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Rest Day

 Rest day

With the fourth and last rest day of the Tour de Monde, we move into the decisive weekend of the race. In front of us lies two days of racing which will bring answers to all of the questions the tour has asked so far. 

First and foremost; tomorrow is the day of the TTT. Yesterday I mentioned that Rasio Racing was the clear favorites. For those of you, who are fairly new to RGT, this is not just based on the current racing in the tour. Rasio Racing won the Magic Roads Events TTT, (which was a team time trial competition hosted this autumn) by quite a big margin, winning 4 out of 6 races never finishing off the podium. The ability to time trial properly as a team is dependent on your drafting skills and thus not just a contest of pure power. Rasio Racing are one of the best, if not the best at this. 

Until recently this would have been an exciting battle between Rasio Racing and Lous’ Team, who took 2nd place in the MRETTT, but since Falk Levien is out of the tour, it doesn’t seem plausible that Lous’ team will be able to contest for the win. What will be exciting to see though, is how John Melville's Glasgow United C.C fares in the TTT. They have been unstoppable in the mountains so far, but how will they do on the 25 km mostly downhill time trial? They lost four minutes to Rasio Racing in the team competition yesterday, bringing their lead down to 04:39, which may be gone completely come tomorrow evening. 

Another interesting aspect of this is the GC contenders racing without a team. Most noticeable is Andrzej Krajewski currently sitting in 3rd place. The Polish rider has recently joined the Rasio Racing team, on what is supposed to be – if rumors are true - a very lucrative deal. However, this was after the start lists to the TdM were published, and Krajewski is thus not licensed to ride with his team in tomorrow's TTT. “No draft for me tomorrow,” Krajewski says, “but time trials are painful anyway, I fell much better on the mountain stages”. This is certainly what his riding has been showing so far, picking time up, on almost all competitors in last weekend's trip up the Angliru, which he finished in 1:31:36, half a minute faster than overall GC leader James Melville. And maybe even more important, four minutes up on 2nd placed John Sammut. After yesterday's hilly stage the difference between Krajewski on 3rd and Sammut on 2nd  is five minutes. Considering Sammut is on team Pocomotion which ended 4th in the MRETT competition, he should be able to bank some important minutes in tomorrows' time trial. “With the team, they’ll eat me tomorrow, I’ll of course try, but my legs are crying now” Krajewski says. Unlike most other riders, Krajewski did not have a rest day last Monday. He had to do the Rio stage a second time, after having a technical issue 1500 meters before the finish line on the first attempt.  “I’d reckon the way Krajewski has been riding, he could end up taking 5 minutes on me on a 2 hours stage” Sammut says. Will that be enough to grab second place? We will all be much wiser tomorrow evening. 

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