RadioShack Leopard Trek was in the lead at yesterday’s TTT, but the last team to finish, Astana ended up beating them by 10 seconds.

Fabian Cancellara took multiple and long leads and showed off a good form. The Swiss was happy with the result and thinks his team delivered a good performance.

“We did what we had to do.  Everyone did the maximum and that’s what counts in a team time trial.  Of course I pulled more than some of the others, but when we see that each rider is giving their best and we’ve seen so much motivation from every rider, we can be very pleased with this result.  We are very happy with this performance from the team,” he said to the RadioShack webpage.

The course began in Vilanova de Arousa and ended in Sanxenxo along the sea front after 27km.  The course had three climbing areas before the finish line. The clock stopped at 30:09 when the RadioShack riders crossed the finish line, going ahead of current leaders Omega Pharma-QuickStep by six seconds.  With only a few teams still on course and none of them coming close to the top time, it was only Astana left to cross the finish line. The Kazakh team led at the 20km checkpoint and crossed the finish line with the winning time of 29:59, the only team to break the 30-minute barrier. 

41-year old Chris Horner, who recently won a stage in Tour of Utah and finished 2nd overall, thinks there is a chance for him to take the red jersey tomorrow.

“I was kind of cross-eyed off the last descent because we had gaps opening up that we had to close down.  It was Fabian pulling all the way on that descent into the finish.  He did all of the work.  My objective was to come here and do a good race.  With the mountain stage tomorrow there is a chance to take the jersey,” Horner said.

Ben Hermans was suffering under the leads of Fabian Cancellara. He has rode TTT before, but this was the first time with the former TT world champion.

“We are second place but 8-seconds is actually quite a difference.  It was very hard but this was the first time I’ve done one with Fabian.  I will say in the past I always suffered but was usually a little bit under my limit.  With Fabian I was on my limit the entire time.  Our Vuelta starts well and we are quite happy with this second place,” Hermans said.

La Vuelta gets right down to the business of climbing on Sunday with stage 2.  The stage begins in Pontevedra and ends uphill on Alto Do Monte Da Groba at 176.8 km.