UAE Team Emirates shot to victory at a rain-hit stage 3 team time trial at Paris-Nice. The team took advantage of avoiding late rainfall to elevate Brandon McNulty into the race lead after completing the hilly 26.9km Auxerre course in a time of 31:23.
Neither Remco Evenepoel’s Soudal-QuickStep nor Primož Roglič’s Bora-Hansgrohe, both outfitted in the newly banned Specialized TT5 ‘head sock’ helmet nor Visma-Lease A Bike, with their bizarre new Giro Aerohead II, could challenge the winners over the second half of the course, with rainfall slowing up all the late teams on the run into Auxerre.
Instead, it was Luke Plapp’s Jayco-AlUla (31:38) and Rigoberto Urán’s EF Education-EasyPost (31:43) who rounded out the podium at 15 and 20 seconds back.
Evenepoel’s squad were next in the final standings, leading at the checkpoint atop the mid-stage climb before losing 29 seconds in the rain and crossing the line at 22 seconds down. Roglič, meanwhile, had a worse time of it as Bora-Hansgrohe rode the second half of the TTT with just three men before finishing down in 11th, 54 seconds down.
UAE Team Emirates, who were among the teams to enjoy the benefit of dry roads on the run to the finish, came to the line with four men – McNulty among their cadre of GC hopefuls Finn Fisher-Black, João Almeida, and Jay Vine – putting the quartet up at the head of the new general classification, 15 seconds clear of the Jayco-AlUla trio of Michael Matthews, Chris Harper, and Luke Plapp.
“I love this discipline, and we knew we were a strong team coming into it,” Jay Vine said after racing home as part of the winning squad. “Everyone is pretty good at TTs in this team, so we knew we had a good shot at the win. We were fortunate to have pretty good weather as well, so to have the win like this is really, really cool.
“I’m not going to lie and say it didn’t make a difference. The rain came, and we came just before it, and for sure, it was beneficial for us,
“The team wins a lot, but every win is cherished just as much as the other. So, we’re happy to win and there’s something special about winning a team time trial because you win together and it’s not just one person crossing the line, you know?
“I think [winning the race] is still a dream, but I think it puts us in a very good position for the GC with four of us. We can look to fight in the next few days, but it’s definitely not going to be about defending. There’s going to be a lot of attacking…
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