Tour of California: Van Garderen takes time trial win

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BMC's Tejay van Garderen showed his strength to win the individual time trial on stage 4 of the 2018 Tour of California on Wednesday.

Racing in front of his two daughters on the 34.7km stage around Morgan Hill, just south of San Jose, van Garderen came home seven seconds ahead of teammate Patrick Bevin, with Team Sky's Tao Geoghegan Hart third, 32 seconds behind the American.

The expected shake-up in the general classification sees 2013 Tour of California champion van Garderen assume the overall race lead after Egan Bernal (Team Sky) failed to defend his yellow jersey, losing a massive, but not wholly unexpected, 1:23 to van Garderen. The Colombian is now 23 seconds behind in the overall classification, with EF-Drapac's Dani Martinez moving up into third at 37 seconds.

"Today was special motivation: I have my girls here, I have memories from here five years ago," van Garderen explained. "I didn't expect it to go quite this well, but I kind of had it in the back of my mind on Gibraltar [on stage 2] that if I could keep it within a minute, I could maybe take it today. Today was going to be my big power play and I was glad I was able to produce one. It feels great."

Whether he can keep the yellow jersey through to the finish in Sacramento, he said, "I don't know. Right now I'm just soaking in the moment. I think tomorrow and Sacramento should be sprint days. We just have to worry about stage 6 to Tahoe. We really have a strong team. If you want to beat me, you're going to have to go to the bitter end."

How it unfolded

Under overcast skies and with a light breeze, the riders tackled a 34.7km individual time trial in Morgan Hill on a rather uncomplicated course.

As he declared before the stage, U23 world champion Mikkel Bjerg (Hagens Berman Axeon) went for it full gas, setting the fastest time from the first wave of riders by a massive margin. It seemed as if he’d spend much of the day in the hot seat with a 41:40, but an unexpectedly strong ride by pursuit world champion Filippo Ganna (UAE Team Emirates) pushed him out of the chair by four seconds.

Ganna spent a few minutes basking in the attention, but was soon expelled from his throne by EF-Drapac’s Lawson Craddock, who went three seconds quicker.

Craddock had ample opportunity to give interviews as he awaited the later riders, but soon BMC’s Bevin ghosted in - his immovable style belied the speed at which he travelled. The Kiwi crushed the course in a time 39 seconds faster than Craddock.

But Bevin’s strong performance was just a teaser: his BMC teammate van Garderen hid the effort just as well, coming within three seconds of Bevin at the intermediate check, and then powering over the second half of the course to beat him by seven full seconds.

The effort paid off with the maillot jaune, the American’s first since last year’s Volta a Catalunya, but unlike the Spanish race, he stands a very good chance of taking home the overall in Sacramento on Saturday.

Bernal held onto his podium position, despite looking uncomfortable on the time trial bike and flat roads, ending the day 23 seconds in arrears.

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