Fresh off the back of super-sub Ben Turner's surprise win on stage 4 of the Vuelta a España, Ineos Grenadiers are eyeing more success in Wednesday's team time trial, with former ITT world champion Filippo Ganna at the helm of their train.
Turner fought back tears and choked up after beating Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) in the hard-fought sprint into Voiron, but after the sparkling wine, or cava, is poured out tonight in celebration, he'll have to refocus on contributing to Ineos' TTT ambitions.
With the likes of Visma-Lease a Bike and UAE Team Emirates-XRG bringing stacked teams, Ineos aren't overly bullish that victory is possible, but believe they can and should be in the fight, whilst also looking after Egan Bernal's GC ambitions.
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Ganna will be vital to Ineos competing, but how Ineos utilise his strength is equally as important, with the adage of only being as strong as your weakest rider– or in this case, fourth weakest, as Ganna's coach Dario Cioni puts it – ringing true once again.
"It's a good bonus to have someone like Pippo, but it doesn't guarantee you a result like in the individual time trial, because you also need to manage how you use him, and you don't want him to destroy the other part of the tea," Cioni told Cyclingnews on Tuesday, as he was already en route to Figueres to check out the route again in preparation for Wednesday.
"Usually, you do this by increasing his workload, which means he's probably going to go longer than the others, and you use him to slightly increase speed for the group. But that needs to be managed so that the others can cope."
Cioni, an expert time triallist himself as a professional and now coaching one of the top racers against the clock this decade, counts himself among the few who enjoy the discipline internally in the race convoy, with stress and nerves typically at an all-time high for the riders and staff.
Team time trials have a patchy history at Grand Tours, living on best in today's calendar through the Vuelta, though, they will be back at the Tour de France next season. This does result in a lack of practice, which is why execution and strategy are highlighted even more as paramount when a TTT does roll around.
"That's the bad thing and the beauty of the team time trials, this aspect that everyone is super nervous," added Cioni, "because even Pippo will be nervous if he cannot contribute to the maximum for the team.
"Or even the weakest rider will be nervous, because maybe he cannot get back onto the group in the line, or he will slow the pace. Or even the middle guy, who has been put in a difficult position because he needs to absorb the workload of someone else.
"I'm quite sure that if you go on the start line, it's difficult to find any rider who is relaxed. The same thing also applies to staff – team time trials are also one of the most stressful days for race staff.
"It requires a lot of work, a lot of preparation, a lot of stress, but if you manage to make things good, then it is very satisfying."
Margins small in TTT
With only 24.1km on the menu in Figueres, Cioni isn't expecting any groundbreaking time gaps to appear, nor does he believe the Vuelta can be lost on stage 5, but does note how losing 30 seconds is a possibility.
"You can lose time, but not lose the Vuelta. I think the margins will not be that extreme," said Cioni to Cyclingnews.
"In the past, they used to be like 40 to 50km time trials on more challenging courses, which could give you bigger gaps. Today, all teams come with a good lineup to support the GC rider, and there's a lot of studying, so the margins you can gain are less than in the past.
"Of course, you can lose around 30 seconds, which you can lose the Vuelta by, but it's not that you will lose three or four minutes. I don't think the Vuelta winner will be winning by less than 30 seconds in Madrid."
Ineos will be the 15th team of the 23 to roll off the start ramp in the hometown of Salvador Dali on Wednesday, at 17:33, with a mix of very strong TT riders, experienced Grand Tour racers and loyal domestiques.
It's far from the strongest TTT team Ineos could field on any given day, but Ganna and Magnus Sheffield will be particularly important to the effort. GC leader Bernal is also no slouch against the clock, and currently sits fourth overall, 14 seconds behind David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) in red. But Cioni still has the belief.
"On paper, I think we probably haven't got the best lineup, but we have done a lot of work and we should go out with the ambition of winning the team time trial," he said.
"UAE is super strong, Visma are super strong, but I think we are there in the mix.
"As a team, we are always ambitious. I wouldn't say we don't start with the idea of winning the team time trial, which would also give Egan good time for the GC. We start with the ambition of winning, but whether we can win or not is a different thing."
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