Stage 1 - La Vallée de Joux > Juraparc Generali - EDF as the big favorite for the opening TTT and they clearly would love to win this stage, where they missed out on the stage win last season (as 2nd behind Team UBS). Meiji, cycleYorkshire, Fablok, Team Reddit or Kulczyk look like the most promising contenders to fight for the podium and/or stage win and of course it's a first interesting day for the GC contenders (some may struggle to hang on with their teams, some may benefit from a more balanced setup)..
Nordstrom as the first team on the road:
obviously the first best time.. and good news, as De la Cruz finishes with safely in the group..
Fablok with an early start, too and they are clearly ahead of Nordstromg at the split times. Rated as one of the favorites for a stage podium, that's no real surprise though:
31 seconds faster than Nordstrom at the finish and Roche finishes with the group as well!
Azteca then, also clearly behind Fablok eventually:
+ 34" at the finish and the team dropped their two best climbers
Squire + 56" Stetina + 2'01"
Kulczyk the second best team at the split times, but not as good as Fablok:
+ 25" at the finish as provisional 2nd.. but also dropping their leaders..
Eyob + 1'18" Penasa + 1'38"
Team Cerveceria not amongst the best teams, but with one of the premium climbers in the field:
+ 50" at the finish, but Costagli got dropped on the final kilometre..
Costagli + 1'26"
Meiji as one of the more promising teams for the TTT, but they can't compete with Fablok:
+ 27" as provisional 3rd at the finish! Shikai and Choi both finish in the group at least..
Team Popo4Ever as only a minor Top-5 contender, but again no chance to attack Fablok:
+ 35" at the finish..
Team Reddit comes with a pretty strong lineup, but also by the cost of possibly dropping their best climber Manfredi.. the team is just 2 seconds behind Fablok at the second split:
+ 11" as new 2nd at the finish though! A tough day for their GC contender though..
Manfredi + 3'11" after being dropped early..
Carlsberg may fight for a Top-10 result with their lineup:
+ 43" to finish behind Team Popo4Ever and Garby finishes safely with the group..
Euskaltel doing slighty better:
+ 35" at the finish..
Van den Broeck + 38" to lose just a few more seconds Nazaret + 2'37" after being dropped earlier on..
Provisional results at the finish:
1
Fablok - Bank BGZ
21'38
2
Team Reddit
+ 12
3
Kulczyk - DMTEX
+ 25
4
Meiji - JR East
+ 27
5
Nordstrom - BioWare
+ 31
6
Azteca-NBCSN
+ 34
7
Euskaltel - Elior
+ 35
8
Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff
s.t.
9
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
+ 43
10
Carrefour - ESPN
+ 46
11
Team Cerveceria Costa Rica
+ 50
12
BNZ Cycling Team
+ 51
13
Sauber Petronas Racing
+ 1'05
14
Team B&O
s.t.
15
Vattenfall
+ 1'07
16
Bianchi Racing p/b eBuddy
+ 1'12
17
Newton Foundation
+ 1'13
The few last teams cross the second split now:
Andorra Project with Kiserlovski does quite well with 11 seconds off Fablok's final split time..
Generali as the favorite then and the team is 1 second ahead of Fablok at the final split!
Netia with Kwiatkowski may not be amongst the best teams, but the goal is to keep Kwiatkowski in a good GC position. They are 13 seconds off Generali at the final split..
cycleYorkshire with a strong performance on the first 13km of the stage, just 3 seconds behind Generali:
Andorra Project approaches the finish and they are strong:
+ 13" as provisional 3rd behind Fablok and Reddit.. but they lose their leader rather early!
Kiserlovski + 1'21"
Generali leading the race at the split, but the team loses some time on the final 5km sector:
+ 9" as 2nd behind Fablok, that's quite a bummer actually.. their leader loses additional seconds..
Roglic + 32"
Netia with a solid performance then:
+ 17" at the finish, but also Kwiatkowski losing some further seconds..
Kwiatkowski + 48"
cycleYorkshire as one of the best teams at the split times, but just like Generali, they lose some seconds on the final sector:
+ 13" as 4th at the finish, missing out on the podium by one second (but with Meintjes finishing in the main group)!
Piaskowy the first GC leader thanks to a great stage win for Fablok today. Generali finishing 2nd like they did last season, surely a rather disappointing result for the top favorites. A few GC contenders lost time (as to be expected), so Roche and Meintjes may be considered today's biggest winners amongst those GC riders.