BMC Racing Team showed off their team time trial chops at the 2018 Tour de France today, laying down a time of 38:50 to move Greg Van Avermaet into the leader’s jersey.
The teams to watch today were Mitchelton-Scott, Team Sky and BMC Racing Team. Sky, especially, had an opportunity to put Geraint Thomas into the yellow jersey today.
Mitchelton-SCOTT was first off the line, with Team Sky going out 5 minutes later. Next was Groupama-FDJ, though they really didn’t have much chance of making an impact today.
BMC Racing Team was next up. BMC is known for a having a strong TTT game and placed second in the Worlds last year. While Richie Porte could probably not take yellow today, he and his teammates will take all the seconds they can get.
With five teams through the first checkpoint, Mitchelton-SCOTT was holding the lead by one second, but Team Sky bested them by the finish by 5 seconds.
Movistar was the next to cross, but they ceded 49 seconds to Team Sky at the finish. Not a death blow to their G.C. ambitions, but definitely a challenge for the remainder of the race.
BMC was still burning up the road, however, besting Sky’s mark by nearly 6 seconds at the second checkpoint. At the line, they came across in 38″ 46.20, besting Sky by more than 3 seconds.
Team Sunweb laid down a strong performance as well, but it was only good enough for 4th and the time, and they pushed Cannondale-Drapac to 5th.
Still on the road was the BORA-hansgrohe team, with race leader Peter Sagan. They rolled down the start ramp aggressively, looking to protect – if not add to – Sagan’s lead. Unfortunately for Sagan, he was not able to keep up with the team’s pace, dropping him out of the yellow jersey and pushing him down to 10th in the G.C. He did hold onto the points jersey today, however.
Quick-Step Floors also put in a strong performance, briefly threatening BMC’s lead, but ultimately came in third.
Though not slated to put a rider in yellow today, BMC’s strong performance ultimately vaulted Greg Van Avermaet into the maillot jaune.
2018 Tour de France Stage 3 Brief Results
- BMC Racing Team at 38’46”
- Team Sky at 4″
- QuickStep Floors at 7″
- Mitchelton-SCOTT at 9″
- Team Sunweb at 11″
- Team EF Education First – Drapac p/b Cannondale at 35″
General Classification After Stage 3:
- Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing Team) 9’08” 55
- Tejay Van Gardernen (BMC) s.t.
- Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) at 3″
- Phillipe Gilbert (Quick Step Floors) at 5″
- Bob Jungels (Quick Step Floors) at 7″
- Julian Alaphilippe (Quick Step) s.t.
- Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb) at 11″
- Soren Kragh Andersen (Sunweb) s.t.
- Michael Matthews (Sunweb) s.t.
- Peter Sagan (BORA-hansgrohe) at 34″
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