Cadel Evans misses race lead by agonising single second as Argyle team takes its first ever Tour stage
Thor Hushovd (Garmin-Cervélo) has exchanged his rainbow jersey for the yellow one after the American team took a close victory in the team time trial in Les Essarts. Garmin-Cervélo beat both BMC Racing and Sky Procycling by a slim four second margin, and both Leopard Trek and HTC-Highroad by five seconds to take the stage.
Having finished second on stage one, Cadel Evans (BMC Racing) was three seconds ahead of Hushovd in the overall standings, but the four second margin means he misses out on yellow by an agonising single second.
“This was great,” said Hushovd after the stage. “We did a really good team effort today; everything has worked perfect. All the riders gave 100 percent for the team. This is just incredible.
“When I looked back ten years ago, I won the same team time trial,” he said, referring to the stage between Verdun and Bar-le-Duc won by his Credit Agricol team in 2001. “It is crazy. It is a great day for me and of course for the whole team.”
Back in 2001 Hushovd’s then teammate Stuart O’Grady, who now rides for Leopard Trek, took the yellow jersey; this time though the Norwegian gets it himself, exchanging his rainbow jersey for the golden fleece.
“Yes, it is incredible,” he said. “I am proud to be at the Tour de France with this rainbow jersey, and to put in yellow is incredible. It is a perfect start for me.”
The victory marks the Garmin-Cervélo’s first ever stage victory in the Tour de France in its fourth appearance in the race. The team has previously won stages of both the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España, but this is its first time on the podium in the biggest race of all.
“This win was for everybody in the team,” said the team’s manager Jonathan Vaughters. “There are so many people that we have who have put so much extra into this. Everything counts. It’s the little details. It’s about going over and over and over everything again to make sure that everything was perfect – that we have the best tires, the fastest bikes… the tiniest little details that we’ve worked so hard to attain!
“We knew we did everything right,” he explained. “We knew we brought the right riders. We knew we had the right strategy on the day, but you need everything to go perfectly on the day and that’s what you get nervous about.
“Our job had been done correctly,” he added, “but I was just nervous about the unanticipated – a little dog running out in the middle of the road or some random act… whatever, you know, but we got it right!”
An early start and a respectable time for the defending champion
After the disaster of stage one, where Alberto Contador lost 1’20” to stage winner Philippe Gilbert after being caught behind the crash with 9km to go, Saxo Bank-SunGard was the first team to start. Despite having no time references from the other teams, the Danish team passed through the 9km checkpoint in 9’13”, the 16.5km checkpoint in 17’01”, and arrived at the finish with a time of 25’16”.
While it was impossible to know exactly how this would stack up to the rest of the teams, particularly those who specialised in this discipline, an average speed of 56.14kph meant that it would surely not be too far off.
The next team to go was Euskaltel-Euskadi, its captain Samuel Sanchez having suffered a similar fate to Contador the previous day. This has never been the Basque team’s forte though, and the men in orange were consistently slower all the way around the course, eventually finishing some 54 seconds behind Saxo Bank-SunGard.
Vacansoleil-DCM, riding its first Tour and nursing a number of bumps and bruises after the previous day’s spills, fared scarcely better than Euskaltel-Euskadi. The Dutch team was actually slower than the Basques, but a late acceleration put them seven seconds quicker at the finish; albeit still 47 seconds shy of Saxo Bank-SunGard.
French teams AG2R La Mondiale and Saur-Sojasun were the next two to ride, and both posted times that, even at this stage, were decidedly mid-table, 25 and 34 seconds behind Saxo Bank-SunGard.
Rabobank lays down its challenge but the gauntlet is picked up by Garmin-Cervélo
Rabobank though, clearly meant business and passed the 9km check three seconds faster than Contador’s team. The men in orange and blue kept the pressure on all the way to the finish, spurred on by riders like former Dutch champion Lars Boom and Spanish champion Luis León Sanchez. The team crossed the line in exactly 25 minutes, knocking Saxo Bank-SunGard off the top.
FDJ and Liquigas-Cannondale posted similarly average times to those set by AG2R-La Mondiale and Saur-Sojasum, but the next team off was Garmin-Cervélo.
The Argyle team passed through the first checkpoint seven seconds ahead of Rabobank, with a time of 9’03”. The American team had already shed one rider, and over the course of the rest of the stage was to drop two more, as the sprinters were left behind by the strong time triallists in the team’s usual practice.
Thor Hushovd, wearing the polka-dot mountains jersey despite having no points in the competition, by virtue of his third place on the first stage, led the team into the final kilometres. The big Norwegian World champion would exchange his rainbow jersey for the yellow one if the team was to win the stage so he was extra determined.
Garmin-Cervélo crossed the line in 24’48”, twelve seconds quicker than Rabobank, to take the provisional lead.
Europcar, Quick Step and Movistar were next to start, and neither looked like challenging the top of the leaderboard. They were followed by Astana, whose first intermediate time was just six seconds slower than Garmin-Cervélo; the Kazakh team faded in the second half of the course though, finishing 32 seconds down.
Team Sky challenges the best but begins to fade a little
Team Sky was one of the favourites for the stage. The British team, including white jersey Geraint Thomas who would exchange it for the yellow one if the team was to win the stage, crossed the first checkpoint in 9’02”, a single second quicker than Garmin-Cervélo. The team shed two riders soon afterwards, unable to match the pace of the likes of British champion Bradley Wiggins and Norwegian champion Edvald Boasson Hagen.
As Cofidis set off, Tony Gallopin found himself dropped immediately the team left the start ramp and spent the first few kilometres battling manfully to catch up. The French team was never to find a decent rhythm throughout the stage, and finished just two seconds faster than the slowest time so far, set by Euskaltel-Euskadi.
Team Sky passed through the second checkpoint in 16’49”, which was four seconds slower than Garmin-Cervélo, meaning that they had lost five seconds in the stage’s mid-section.
Lampre-ISD, riding for the overall interests of Damiano Cunego, started, but was never to look like threatening the top of the standings. Meanwhile, down to five riders at the finish, Katusha crossed the line in a less-than-impressive 25’52”, some 1’04” behind.
Not far behind the Russian team, Sky finished in 24’52”, which was still 4 seconds behind Gamin-Cervélo. Thomas would have to wait for another day to take the yellow jersey with Hushovd taking one step closer.
Disaster struck for HTC-Highroad on the very first corner of the race as Bernhard Eisel crashed when his rear wheel slipped from under him. The big Austrian now faced riding almost the entire 23km course alone to stay inside the time limit; not only that though, the team would have needed his horsepower if it wanted to put Tony Martin into yellow.
RadioShack, whose riders have great experience of winning team time trials in previous incarnations of the team, were surprisingly nine seconds down at the first checkpoint. The gap had increased to fifteen by the second check, but the American team, still carrying four overall contenders, rallied in the closing kilometres to finish just ten seconds off the pace.
A slow start and a fast finish for the Schlecks as Cadel Evans threatens yellow
Leopard Trek possessed the awesome power of World time trial champion Fabian Cancellara, but this was tempered by the less impressive strengths against the clock of his team captains Fränk and Andy Schleck. Despite this apparent mismatch of power, the Luxembourg team was just seven seconds behind Team Sky’s time at 9km and was accelerating.
Behind Leopard Trek was the BMC Racing team, with Cadel Evans wearing the green jersey thanks to his second place on stage one. The Australian was just three seconds behind Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto) at the start of the day, and three ahead of a big group of riders led by Hushovd. If the red and black team could lose less than those three seconds to Garmin-Cervélo by the end of the stage, it would be Evans pulling on yellow instead of the Norwegian.
After 9km BMC Racing was just one second behind Garmin-Cervélo, meaning Evans was still two seconds ahead of Hushovd. By 16.5km though it had stretched to six seconds though, putting the Norwegian in pole position.
Without Eisel, HTC-Highroad had suffered in the first section of the course, as it reorganised itself. Like RadioShack though, the team in white had rallied in the second half of the course and went into provisional third, just five seconds back.
Leopard Trek, led by the rainbow jersey of Cancellara, was flying into the finish. The Luxembourg team had pulled even more time back on Garmin-Cervélo in the closing kilometres, but it was not to be enough and it crossed the line 5 seconds down, just ahead of HTC-Highroad.
Gilbert kisses yellow goodbye after just one day
Meanwhile Gilbert’s Omega Pharma-Lotto team was already 26 seconds down by the 9km checkpoint, meaning that the battle for yellow was now just between Evans and Hushovd. Despite big turns from BMC Racing’s veteran George Hincapie, riding a record equalling sixteenth Tour, the black and red men only managed to pull back one of the seconds it needed to take yellow from Garmin-Cervélo.
BMC Racing crossed the line four seconds behind, taking second place, meaning that Evans was an agonising single second behind in the overall classification.
Omega Pharma-Lotto finished 39 seconds down, having lost just four more seconds in the final 6.5km, confirming that Gilbert’s tenure in the yellow jersey was to be just a single day.
Hushovd’s teammate David Millar moves into second place. The two riders are on the same time but the Norwegian leads by virtue of his finishing position on stage one. Evans is just one second behind them in third.
Result stage two
1. Garmin-Cervélo (USA) 24’48”
2. BMC Racing Team @ 4s
3. Team Sky (GBr)
4. Leopard Trek (Lux) @ 5s
5. HTC-Highroad (USA)
6. RadioShack (USA) @ 10s
7. Rabobank (Ned) @ 12s
8. Saxo Bank-SunGard (Den) @ 28s
9. Astana (Kaz) @ 32s
10. Omega Pharma-Lotto (Bel) @ 39s
11. FDJ (Fra) @ 46s
12. Europcar (Fra) @ 50s
13. AG2R La Mondiale (Fra) @ 53s
14. Quick Step (Bel) @ 56s
15. Liquigas-Cannondale (Ita) @ 57s
16. Saur-Sojasun (Fra) @ 1’02”
17. Lampre-ISD (Ita) @ 1’04”
18. Katusha (Rus)
19. Movistar (Spa) @ 1’09”
20. Vacansoleil-DCM (Ned) @ 1’15”
21. Cofidis (Fra) @ 1’20”
22. Euskaltel-Euskadi (Spa) @ 1’22”
Standings after stage 2
1. Thor Hushovd (Nor) Garmin-Cervélo
2. David Millar (GBr) Garmin-Cervélo
3. Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team @ 1s
4. Geraint Thomas (GBr) Team Sky @ 4s
5. Linus Gerdemann (Ger) Leopard Trek