Things continue to go well for Rabobank's Thomas Dekker and Michael Boogerd  on the road to the World Championship. On Saturday, Dekker won the fourth stage of the 3-Länder Tour, a 23 kilometer long individual time trial in and around Tübingen, which was already his second stage win this tour.

Young gun Dekker further strengthened his leading position. His most important competitor Jens Voigt (CSC) lost eight seconds. The gap in the classification therefore doubled to sixteen seconds. Michael Boogerd played no role in the time trial, but he did, however, consolidate his third place in the ranking. Boogerd is almost two minutes behind in the general classification.

Dekker mainly struck during the final five kilometers of the time trial. Before that, it was a rather equally-matched battle with Voigt. None of the other riders came close to the first two in the classification. Dekker's start was not as good as the start of the German rider, primarily because the wearer of the yellow jersey was again bothered by his traditional injury which has been plaguing him continuously during time trials the last couple of months, pain in his hip. Voigt had a five second lead at the first intermediate point after five kilometers of racing.

"But, once Thomas was warmed up, the pain in his hip eased a little bit. He picked up the pace after which it became a battle for seconds," said Rabobank sports director Erik Dekker after the stage. For a short time, both the riders as well as the cars could not be notified of any important information. "We did not receive any information between the five and the eighteenth kilometer mark from the start, which made it tougher to race," confessed Dekker. At the next intermediate point, after eighteen kilometers of racing, the two turned out to have clocked almost the same time. That status quo did not change for a while.

"The roads were somewhat flatter in the finale. Hence, Thomas picked up the tempo a little bit more. That is when he gained time vis-à-vis Voigt. A wonderful victory," is what Erik Dekker said of course. He is full of confidence about the outcome on Sunday. Dekker: "Thomas has shown today and earlier this week that he is the best rider in this race. It is not going to be a simple stage tomorrow. Additionally, it will also not be one of those final ceremonial stages, which is typical for the last stage of a tour. But, something awkward must happen for us to give this away. It will not be easy, but you can also win it the hard way."

"Jens [Voigt] was a bit disappointed afterwards, because he thought he'd done a really good time trial. But the route was better suited to Dekker, who's a bit of a specialist in this type of time trial," said Team CSC's sports director Scott Sunderland.