Jumbo-Visma takes out team time trial in Tour’s second stage

TEAM Jumbo-Visma was super impressive as it dominated the stage 2 team time trial of the Tour de France in Brussels, taking out the stage and keeping the yellow jersey.

This was despite being a man down early in the stage with Dylan Groenewegen obviously struggling after his crash in stage one.

Team Ineos was the first team off the start ramp and set a sizzling time of 29 minutes 18 seconds, and sat in the hot seat for the whole day only to be knocked off by the last team to start.

Trek Segafredo was disappointing with Richie Porte losing 1.18 minutes on Jumbo Visma but more importantly 57 seconds on defending champ Geraint Thomas and significant time on most of his main rivals for overall victory.

“It’s not ideal,” Porte said. “Obviously we lost Koen (de Kort) quite early, maybe after his crash yesterday. We’ve done the reconnaissance and the Pyrenees are always hard, but the Alps this year; the last three stages are brutal.

“The last week is definitely where it’s going to be won. It’s never nice to lose time like that, but there’s still a long way to go.”

Mitchelton Scott was also slightly off the mark, finishing 42 seconds down in 11th place.

That’s pretty disappointing for a team that was favoured to actually win the stage.

But the positive aspect of the day was just how good Adam Yates looked after the finish.

Immediately after the team crossed the line, powerhouse Luke Durbridge opened up on his tough day in the office.

“When they’re that fast, they’re horrible,” Durbridge said.

“It was a really fast course, very tricky to get back on. But the boys gave it everything. I’m empty, so excuse me for my light-headedness.

“We maybe started a little too hard and blew up a bit towards the end. But we gave everything for Adam (Yates) and Adam was very impressive today.”

Mitchelton Scott sports director Matt White was philosophical about the team’s performance.

“I think the guys underperformed,” White said. “But they gave their maximum. No one would have predicted JumboVisma or any team could win by 20 secs.’’

Team Sunweb was strong and kept Michael Matthews within range to have an opportunity for that yellow jersey over the next few days. Surprisingly Matthews was a little disappointed in their time.

“Unfortunately, our team disintegrated a little bit,” Matthews said.

“We have some bigger guys for my leadout, obviously, and for those guys to get up that last climb was always going to be difficult so we decided they would do a suicide pull to keep the speed and add a bit more horsepower in the finale.

“But I think they kicked a bit too hard for some of the guys and it blew some of them up who were meant to finish.”

EF Education were right in the hunt in sixth place and Aussie road captain Simon Clarke was pretty pleased to be only seven seconds down on Ineos.

Rohan Dennis showed why he is rated the best time triallist in the world and powered Bahrain Merida to an impressive ninth place, finishing five seconds up on Mitchelton Scott.