The green and gold tinge at the centenary Tour de France was maintained on Tuesday after Orica Green-Edge won the 25km team time trial in Nice, as Le Tour returned to the French mainland. In doing so, the team also delivered the Yellow Jersey to yesterday's stage winner, Simon Gerrans, a deserving winner of the maillot jaune if ever there was one.
The stage had been billed as a match race between Omega Pharma and Garmin, and when Garmin failed to better Omega Pharma's early mark it seemed the Belgian team had a stranglehold on the stage, a win which would have given white jersey wearer Michal Kwiatowski the yellow jersey. But Orica Green-Edge, knowing a win would be enough to put their own man in yellow, produced a performance eerily similar to that put down by Credit Agricole in order to keep Stuart O'Grady in yellow over a decade ago.
The teams of the big names performed well for the most part, with Chris Froome's Sky and Alberto Contador's Saxo Bank just 3 and 9 seconds down respectively. You would expect Froome would be disappointed he has not put more time into Contador as the Spaniard is the superior climber, and most of Bradley Wiggins damage last year was done in the race against the clock. Cadel Evans BMC, and Alejandro Valverde's Movistar were also within 30 seconds so in effect the stage was largely neutralised from a GC perspective.
Other than that there is not much to say about what was a stock standard TTT stage - and it might be a while yet until we see further fireworks with a few stages lined up for the sprinters over the remainder of the week.
Yellow Jersey - Simon Gerrans
Green Jersey - Peter Sagan
Polka Dot Jersey - Pierre Rolland
White Jersey - Michal Kwiatowski
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