Astana finish in 29 minutes, 38 seconds!
Fair play to Astana, they have rallied in the second part of that race and finish with a very respectable 29’38’’. That’s 20 seconds off the pace of Ineos, so a small amount of time for Fuglsang to make up, but considering they were 14 seconds down at the half-way stage, the losses are not too great.
Compare that to Team Arkéa–Samsic, who finished a full 1min30secs behind Ineos’s time. Ouch.
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Thomas is caught by someone with a microphone as Team Ineos walk off the course. He’s asked if they were happy with an average speed of 56km/hour.
“I wanted to go 57km/h. I think we rode well actually. Can’t be too disappointed with that.
Thomas is then asked if starting first was deliberate.
No it wasn’t deliberately. It was my little tumble and the fact that Egan was behind me – we had someone in front.
Nairo Quintana is now out on the course with the rest of his Movistar team. They are not expected to challenge here for the stage win, I expect they will be happy to have their time settle in the middle of the pack.
Team Ineos finish the TTT in 29 minutes, 18 seconds!
That time is actually in line with their first split at the checkpoint, so interesting that they didn’t actually get quicker at the course went on. Maybe the wind changed or something.
Kwiatkowski peels off as Ineos approach the final 250 metres. It’s a slightly uphill finish, and the riders look like they are really hurting here. Thomas is at the front, but the time will be dictated by the fourth rider …
Wout Poels and (I think) Luke Rowe are the first two Inoes riders to drop off the pace. They are predominantly climbers and will be saving their energy for the mountains. 1km to go for the Team Ineos.
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Astana are the next team to fly through the first checkpoint, they are 14.38 seconds behind the time of Team Ineos. I would expect that to grow as the race continues.
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Interesting that Ineos still have their eight riders together. Teams almost never finish with their eight all bunched up – remember it’s only the top four riders which share the overall time – but it will be interesting to see if they keep this up.
Team Ineos are through the first checkpoint (after 13.2km) in 13 minutes, 59 seconds. That’s an average speed of 56km/hour, which is very, very quick even for elite level riding. Expect that to go up, the fastest sections of the course are towards the end.
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Thibaut Pinot is looking very relaxed as he gets onto his bike. France is craving a home winner and him and Bardet may not have a better chance to win the Tour than this year. Pinot is all business as his Groupama -FDJ team line up on the starting block. Bardet and AG2R La Mondiale will follow shortly.
Astana are the next team off the block: Fuglsang is there looking very determined. The crowds are going mad, fair play to the Belgians and everyone that has travelled out there. I’m going out in a week or so to go and watch it at the Col du Tourmalet, can’t wait!
“Waiting in the bois du cambre for the first team to arrive,” emails Annie Collins. “Fabulous atmosphere!”
There are two checkpoints to gauge the 22 teams’ progress – the first at Le Bois de Cambre is after 13.2km, the second at Boulevard Général Wahis is after 20.1km and the finish line after 27.6km at the Atomium, which was originally constructed for the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair but it now a museum.
Fun fact: the Atomium consists of nine spheres, representing an iron crystal magnified 150 billion times.
Team Ineos are off!
Thomas, Bernal and co lead off. It’s dry in Brussels today and a mild 19 degrees with a light breeze. This is going to be very fast, but it’s not a hugely technical course in terms of braking and turning. Van Baarle is out at the front, Thomas at the back. They are actually in a perfect reverse order from eight to one.
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Thomas and the rest of Team Ineos have warming up on the exercise bike – sort of like a spinning class – but they are ready on the starting line. David Millar, ITV4 commentator, seems to think that Ineos finishing last yesterday was actually a deliberate ploy to have an element of control today. I’m not so sure. Still, Millar has been out inspecting the course today – he says that the road surface is exceptionally smooth and “a dream course” for the leading teams that have marginal gains in aerodynamics and equipment.
For French rider and GC contender Romain Bardet, this will be one of damage limitation. The Ag2r-La Mondiale rider is a big climber, and this year’s race has been billed as the highest ever, but today might be a struggle for him.
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Fuglsang has been talking this morning.
I’m definitely not 100%, that’s for sure, but better than I thought. I was feeling yesterday that I would slowly turn down. We will see once we start racing.
Our first email comes from Lyn Whitfield, who is in Brussels!
“In Brussels and standing on one of the boulevards by the European Parliament. Publicity caravan has just gone through at 40mph, chucking metal keyrings and other merch at the crowd’s legs at some velocity. All quite surreal… looking forward to some actual racing. Dutch very excited; lots of flags out with the name of yesterday’s winner hastily added in permanent marker …”
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This was Fuglsang’s crash, you can see him in the turquoise jersey going down hard on the pavement on the right hand side as he falls over Bahrain-Merida’s Damiano Caruso, who was already down.
Some excellent agility from Caruso’s team-mate Jan Tratnik (not Nibali, as stated in the above tweet – you can see the Italian on the left hand side looking back at this team-mates in horror) sees the Slovenian avoid the crash. Hop!
Just a little reminder of how the team time trial works. Eight riders from each team go off at the same time and the first four to finish will all be awarded the same time, so there’s no glory in one rider going off in a hurry. Teamwork and tactics will be vital to ensure that nobody from the four are left behind.
The last four will have their times clocked individually. Jumbo-Visma, Team Sunweb, Mitchelton-Scott and Bahrain-Merida are expected to be among the strongest teams for the time trial. Our unexpected wearer of the yellow jersey, Mike Teunissen, is part of the Jumbo Visma team, who are my pick to win here today, so the Dutch rider could well extend his team at the top and keep the maillot jaune into the third day.
Team Ineos will be keen to make up for yesterday. Geraint Thomas is a good time trial rider, Bernal less so, but the British team could well be in the mix here as well. Thomas’s crash yesterday was just a minor one, other riders meant he went down after a glancing blow from the barriers, about 3km from the end. Thomas himself said it just a topple – he’s on the right-hand side in the below video – so he’ll be fully fit for today.
Things are looking a bit more dicey for another of the GC favourites, Astana Pro Team rider Jakob Fuglsang, who had a much bigger crash. The Dane finished the race but had to be given assistance as he hobbled away after his post-race interviews. He took a bang on the knee and a nasty cut above his right eye. It will be interesting to see what shape he’s in today after an evening with the medics.
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Preamble
Welcome to the second stage of the Tour. It’s the time trial today, around Brussels, as the Tour continues to pay homage to Belgian Eddy Merckx.
There was a huge crowd yesterday to greet the 74-year-old before Stage One started, and that obviously inspired Belgium’s Greg Van Avermaet, who was the first to the summit ahead of Meurisse to take two bonus points and the King of the Mountains jersey. It was an action-packed tour, complete with a crash for Geraint Thomas and a photo finish involving Peter Sagan and the eventual stage winner, Mike Teunissen, our yellow jersey winner. Peter Whittle was in Brussels for the Guardian – read his report here:
All that means that this is the currently running order for today’s time trial. With Egan Bernal and Thomas both caught up in the crash yesterday, Team Ineos lies at the bottom of the team classification and it is them that will start first at 1.30pm BST, 2.30pm local time. All times below are BST.
1.30 – Team Ineos
1.35 – Arkéa – Samsic
1.40 – Astana
1.45 – Groupama – FDJ
1.50 – AG2R La Mondiale
1.55 – Movistar
2.00 – Total Direct Energie
2.05 – CCC
2.10 – UAE Emirates
2.15 – Trek-Segafredo
2.20 – Katusha-Alpecin
2.25 – Cofidis
2.30 – Dimension Data
2.35 – Team Sunweb
2.40 – BORA-hansgrohe
2.45 – Lotto Soudal
2.50 – Mitchelton – Scott
2.55 – Bahrain Merida
3.00 – EF Education First
3.05 – Deceuninck – Quick-Step
3.10 – Wanty – Gobert
3.15 – Jumbo – Visma
This is the course today, 27.6km, wide, flat roads (four ‘climbs’ of around just 4%), so it should be a very quick one.
Obviously we won’t have the jostling of yesterday, so please do chime in with your emails, tweets, hopes and dreams. You can find me at [email protected] or @michaelbutler18.