Two Brits in the top four at the Tour de France — Victory by the Garmin Cervelo team who defeated the BMC and Sky teams by a slender 4 seconds in the 23 kilometre Team Time Trial sees Britain’s David Millar has moved up to second overall in the same time as Yellow jersey Norway’s Thor Hushvod.
David Millar reported on his team’s website says “In a team time trial, you give everything you have. When you come across the line and you know you didn’t make any mistakes, you know you couldn’t have gone any faster”. “I was cross-eyed at the finish line, so that’s a good sign we gave everything. It was tremendous to win this stage for us. We’ve worked so hard to reach this point as a team, as an organization. It means the world for us.â€
Britain’s Geraint Thomas meanwhile has maintained his grip on the White jersey despite Sky losing four seconds in the TTT test against the watch. Thomas moved up to fourth overall and sits only four seconds off the yellow jersey ahead of stage 3.
The Sky team, one of the favourites for the stage and a stage that Thomas himself was really up for, lead at the first split but with nothing in it between the top teams, the American Garmin team hit back in the second half to snatch the stage victory and the yellow jersey.
Speaking on the Team Sky website, director sportif Sean Yates says “From our point of view the boys did the best they could. There were no incidents of any kind so basically they couldn’t have gone any faster, and the fastest team won on the day. It did seem to be very windy, and the time check would suggest that on the way out there was a stronger tailwind than Garmin so therefore a stronger headwind coming back into the finish. The boys were riding very strongly in that section but it only takes 3k-an-hour less wind to make that difference. But they boys did all they could to get the best possible result.”
 “Tomorrow will be a long slog of a day. We have to be vigilant because things can happen that are slightly unexpected. We’re moving up in the car convoy so we should be in the action and we’ll see what happens.â€
The Team Sky riders had this to say ….
Bradley Wiggins: “Today it was about the performance of the team and we discussed it at length beforehand in the bus with Bobby Julich. It was just about getting the maximum from every rider today and everyone played their role.”
“My role was to keep the pace in the final when the wind was at its greatest. Everyone played their part today and it was just a fantastic performance. When you come away from a race like that knowing there was nothing else you could have done there is certainly no disappointment there.”
“We gained more time on some of the GC guys and it’s been a fantastic start to this year’s Tour, in complete contrast to last year. Edvald has shown today that he has the legs. G you could see was hungry for it. That is the only slight tinge of disappointment that he didn’t get the jersey because he really deserved it.â€
Geraint Thomas “We attacked it and got stuck in and that was what we had. It was a great effort by everyone in the team, we rode it well. The less strong guys held their speed well and me, Brad and Edvald tried to put a bit more in. Brad was strong as anything.
“Unfortunately we lost four seconds but we’ve got no regrets and we gave it our all. We knew we were up [at the split] but we knew it was barely even a one second advantage. We lost two guys quite early but that’s what he had. Obviously we’re a bit disappointed because we really wanted to win that bit in the grand scheme of things Brad’s still right up there in the overall and that’s what matters.â€
Stage 1 Report  |
Stage
1 Team Garmin – Cervelo 24:48Â Â
2 BMC Racing Team @4 secsÂ
3 Sky Procycling  @stÂ
4 Team Leopard-Trek  @stÂ
5 HTC – Highroad @5 secs Â
OVERALL
1 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Team Garmin-Cervelo 5:06:25Â Â
2 David Millar (GBr) Team Garmin-Cervelo   Â
3 Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team @1 sec Â
4 Geraint Thomas (GBr) Sky Procycling @04 secs Â
5 Linus Gerdemann (Ger) Leopard Trek   Â
6 Fränk Schleck (Lux) Leopard Trek   Â
7 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Leopard Trek   Â
8 Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) Sky Procycling   Â
9 Manuel Quinziato (Ita) BMC Racing Team   Â
10 Andy Schleck (Lux) Leopard Trek   Â
12. Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Sky Procycling   Â
18. Mark Cavendish (GBr) HTC-Highroad @ 5 secs
24. Ben Swift (GBr) Sky Procycling @ 11
