crisis suffered on the Swiss Jura hills on Sunday, returned brilliantly conquering the fourth place at 1'06”. Behind him Sylvain Chavanel but the delay accumulated in the previous stage put the Frenchman out of the top ten of the Tour.
The gap from Wiggins accused by Vincenzo Nibali was more than two minutes: a race, that of the Sicilian climber, which says a lot about his desire for a podium in this Tour. Nibali defended himself with his teeth and at the finish line he didn't hide his satisfaction, not only for not having taken the dreaded blow from Wiggins, but also for having done better by a second than Dennis Menchov. Now the Alps arrive, the most suitable ground for him to hope to challenge the excessive power of the yellow jersey. Nibali could have Cadel Evans as an ally for the occasion, who after the delay accused in Besançon, with another 50 km time trial foreseen by the Tour all to the advantage of Wiggins, will also have to attack in the mountains if he still hopes to repeat the success of the year last. It will be more difficult for Nibali to count on Ivan Basso, who is starting ever more towards sunset, in difficulty on the Jura, detached like any follower in the Besançon time trial: 56th almost five minutes behind Wiggins. Michele Scarponi was also bad (53rd at 4'50 ”), who given how he's going, should only be thanking that “doped” steak from Contador that gave him the forfeit victory of the 2011 Giro d'Italia.
