Thaindian News

Among the mainstream sports that are gaining much media attention, the Tour De France 2009 has been giving them quite a competition as the world’s number one cycling race began on July 4 at Monaco. The race commenced with the stage one that is the Individual Time trial and it has been won by Fabian Cancellara.

This was the third time that Fabian has won this prologue stage. It has been reported that he had covered 15.5 kilometers, which is the limit for the trial, in 19 minutes and 32 seconds. The second position has been secured by Andreas Kloden of Astana who took 19 minutes 54 seconds followed by Bradley Wigins who being 19 seconds behind Cancellara came up as the third. One of the star attraction of the race was Lance Armstrong who turned out in the tenth position talking 20 minutes 12 seconds to finish the stage.

The individual trial round in a cycling race is considered to be quite a difficult one as the cyclists instead of competing with each other, race against time. This race is also being termed as “the race of truth” that it brings out the capabilities of the players in terms of endurance, physical fitness and determination to race against the clock. The tracks chosen for this round are usually flat courses but sometimes there are also uphill or Mountain IIT events held. In the race this year, riders cycled through the track on the foothills of the Alpes Maritimes.

Cancellara is the current gold medalist in Olympic. Being the winner of the World Time Champion two times, Cancellara is known as a time trial specialist.