[ad_1]
Richie Porte struggles to catch up in the team time trial after the opening of the Tour de France with two days of chaos
The Australian competitor lost six more seconds to the third step. Sagan won and took the yellow jersey.
After months of uncertainty about the future of BMC 's Porte team and growing speculation about Australia' s future, cyclingnews announced he would join Trek-Segafredo for a two-year contract. Meanwhile, BMC has surrounded Porte with a powerful team at the Tour and they are one of the favorites to win the third-stage team time trial.
Last month, BMC won the team time trial in the Tour de Suisse and set up Porte for the overall title, which he says is probably the biggest victory of his career.
Porte and BMC will have to shoot in the 35.5 km stage in Cholet with a seven minute minute of 33 years behind Sagan in the overall standings.
But contenders such as Rigoberto Uran, 2014 Tour winner, Vincenzo Nibali, Tom Dumoulin, winner 2014, and Germe Thomas, the teammate of Froome's Sky, all won valuable seconds.
Thomas was only 15 seconds ahead of Sagan, while Nibali, Dumoulin and Uran were part of a large group of riders at 16 seconds
one of the strongest teams here, so I hope we can come back, "says Porte.
BMC reports in its press release shortly after the second step that Porte has lost more time
But nearly four hours after the end of the 182.5 km sprint stage of Mouilleron-Saint Germain in La Roche-Sur-Yon, the race organizers made radical changes to the results
The judges of the race apparently made an initial mistake with the times after the crashes and mechanical problems that tainted the last kilometers of the second leg, surprised late in the day for Porte, 71st overall. 19659002] Door had a puncture in the first half of the second stage but his teammates badured him that he was quickly returning to the peloton and he was finishing the stage out of danger In 19th position
Sagan was ahead of the stack within 2km of the L & amp; Who has pulled out several riders, including Australian Michael Matthews (Team Sunweb) and the winner of the first Italian stage Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step). The star of Bora-Hansgrohe resisted the Italian Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain-Merida), while the French Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FdJ) was third.
The Slovak was eliminated after the fourth stage 12 months ago. Mark Cavendish crushes in a chaotic sprint
"It's a perfect day, I was a little scared because Sonny was coming back strong," Sagan said.
"It's a very good start. I am really back. "
The Australian Mitchelton-Scott team had a bad stage, competitor Adam Yates s' crashed for the second time in two days.
The British star lost 30 km and his Australian teammate Luke Durbridge also had a tumble.
Source link
