The Team Time Trial has had it’s time in the sun at the Tour de France but it’s now time for the clock to be reset on it.
The Team Time Trial was the bread and butter of five-time winner Miguel Indurain. With his powerful team he’d take yellow and defend it in the mountains.
On Tuesday we saw Orica-GreenEDGE take the win, delivering Simon Gerrans a yellow jersey.
All power to GreenEDGE for winning only their second stage of the Tour de France and taking the maillot jaune in the process.
However I believe that the team time trial does detract a little from the overall battle of man versus man.
I also believe it can damage a genuine GC contender’s chances if he doesn’t have an overly powerful time-trial team.
Take Cadel Evans for example. The Australian is quite a good time triallist, having won a time trial stage in the Tour as well as securing his win in 2011 with one.
His right-hand man, Tejay van Garderen is also a very goo time triallist. However, for BMC they simply don’t have the power that Orica-GreenEDGE have with their track cycling background.
This meant Evans lost time on his rivals through no real fault of his own. He’s looked in good form and drove the BMC train.
Had it been an individual time trial we probably would’ve seen Cadel in the top five. But I digress from that line of thinking.
I was surprised slightly to see Orica-GreenEDGE win the stage although I never thought it out of their reach given their track backgrounds.
I was more concerned with Team Sky. They are all very good time-triallists and I think had they won we could be in for a very dull Tour.
Sky would simply do what Indurain did. Land Froome in yellow and then defend like maniacs in the mountains.
Given they defended the yellow jersey last year for around two weeks it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for them to defend it for that long.
I guess we can be grateful to Orica-GreenEDGE for giving us a more eventful tour as they try to hold on to the jersey and the other contenders do their best to capture it.
But I think the race would’ve been better served having a hilly-mountain stage rather than a time trial. Or if they wanted a time trial why not an individual time trial?
An individual time trial means the GC contenders are not reliant on ensuring four of their team remain with them, they can ride at their limits and the result will be solely on them.
It’s time to remove the team time trial and allow the GC riders another stage to push theirs and their opponents’ limits.
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