It’s been at times a frustrating year for Thor Hushovd, but the momentum which started with his stage win in the Tour de Suisse continued today when the big world champion helped power his Garmin-Cervélo team to Tour de France stage victory in the team time trial. A perfect day for the American team saw it put Hushovd into the Maillot Jaune and also take its first ever Tour de France stage win.
Simply put, it couldn’t have been better. “The team’s goal was to win this team time trial and also get me in yellow,” said Hushovd afterwards. “Not that we’ve made it, from the team’s perspective this Tour de France is already a success. We have a lot more that we’d like to do, though, including trying to get Tyler to win a stage in the sprints and then we have the GC guys who will try to be up there.
“The teamwork that we did is what made the difference today. Nobody was thinking about anything other than the whole team. We were riding as one unit and it was a satisfying day.”
Ten years ago Hushovd and Garmin-Cervélo manager Jonathan Vaughters were team-mates on the Crédit Agricole squad. Against all expectations, the team beat the bigger outfits to take the team time trial. A decade on, Hushovd and Vaughters collaborated again to take a big win in one of the Tour’s most magical disciplines.
The team was consequently in superb spirits on the podium, soaking up the applause and savouring the moment. Towards the end of their time in front of the crowds, the rider hoisted Vaughters up onto their shoulders for the photographers, showing a unity and simple joy in winning which was good to see.
“This win was for everybody in the team. There are so many people that we have who have put so much extra into this. Everything counts. It’s the little details,” said Vaughters afterwards. “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. 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 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!”
Along with US TT champion Dave Zabriskie, David Millar is one of the big TT specialists on the team. He has been part of the squad since 2008 and has in that time been trying to help the squad take a stage win in the Tour. He said that achieving that goal was more enjoyable than his earlier individual time trial victories.
“The emotions are so much stronger,” he told ITV. “I spent my career sitting in buses on my own waiting to see who would come across the line, it is just not the same. There is was wonderful, the whole team of people, all sharing that tension, excitement.”
Vaughters showed how important the stage was for the team when he revealed the Garmin-Cervélo riders covered the course six times on Monday. He said that he also spent a long amount of time pondering the correct order for riders to race in, trying to work out the best sequence. Part of that strategy was deliberately sacrificing riders early on.
“We knew that Julian [Dean] was going to be the weak link so we had him start and he burned his energy up first. I was hoping we’d get six or seven kilometers out of him but we got nine! Perfect. That worked,” he explained. “Then Tyler [Farrar], because he’s not riding GC said, ‘It’s okay, I’ll be next…’ and he took some unbelievable turns from kilometer 10 to 15 and then he blew. Each time they did it to precision, it was never disruptive to the team effort. The way I feel now is a mix of relief and excitement.”
Millar elaborated on the strategy employed, saying that a specific order was laid out for the start. “The sequence was Julian, Navardauskas – our wünderkind – then me. Our shortcoming in the past has been to do really average starts but this time we really nailed it,” he said. “I went really deep at the beginning to just get us up to speed and hold it there for as long as I could so that everyone could absorb it. And I was just one the ropes for the rest of the ride after that….it was horrible but it worked well.”
He revealed just how wound up the team manager was beforehand. “Jonathan was just a walking ball of nerves. He didn’t hide the fact that he was putting everything in to this,” he said. “It was a big call and it was a brave move but we pulled it off. I think that’s why he was so nervous. Fortunately we know Jonathan so well that we keep him on the fringe but I think he came into our rooms about ten times each this morning just trying to give us new ideas. We were like, ‘Jonathan, just calm down, we know what we’re doing…’
“And he was like, ‘Oh, yeah… yeah… yeah.’ It was nice because he took all our nerves on for himself.”
Long time waiting:
Although the team has won the TTT in the Giro d’Italia, racing to victory there in 2008, it’s the first time that things have gone to plan in the Tour. The squad did a superb ride in the 2009 Tour de France, riding with huge courage in the TTT after losing four riders early on. Millar, Zabriskie, Christian Vande Velde, Bradley Wiggins and Ryder Hesjedal buried themselves to fight against teams with more riders in the rotation, and ended up finishing a superb second. They were beaten only by the Astana team, which finished eighteen seconds up.
This time round, the American team was on top and delivered on its promise. Second place was a surprise, with the BMC Racing Team of Cadel Evans pulling out a big performance to finish just four seconds back. “They were a bit of a dark horse, they had us on the edge of our seats,” admitted Millar. “They are a great team.”
He admitted that there is a keen sense of competition and rivalry within certain squads as regards the test. “The Anglophone teams have a much bigger culture of these sort of events,” he said. “It is much more scientific, we control the variables, we all put a lot of work into it. Although we try to remain so friendly, it all becomes…we are not so friendly, really.”
With things going exactly to plan, Hushovd is now equal on time to Millar, one second ahead of Cadel Evans and four ahead of Geraint Thomas (Sky Procycling). Millar would be in yellow had he finished ahead of his team-mate yesterday, but isn’t thinking about missed chances. Instead, he said that he’s pleased to give something back to Hushovd, the Norwegian having passed over some opportunities of his own earlier this year.
“I’m getting on really well with him, I enjoyed riding for him yesterday and setting him up for the finish. With a great rider like that, it is a joy to race with him. This means a lot to give him that. He is pure class.”
The new Maillot Jaune is enjoying the experience, and doesn’t intend to give it up without a fight. “I’d like to keep this jersey on my shoulders for as long as possible,” he said. “I know it will be hard in stage four when we go up the Mûr-de-Bretagne but I’ll do my best. I’ll then help Tyler Farrar in the sprints and try to go for a stage win myself later on.
“As I’ve said for a long time, the green is not a goal for me this year. If I get a stage win then I’ll be really happy with my Tour de France.”