Three separate comments, paraphrased from his cyclingnews.com diary: (My additional comments in
parentheses)
1. Servais Knaven sustained over 50kph for 20 minutes, including the final 15km in 17:54 (50.3kph)
in his stage win. (At the Sydney round of the World Cup in May this year, the 15km scratch race
on the _track_ was run off in 18 minutes flat.)
2. Tyler Hamilton sustained 46.2kph for the last (hilly) 64km in his stage win. (With a double
fracture of the collarbone.)
3. Lance Armstrong managed 46.9kph in the ITT. (Having lost 7kg of body weight due to dehydration.)
While Hamilton lost only just over 2 minutes to Armstrong (who claims not to have been at 100%),
Knaven lost 7 minutes in the first ITT. I can accept that Knaven might not have been riding at 100%
due to team orders in the TT.
Ferrari says "Endurance-skilled and 'classy' athletes...are still capable of excellent
performances." Indeed.