Team Sky's Geraint Thomas is up to 11th in the general classification after finishing 15th in the stage four time trial at Bayern-Rundfahrt on Saturday.

The Welshman clocked 37 minutes and 15 seconds on the 27.8km route around Berching, 1:11 behind winner and new overall leader Maxime Monfort (HTC-Columbia).

Monfort's time was 12 seconds better than Lampre's Adriano Malori and fully 48 seconds ahead of Monfort's teammate Hayden Roulston in third.

Peter Kennaugh took 24th for Team Sky, Sylvain Calzati was 41st, Lars-Petter Nordhaug 72nd, Kurt-Asle Arvesen 81st, Davide Viganò 82nd and Edvald Boasson Hagen 115th.

As far as the GC is concerned, Belgium's Monfort also holds a 12 seconds advantage over Malori with one relatively flat stage to come on Sunday. Thomas is 1:11 back in 11th while Calzati is 2:05 behind in 28th.

The final day sees the riders cover 156.6km to Fürstenfeldbruck and features just one significant climb which comes shortly after the 30km-mark.

Sprint finish

And Team Sky's Sports Director Marcus Ljungqvist believes a field sprint is almost a certainty.

He said: "Normally you'd expect a controlled race; Columbia have the jersey to defend and you would think it should be a bunch sprint so I think we'll look to save our legs for that.

"G (Geraint) and Davide have been up there the whole week in the sprints so I hope they'll be challenging again."

Ljungqvist was happy with his team's display in the time trial though he revealed: "G was maybe slightly disappointed as he was possibly hoping for a little bit more but he did what he could.

"He said he might have started off a fraction too hard and paid for it later but he's right up there on the GC and he and all the guys have done well this week."