Bevin earns stage win in team time trial
Kiwi Patrick Bevin is a stage winner at the Tour de France after his BMC cycling team won the team time trial in the third stage overnight.
Bevin is the third Kiwi to win the TTT following Chris Jenner in 2001 and Julian Dean in 2011.
Chris Froome’s Team Sky came up 4s short of BMC, as Greg Van Avermaet claimed the yellow jersey.
BMC, led by Australian hope Richie Porte, clocked 38m 46s over the 35.5km route that began and ended in Cholet near the Atlantic coast.
Sky finished second and Quick Step Floors third, 7s behind. World champion Sunweb featuring Tom Dumoulin finished fifth, 11s back.
Former leader Peter Sagan was dropped by his Bora Hansgrohe teammates and fell to 80th overall, three minutes behind.
Van Avermaet, a Belgian who excels at single-day classics, isn’t a threat for the overall title but could keep the lead through to the cobblestoned stage nine ending in Roubaix.
Froome was left 55s behind in the overall standings with another week of nervy rolling stages before hitting the Alps.
“It’s a good time,” said Froome, who dropped 51s following a crash in stage one. “There are a lot of other good teams. The legs are good. It was a good test for us and the team. I’m very happy with the other riders.”
Froome is aiming to join Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain as the only riders to win the Tour five times.
Van Avermaet earned the yellow jersey by leading BMC over the line, just ahead of American teammate Tejay van Garderen, who moved up to second overall, with the same time as Van Avermaet. Geraint Thomas of Sky was third overall, 3s behind.
BMC, which is searching for a new title sponsor, also won the previous team time trial on the Tour in 2015.
“I don’t think it is a bad thing to have the yellow jersey for a team looking for a sponsor,” said Porte, who crashed out of last year’s Tour and lost time in stage one of this edition.
“I feel maybe even better [than last year],” Porte said. “It wasn’t ideal to throw 51s away but we have taken some good time back on some of the other GC [general classification] guys. It’s a long way to go, we still have six more hectic days and then we have also got the Alps and Pyrenees.”