Good afternoon and a very warm welcome to today's extremely important individual time-trial at Penafiel.

"Question: does the top three in the TT receive the­ overall time bonus as well as rewarded in the other­ stages?" asks Mark - No Mark, time bonuses for both the team time trial and the indivdual time trial are not awarded.

Carlos Sastre is off soon. Nicolas Roches is 15 minutes away then it's the top four of Frank Schleck, Ezequiel Mosquera, Vincenzo Nibali and then the red jersey of Joaquin Rodriguez.

Vladimir Gusev of Katusha is off. He's chasing Ruben Plaza of Caisse D'Epargne. Now it starts to get interesting. Hold on as anything could happen in the next half hour.

Out on board with Denis Menchov. It's a bit windy, which the riders won't enjoy. But the Russian continues to plug away.

So far only three riders are within a minute of Cancellara with most losing more than a minute over the second half of the stage.

Philippe Gilbert also goes through 15km. He's 58s down and just three seconds ahead of Mark Cavendish.

Right then. Denis Menchov has decided to put in an appearance. The Rabobank rider has gone through 15km at 44s down. Not great but a lot better than the rest of his Vuelta so far.

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The first 80 riders are through 15km. Garmin sprinter Tyler is slowest so far. But Wouter Weylandt has the dubious honour of being the slowest rider of the day overall so far. He's 9m 42s off Fabian Cancellara who still leads this individual time trial.

Current standings: 1. Cancellara 53m 20s; 2. Hoste + 30s; 3. Zabriskie +33s; 4. Millar +50s

Philppe Gilbert is off and underway. He'll be followed on the road by David Lopez, Carlos Barredo and Denis Menchov - who's due a big ride.

David Millar keeps it together in the final few kilometres and finishes 50s down on Cancellara in 4th place currently.

Former red jersey wearer Philippe Gilbert is off in 10 minuites or so. Denis Menchoz is off shortly after. Then we'll begin the countdown to the big guns.

Millar drifts to 53s off Cancellara's time. The middle stint of this TT is where a few riders are losing time.

drunkcaveman2003 asks "What time is Roche off at anyone?" - 15.33 is when the AG2R rider will bid for a podium finish.

David Millar is 24s down after 15km. That's a pretty good start from the Garmin rider.

But he can't do enough and Hoste finishes 30s behind and sits in second.

Leif Hoste of Omega Pharma-Lotto has put his hat into the ring after 31km. He sits 37s off the lead. The final 15km could see a new leader.

Zabriskie closed the gap but not enough and posts a very respectable time 33s behind our current leader Fabian Cancellara.

Fabian Cancellara sets down the first marker of the day by sweeping home in 53m 20s some 2m 34s ahead of Ignatiev in second place. At the 31km check David Zabriskie of Garmin is just 45s off Cancellara.

Lars Bak is the first man home in a time of 56m 11s. Arnaud follows him 3m 39s back with Astana's Valentin Iglinskiy 4m 41 behind.