Although Sky Procycling was extremely motivated to win today’s team time trial and to hand the Maillot Jaune to talented young Welshman Geraint Thomas, the squad had to be satisfied with third on the final leaderboard. Setting almost exactly the same time as the BMC Racing Team and Leopard Trek, the British setup conceded four seconds to the Garmin-Cervélo team.
Thomas finished an unexpected sixth on yesterday’s opening stage to Mont des Alouettes, climbing well on the ramp up the line and then sprinting in six seconds behind stage winner Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma Lotto). His Sky Procycling team needed to do two things to take over the Maillot Jaune today. The first was to beat Gilbert’s squad by fractionally more than that deficit, and they did that decisively; the gap between the two was 35 seconds at the end of the team time trial.
However the second requirement was to be faster than all the other teams with riders level on time with Thomas. That proved more difficult, and Thomas now finds himself fourth overall, four seconds back.
He said afterwards that he was disappointed, but also that he knew they had done all they could. “We attacked it like we said. That was what we had,” he explained. “There was a great effort by everyone in the team. I think we rode it well. The not-so-strong guys did shorter turns but held the speed really well. Me, Brad and Edvald tried to put more in. Brad was as strong as anything.
“Unfortunately we lost by four seconds, but we have no regrets, really. We gave our all, that is all we can do. We lost two guys quite early. But that is what we had. Obviously we are a bit disappointed, we really wanted to win that. But on the grand scheme of things, Brad is still right up there in the overall…that is what matters.”
Wiggins wanted to win, but takes a certain amount of satisfaction out of the performance that the Sky Procycling riders pulled out.
“Today wasn’t about ego, it was just about the performance of the team. We discussed it at length in the bus beforehand. Bobby Julich was ahead of the team time trial. It was just about getting the maximum out of every rider today. Everyone played their role, and my role was to keep the pace in the final when the wind was at its greatest. Everyone from Uran to Simon Gerrans, the little climbers on the team, everyone played their part and it was just a fantastic performance.
“When you come away from a race like that knowing there is nothing else you could have done, to finish second here was certainly not a disappointment.”
Wiggins gave the thumbs up to Edvald Boasson Hagen’s performance, saying that the young rider has shown a strong return to form after a recent bout of shingles. He also hailed Thomas’ determination to try to grab yellow, and hinted that Sky Procycling might still try to put him into the lead.
“You could see G. today, he was hungry for it. The only disappointment today was that he didn’t get the jersey, because he really deserved it and it would have been fantastic for his Tour de France to get it,” he said. “But it is not over yet…”
In the bigger picture, Wiggins is at the Tour to fight for the overall classification. He was fourth two years ago, and this season won the Critérium du Dauphiné, his biggest road success. It appears he is back to his 2009 form, his 2010 disappointments being forgotten.
“It has been a fantastic start to this year’s Tour de France and complete contract to last year’s Tour,” he said, looking forward to the days ahead.