Paris-Nice: UAE Team Emirates win stage 3 team time trial, McNulty takes overall lead

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UAE Team Emirates shot to victory at a rain-hit stage 3 team time trial at Paris-Nice. The team took advantage of avoiding late rainfall to elevate Brandon McNulty into the race lead after completing the hilly 26.9km Auxerre course in a time of 31:23.

Neither Remco Evenepoel’s Soudal-QuickStep nor Primož Roglič’s Bora-Hansgrohe, both outfitted in the newly banned Specialized TT5 'head sock' helmet nor Visma-Lease A Bike, with their bizarre new Giro Aerohead II, could challenge the winners over the second half of the course, with rainfall slowing up all the late teams on the run into Auxerre.

Instead, it was Luke Plapp’s Jayco-AlUla (31:38) and Rigoberto Urán’s EF Education-EasyPost (31:43) who rounded out the podium at 15 and 20 seconds back.

Evenepoel’s squad were next in the final standings, leading at the checkpoint atop the mid-stage climb before losing 29 seconds in the rain and crossing the line at 22 seconds down. Roglič, meanwhile, had a worse time of it as Bora-Hansgrohe rode the second half of the TTT with just three men before finishing down in 11th, 54 seconds down.

UAE Team Emirates, who were among the teams to enjoy the benefit of dry roads on the run to the finish, came to the line with four men – McNulty among their cadre of GC hopefuls Finn Fisher-Black, João Almeida, and Jay Vine – putting the quartet up at the head of the new general classification, 15 seconds clear of the Jayco-AlUla trio of Michael Matthews, Chris Harper, and Luke Plapp.

“I love this discipline, and we knew we were a strong team coming into it,” Jay Vine said after racing home as part of the winning squad. “Everyone is pretty good at TTs in this team, so we knew we had a good shot at the win. We were fortunate to have pretty good weather as well, so to have the win like this is really, really cool.

“I’m not going to lie and say it didn’t make a difference. The rain came, and we came just before it, and for sure, it was beneficial for us,

“The team wins a lot, but every win is cherished just as much as the other. So, we’re happy to win and there’s something special about winning a team time trial because you win together and it’s not just one person crossing the line, you know?

“I think [winning the race] is still a dream, but I think it puts us in a very good position for the GC with four of us. We can look to fight in the next few days, but it’s definitely not going to be about defending. There’s going to be a lot of attacking racing in the days to come.”

Evenepoel now lies eighth overall at 18 seconds, while Ineos Grenadiers resurgent leader Egan Bernal rounds out the top 10 at 20 seconds. Among the other notable GC hopefuls lying further down the rankings, Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease A Bike) is at 32 seconds, Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) at 42 seconds, Roglič at 54 seconds, David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) at 1:01, and Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) at 1:15.

How it unfolded

The stage 3 team time trial covered 26.9km, looping south of Auxerre, starting and finishing in the city famous for its Burgundy win. The rare challenge of full teams competing in sync against the clock would be further complicated by several hills on the route – a 2.2km, 4.3% rise after 6.5km, the 2.3km, 4.5% Côte de Jussy after 14km, and then a rise to the finish.

Israel-Premier Tech were the first team down the start ramp and so set the pace with a 48.841kph run to finish with a time of 33:03.

Alpecin-Deceuninck and then Astana Qazaqstan were next up, both going quicker, with the Kazakhstani squad crossing the line with a time that wouldn’t be beaten for almost half an hour.

Led by Alexey Lutsenko, the squad rolled home with a time of 32:02 at an average speed of 50.374kph, the first team to break the 50kph barrier.

Fabio Jakobsen’s DSM-Firmenich PostNL (32:46), Arnaud De Lie’s Lotto-Dstny (32:21), and Arvid De Kleijn’s Tudor (32:35) were among the following batch of teams to set times, though it was only when UAE Team Emirates got going that a team would challenge Astana.

The squad – packed with possibly GC hopefuls including João Almeida, Brandon McNulty, Finn Fisher-Black, and Jay Vine – flew out of the blocks to put 14 seconds into the leaders at the Côte de Jussy checkpoint before finishing with a time of 31:23 at an average of 51.424kph.

Luke Plapp’s Jayco-AlUla were next up and duly slotted into second place at 15 seconds down with a strong ride, while Egan Bernal’s Ineos Grenadiers also enjoyed a strong ride, albeit 22 seconds back with a time of 31:45.

Back out on the course, Soudal-QuickStep and their main man Remco Evenepoel started the best of any team to that point, making it to the checkpoint in under 19 minutes to start the second part of the TTT with a 17-second advantage over UAE Team Emirates.

While the Belgian team had made it over the climb with six of their seven men, Primož Roglič only had Matteo Sobrero and Aleksandr Vlasov for company at Bora-Hansgrohe, the German team crossing the checkpoint four seconds down with a time of 18:59 as Marco Haller lost contact just before the top.

Racing into fresh rainfall over the second part of the course, Soudal-QuickStep slowed down, losing time to UAE Team Emirates on the run to the line as Evenepoel sprinted home with Ilan Van Wilder, Yves Lampaert, and Mattia Cattaneo. In the end, they’d shed 29 seconds since the climb, eventually crossing the line in fourth with a deficit of 22 seconds.

Elsewhere, also-rans such as Pello Bilbao’s Bahrain Victorious and Mattias Skjelmose’s Lidl-Trek struggled out on course, recording disappointing times of 32:05 and 32:38 to put them well down on UAE’s 31:23.

EF Education-EasyPost enjoyed a better time of it, however, largely avoiding the late showers to deliver a time of 31:43 and step onto the provisional podium in third.

After Bora-Hansgrohe had passed the climb, only two teams remained – Matteo Jorgenson’s Visma-Lease A Bike and their bizarre new helmets, and Groupama-FDJ with their race leader Laurence Pithie.

Neither were troubling the top of the standings, however, with Visma-Lease A Bike fifth at the checkpoint with a time 21 seconds down on Soudal-QuickStep with Groupama-FDJ a further two seconds back.

Roglič and co proved QuickStep’s slow second half was not due to a problem within the Belgian squad, but rather one with the wet roads instead. Having been 17 seconds up on UAE Team Emirates at the checkpoint, they’d end up crossing the line a massive 54 seconds down on the leaders at 32:17, with Roglič losing 33 seconds to his main GC rival Evenepoel.

Visma-Lease A Bike were the penultimate team home, doing better than Bora-Hansgrohe but not coming close to the win with a time of 32:01. Four minutes later, the now-former leader Pithie and his team’s GC hopeful David Gaudu raced home to finish the day in 14th place with a time of 32:24.

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