Cervélo TestTeam too quick in TTT

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Cervélo TestTeam celebrated a dominant victory in the stage two team time trial at the Tour de l'Aude on Sunday, but their strong ride came at the expense of Elisabeth Armitstead's race lead after she punctured one kilometre into the race.

HTC-Columbia's Adrie Visser assumed the leader's jersey after her team finished 35 seconds down on the Cervélo squad. Dutch team Nederland Bloeit finished third, 54 seconds behind the winners.

"I'm very happy about the team time trial today. It was a hard stage but with the victory was well worth the pain," said Cervélo's Emma Pooley afterwards. "To win with such a big margin was really great for us. So far we have had a very good race. I'm looking forward to the other stages. There's seven days are left and still plenty of challenges ahead."

However, things didn't go all Cervélo's way. Stage one winner and race leader Elisabeth Armitstead punctured one kilometre into the 34.5km stage, but insisted her teammates ride on. She finished almost four minutes behind her teammates and slipped 40th overall.

"It was definitively a challenging course through narrow village roads, sharp corners and other technical highlights but the team was incredibly strong," said Cervélo TestTeam Sport Director Egon van Kessel. "The only thing that was not so nice today was Elisabeth Armitstead's flat tire after only one kilometer. Her wish was that the team continue racing and not wait for her."

Armitstead's unfortunate loss was HTC-Columbia's gain, as Adrie Visser moved into the leader's jersey. The Dutchwoman finished ninth in the race prologue and third on stage one. She now holds a 23 second lead over Loes Gunnewijk (Nederland Bloeit), who leapfrogged from fourth by virtue of her team's time trial performance.

"It's the first time [Visser's] ever led in a stage race so we're all really pleased for her," said HTC-Columbia team manager Ronny Lauke. "Adrie's done a lot of great workfor the team during the spring. She trained hard over the winter, too and it's nice she gets her time in the limelight."

Lauke said the stage had played out as expected, with Cervélo making good on their pre-race favouritism. HTC-Columbia will defend the leader's jersey on Monday's 110km stage three, but indicated that stage wins remain a high priority

"The ideal scenario would be to take the stage and for Adrie to keep the yellow," said Lauke. "We've come close twice, so I think we've shown we're definitely in contention for a win."