Tour de France: Jumbo-Visma win team time trial in Brussels

Jumbo-Visma made it two out of two at the Tour de France, following up Mike Teunissen's surprise stage 1 win with a dominant performance on the stage 2 team time trial. They took victory with a time of 28:57, 20 seconds ahead of Team Ineos and 21 up on Deceuninck-QuickStep.

Stage favourites Team Ineos set off first, and duly set the fastest time of the day at 29:18 flat. Katusha-Alpecin were the first team to come close, beating the British team's intermediate times, but falling short by just six seconds at the finish.

Movistar and Trek-Segafredo both endured disappointing rides, falling outside the 30-minute mark. The main challengers to Ineos came late on, with a raft of favourites filling out the final starting slots.

Mitchelton-Scott, Bahrain-Merida and EF Education First all impressed, but ultimately fell short of challenging for the win. QuickStep came the closest, looking odds-on to top the standings as they reached the final run-in. It was a painful end for the Belgian squad though, as they missed out by less than a second.

But by that point, all eyes were on the team ten minutes behind them. Jumbo-Visma were flying, crushing the intermediate checkpoints despite losing Dylan Groenewegen inside the first ten kilometres.

Their speed compared to the other teams on the day was almost unbelievable, but they held it to the finish to breeze to victory. While before, 20 seconds covered the top eight teams, Jumbo-Visma saw to it that there would be 20 seconds between first and second.

"Yesterday was a dream and today is again the thing we dreamt of," said race leader Teunissen after the finish. "It was really hard because of Dylan's crash – he couldn't give his all. He fought really well and did good work in the beginning and then we had one guy less.

"We had a tactic to do it without George [Bennett] because he's just too small," he added, joking, "But in the end, he felt really good and could help us. The other guys were really strong, really long pulls. All the little kickers were really hard, but everyone kept their pace.

"We heard that we were fastest, and we got so much morale – we already had a lot with this jersey on. We were flying, it was unbelievable. It's not that I'm getting used to winning stages at the Tour de France but it's two out of two now and it's really, really nice.

"Yesterday it was mainly me who took the credits, but it was already a team effort. Today we had eight really strong riders but also everyone around – staff, trainers, mechanics – everyone worked so hard for this. It was a really big goal for us and that it turns out like this, it's unbelievable."

Teunissen extends his race lead to ten seconds ahead of four Jumbo-Visma teammates. The best non-Jumbo rider is Gianni Moscon (Team Ineos), who lies 30 seconds down in sixth place. Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) takes over the white jersey, but the green and polka dot jerseys remain on the shoulder of Teunissen and Van Avermaet, respectively.

How it unfolded

The peloton remained in Brussels, Belgium for the second stage of the Tour de France, racing a 27.6-kilometre team time trial from the south to the north of the capital city. Though not as lumpy as the 2018 TTT in Cholet, the stage would provide and early sort-out among the top general classification contenders.

Unusually for a favourite, Team Ineos set off first. The powerhouse British squad lay last in the team classification after several of their riders were held up in the late crash on stage 1. The team, packed with strong time trialists like Geraint Thomas, Jonathan Castroviejo and Michał Kwiatkowski, were predictably flying along the largely flat course.

They set the quickest time among the early runners, finishing with an average speed of 56.5kph and a time of 29:18.00. French squad Groupama-FDJ impressed too, shedding just 11 seconds to Ineos despite losing a man to a crash in the closing corners.

Astana also had a good ride, with team leader Jakob Fuglsang showing few signs of suffering after his crash on stage 1. They finished with a time of 29:38, just 20 seconds down on Ineos. Meanwhile, the triple threat of Movistar had a less-than-ideal run, losing 44 seconds to the Bernal and Thomas-led squad.

Katusha-Alpecin were the first team to beat Ineos at any checkpoint, going four seconds faster after 13.2km and one second faster at the second checkpoint. They faded on the run-in to the finish though, missing out on topping the timesheets by six seconds.

Meanwhile, Richie Porte's GC bid took an early hit as his Trek-Segafredo team finished with a time of 30:15, a full 57 seconds down on Ineos. Team Sunweb fared better, finishing 20 minutes later with a time of 29:23, another team to just miss out on Ineos' benchmark.

The later runners included Mitchelton-Scott, EF Education First, Deceuninck-QuickStep and Bahrain-Merida, and all four of them posted intermediate times towards the top of the standings. The quintet passed the first checkpoint at 13.2km within five seconds of Katusha's quickest time.

They were no match for the final team off though. Jumbo-Visma flew through the opening part of the course, smashing Katusha's time by ten seconds despite losing Dylan Groewegen after ten kilometres.

Mitchelton were the first of that late favourites to finish. They weren't quite up to their usual standards, finishing seventh, 21 seconds down on Ineos at the Atomium. Bahrain went five seconds faster, and EF another eight faster, but still nobody could beat Ineos.

Deceuninck-QuickStep blitzed the course and as they hit the final kilometre it looked like they'd dethrone the British squad. It turned out to be a painful finish in more ways than one for the boys in blue though – they finished just 0.8 of a second down on Ineos.

Jumbo-Visma were the last team off, and if QuickStep were disappointed to miss out at the finish, then spare a thought for the eight men of Ineos who had sat in the leader's hot seat all afternoon. The Dutch team smashed Katusha's time at the first and second checkpoints, going ten seconds up at 13.2km, and 15 seconds up at 20.1km.

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