2010 Tour de France, Prologue

During the Tour de France I'll only be writing about some of the interesting aspects of the race as they relate to Italians and Italy....

Adriano Malori of Lampre-Farnese Vini, neo-professional born in 1988, in his first Tour de France rode a great prologue. He recorded the 12th time best time, at 35" to the winner Cancellara. He was also the best Italian cyclist in the standings. Malori was the Under 23 time trial World Champion in 2008, and this year was 3rd in the Italian national TT championships.

"I'm very happy and I almost don't believe my performance", Malori commented. "I was immediately able to pedal in a powerful way, the legs were great. When I was on the road, the streets were very wet because of the rain, so I had to take risks in covering the turns. When my performance ended, I watched the race on tv and every time a time trial specialist classified behind me, my awareness of having performed an outstanding time trial increased".

Cancellara proved that he doesn't need any motors, winning the prologue by 10 seconds. "The engine, that's me," said Fabian Cancellara at the Tour de France prologue finish in Rotterdam today, when officials proceeded to scan his bike for a hidden motor.

The war between Armstrong and Contador has begun.

1 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Team Saxo Bank 0:10:00
2 Tony Martin (Ger) Team HTC - Columbia 0:00:10
3 David Millar (GBr) Garmin - Transitions 0:00:20
4 Lance Armstrong (USA) Team Radioshack 0:00:22
5 Geraint Thomas (GBr) Sky Professional Cycling Team 0:00:23
6 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana 0:00:27
7 Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin - Transitions 0:00:28
8 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Team Radioshack
9 Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) Sky Professional Cycling Team 0:00:32
10 Linus Gerdemann (Ger) Team Milram 0:00:35
11 Brent Bookwalter (USA) BMC Racing Team
12 Adriano Malori (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini

Photo: Adriano Malori during prologue

Stories for the Italian Cycling Journal about rides, granfondos, having a good time cycling in Italy, Italian cycling history, etc. are very welcome. Contact me at veronaman@gmail.com. There are more than 1,400 stories in this blog. The search feature to the right works best for finding subjects in the blog and there is also a translate button at the bottom so you can translate each page.