Tour de France – Stage 9

ALPS_BANNER

BMC beats Team Sky by one second in the team time trial with Movistar third

RST Cycle Clothing & Trigon Bikes

Tour de France – Stage 9

It’s been tight! BMC Racing Team won the atypical team time trial from Vannes to Plumelec on the 28km long stage that closed the first chapter of the 102nd Tour de France. The other two dominant teams were Sky who only lost by one second after creeping in the Cadoudal hill and Movistar who finished strongly but four seconds down.

2015_TTT_TDF_BMC

Team BMC – Photo: ASO/B.Bade

Among the GC contenders losing time, Contador lost 27 seconds and Nibal 34 seconds. Peter Sagan’s dream of a yellow jersey also went awol. The stage shuffled the top of the overall standings, with Froome now leading van Garderen by 12 seconds. BMC Racing Team’s Greg Van Avermaet is third, at 27 seconds. Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo), who had been second, is fourth, at 38 seconds, and recent Giro d’Italia winner Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) moved up to fifth, at 1:03.

Chris Froome retained the lead of the overall ranking with an advantage of 12 seconds over Tejay van Garderen before the Pyrenees. Orica-GreenEdge started first as they were last in the teams’ classification. Reduced to a six-man squad after the abandons of Simon Gerrans, Daryl Impey and Michael Albasini due to crashes, the previous winners of the team time trial of the Tour de France in Nice in 2013 obviously weren’t motivated and cruised at 45km/h with the only intention to complete the race within the time cut.

Second team on the road, local favourites Bretagne-Séché Environnement who aren’t specialists in this exercise beat the Australians by more than three minutes!

The eighth team in action, IAM Cycling, was first to set an interesting time at the finish in Plumelec at an average speed of 51.08km/h. Astana was the first team to beat the Swiss outfit, by only three seconds, as Vincenzo Nibali had put his team-mates in trouble on several occasions.

2015_TTT_TDF_Astana

Team Astana – Photo: ASO/B.Bade

Jakob Fuglsang, Tanel Kangert, Michele Scarponi and Lieuwe Westra accompanied the defending champion of the Tour de France till the end. Astana lost the lead to Movistar by 31 seconds, so Nairo Quintana overtook Nibali in the overall ranking. He also passed Warren Barguil and therefore will wear the white jersey in the first Pyrenean stage as Peter Sagan remains in the lead of the points classification. Movistar’s average speed was 51.98km/h. They used their time trial specialists first (Alex Dowsett, Adriano Malori) and finished with their climbers in the Cadoudal hill.

Team time trial world champions BMC Racing Team was the first squad to clock in more than 52km/h average with Tejay van Garderen, Rohan Dennis, Damiano Caruso, Greg van Avermaet and Samuel Sanchez. Wout Poels, Richie Porte, Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas and Nicolas Roche finished the job for Team Sky but missed out on the victory by one second after being equal with BMC at the first check point and leading by one second at the second check point.

Prior to the mountain stages, Froome leads the overall ranking with 12 seconds over Van Garderen while Alberto Contador is at 1.03, Quintana at 1.59 and Nibali at 2.22.

2015_TTT_TDF_TINKOFF

Team Tinkoff Saxo – Photo: ASO/B.Bade

Reactions
Tejay van Garderen: “We knew we were on a really good ride. In a perfect world, we would have taken the stage and the yellow jersey. But we will take the stage win. Honestly, I couldn’t be happier.”

The BMC Racing Team and Team Sky were tied at the first time check at 10 km and Team Sky was one second faster at the second check at 20.5 km. Heading into the final two kilometers – all of it uphill – the BMC Racing Team trailed Team Sky by five seconds.

“We definitely had to rail the corners and make sure we stayed together outside of them,” van Garderen said. “On the climbs, we had the stronger guys pulling longer. And we had to finish with five guys. Rohan Dennis was really the key element to the team. He’s got a motor.”

Rohan Dennis: Winner of the opening stage individual time trial on July 4 and wearer of the yellow jersey for one day, said he thought the team might have started too fast. “I was really worried the first 10 kilometers. I was actually on my limit,” the past world hour record holder said. “When we started losing a couple guys, the directors told us to start pulling longer turns.”

Chris Froome: “We would have loved to win today’s stage but we can’t be disappointed by our performance. I expected something similar from Team Sky and BMC. With a difference of point six of a second, we can’t know where we’ve lost and what have we missed”.

“At the end everyone has seen that Nicolas Roche was struggling a bit but this is the nature of team time trial. He has given so much before! BMC did better than us and that’s it. The first phase has gone better than any of us in the team could have imagined. I haven’t lost anything and I even gained time during the first week”.

“It puts us in a fantastic position. The pressure is certainly not on my shoulders. It’s up to my rivals to make it up. My tactic can be more defensive than I expected. I didn’t expect Vincenzo Nibali to have lost so much time by now. To be totally honest, before the Tour I thought he’d be the one of my rivals who would have gained the biggest time in the first week.

Peter Sagan, “For me, today’s result was not as important, as it was for Alberto but I had hoped that we would have done a bit better. We lost 28 seconds, which is significant but not very bad. We have to look forward, tomorrow is the rest day and then we will start to focus on what we can do in the next part of Tour de France. For me the tempo was okay, we started out at full speed and kept the intensity high to the finish. For sure, this result is not a step in the right direction for the team’s and Alberto’s chances but the Tour is still long and we are all here to fight for the yellow jersey”, comments Peter Sagan before adding about the first part of his Tour de France:

“I’m happy for the rest day, but the rest day always feels very short. So we will use the time to recover and to plan how we can regain time. Overall I’m happy with the first nine days, it has been a very interesting Tour de France so far. I would have been happy for a stage win, but there are more chances later on in the race”.

Richie Porte, who has confirmed he’s leaving Team Sky at the end of the year, “It was a brilliant atmosphere but it hurts to lose by under a second. It’s a shame on that last climb we were sort of spread out. But we’ve taken time on most of our big rivals. That was a brutal team time trial. I can tell you that after five kilometres it was absolute agony. The Tour’s a long way from over. We’ve got another two weeks. The mountains are coming up now but I think we’ve shown we’re more than ready to have a good crack at it.”

Alberto Contador: “I think we still did a good time. We will rest and then attack the mountain stages, anything can still happen. There are many stages at altitude and it’s a Tour, where consistency will be important. This can favor me. We’ll wait and see how everyone is in the mountains. Everybody will have less good days, hopefully we won’t, and we will have to benefit from that. Regularity is very important and that encourages me”, says Alberto Contador and continues:

“On the first rest day of the Giro I was a bit more certain, as I knew the status of my body. Now, there is more uncertainty. What I’ve noticed in this first part of the Tour is that I lack the spark that others have. I hope that this spark will not have importance, when we look at the Tour as a whole. If I am good I’ll try, because I believe that we must seize every opportunity, when it arises”

2015_July_FSA_tdf_SM

STAGE 9 TTT
1 BMC Racing 32:15
2 Team Sky @ 01
3 Movistar Team @ 04
4 Tinkoff-Saxo @ 28
5 Astana Pro Team @ 35
6 IAM Cycling @ 38
7 Etixx-QuickStep @ 45
8 Lampre-Merida @ 48
9 Team LottoNL-Jumbo @ 1:14
10 AG2R LA Mondiale @ 1:24
11 Trek Factory Racing @ 1:25
12 Team Cannondale-Gramin @ 1:29
13 Bora-Argon 18 @ 1:31
14 FDJ @ 1:33
15 Lotto Soudal @ 1:36
16 Team Giant-Alpecin @ 1:37
17 Team Europcar @ 1:42
18 Bretagne-Seche Environnement @ 1:46
19 Team Katusha @ 1:53
20 MTN-Qhubeka @ 1:56
21 Cofidis, Solutions Credits @ 2:32
22 Orica-GreenEdge @ 4:58

OVERALL
1 FROOME Christopher TEAM SKY 31h 34′ 12”
2 VAN GARDEREN Tejay BMC RACING TEAM + 00′ 12”
3 VAN AVERMAET Greg BMC RACING TEAM + 00′ 27”
4 SAGAN Peter TINKOFF-SAXO + 00′ 38”
5 CONTADOR Alberto TINKOFF-SAXO + 01′ 03”
6 URAN URAN Rigoberto ETIXX-QUICK STEP + 01′ 18”
7 VALVERDE BELMONTE Alejandro MOVISTAR TEAM + 01′ 50”
8 THOMAS Geraint TEAM SKY + 01′ 52”
9 QUINTANA ROJAS Nairo Alexander MOVISTAR TEAM + 01′ 59”
10 STYBAR Zdenek ETIXX-QUICK STEP + 01′ 59”
11 GALLOPIN Tony LOTTO-SOUDAL + 02′ 01”
12 KREUZIGER Roman TINKOFF-SAXO + 02′ 18”
13 NIBALI Vincenzo ASTANA PRO TEAM + 02′ 22”
14 BARGUIL WARREN TEAM GIANT-ALPECIN + 02′ 43”
15 GESINK Robert TEAM LOTTO NL – JUMBO + 02′ 52”
16 MOLLEMA Bauke TREK FACTORY RACING + 02′ 56”
17 PÉRAUD Jean-Christophe AG2R LA MONDIALE + 03′ 30”
18 RODRIGUEZ OLIVER Joachim TEAM KATUSHA + 03′ 52”
19 TALANSKY Andrew TEAM CANNONDALE-GARMIN + 04′ 17”
20 FRANK Mathias IAM CYCLING + 04′ 32”
21 BARDET Romain AG2R LA MONDIALE + 04′ 38”
22 BAKELANTS Jan AG2R LA MONDIALE + 05′ 08”
23 COSTA Rui Alberto LAMPRE – MERIDA + 05′ 20”
24 FUGLSANG Jakob ASTANA PRO TEAM + 05′ 22”
25 SANCHEZ Samuel BMC RACING TEAM + 06′ 17”
26 NERZ Dominik BORA-ARGON 18 + 06′ 28”
27 IZAGIRRE INSAUSTI Gorka MOVISTAR TEAM + 06′ 40”
28 VUILLERMOZ Alexis AG2R LA MONDIALE + 06′ 49”
29 PINOT Thibaut FDJ + 08′ 05”
30 KOREN Kristijan TEAM CANNONDALE-GARMIN + 08′ 35”
31 MARTIN Daniel TEAM CANNONDALE-GARMIN + 09′ 21”
32 CHAVANEL Sylvain IAM CYCLING + 09′ 21”
33 BOASSON HAGEN Edvald MTN-QHUBEKA + 10′ 14”
34 LOSADA ALGUACIL Alberto TEAM KATUSHA + 10′ 37”
35 PANTANO GOMEZ Jarlinson IAM CYCLING + 11′ 20”
36 ROLLAND Pierre TEAM EUROPCAR + 11′ 43”
37 VOSS Paul BORA-ARGON 18 + 11′ 47”
38 SEPULVEDA Eduardo BRETAGNE – SECHE ENVIRONNEMENT + 12′ 25”
39 KWIATKOWSKI Michal ETIXX-QUICK STEP + 15′ 18”
40 ROGERS Michael TINKOFF-SAXO + 15′ 57”
41 MORABITO Steve FDJ + 16′ 24”
42 GESCHKE Simon TEAM GIANT-ALPECIN + 16′ 47”
43 GAUTIER Cyril TEAM EUROPCAR + 17′ 14”
44 BAK Lars LOTTO-SOUDAL + 17′ 18”
45 DE KORT Koen TEAM GIANT-ALPECIN + 17′ 44”
46 YATES Adam ORICA GREENEDGE + 17′ 45”
47 GRIVKO Andriy ASTANA PRO TEAM + 17′ 49”
48 TANKINK Bram TEAM LOTTO NL – JUMBO + 18′ 03”
49 YATES Simon ORICA GREENEDGE + 18′ 29”
50 LAPORTE Christophe COFIDIS, SOLUTIONS CREDITS + 19′ 41”

Send your results as well as club, team & event news here

Other Results on VeloUK (including reports containing results)

Other News on VeloUK

Tags: , ,