WW Wins

Tom Boonen stuck around for today's stage, but in the end he decided not to contest the sprint. He pulled up with about 1 km to go and cruised into the finish. So it fell to his main lead-out man Wouter Weylandt to get the job done. And that is exactly what he did, winning the stage ahead of Matti Breschel and Alexandre Usov. More from CN and Pez.

Heinrich Haussler and Leonardo Duque finished 5th and 14th, respectively. That, combined with Zaugg slotting in at 19th place, was enough to get me another stage win with all of 125 points. Since all the big name sprinters have basically left, my decision to stick with the second tier guys is starting to pay off. There's no World's for them to prepare for, so they may as well stick around and try to grab a big win. Paddy finished second with 105 points, and Arlene racked up 100 points to take third place. The GC standings are unchanged, but Arlene is once again creeping up on Vic. And Paddy has joined Brad and Jonny B to give us a hotly contested three-way battle for fourth.

Stage 17 Results:

Chris 125
Paddy 105
Arlene 100
Vic 65
Ian 65
Matt 65
Dallas 40
David 35
Jonny B 35
Brad 25
Hal 0


Overall Standings:

Chris 2301
Vic 2156
Arlene 2125
Jonny B 1676
Paddy 1673
Brad 1668
Matt 1539
David 1447
Ian 1149
Hal 1139
Dallas 897