Yves Lampaert of Quick Step came through late in the opening time trial stage of the Tour de France to upset Jumbo-Visma’s Wout and put himself in the leader’s yellow jersey. Van Aert had already dealt World Champion Filippo Ganna of INEOS his first-ever defeat in a grand tour time trial in rainy Copenhagen. Van Aert threw down a time nearly six seconds better than the Italian on the 13.2km course winding through slippery city streets, just moments after Ganna had knocked early leader Mathieu van der Poel of Alpecin-Fenix out of the leader’s chair by two-plus seconds. But Lampaert, racing some 30 minutes later, rode on drier streets to beat Van Aert by four seconds.
Van Aert nearly had his sixth stage win in three editions of the Tour de France, including the final stage of the 2021 edition, which would have sent his win streak up the road on the flat stage to Nyborg. Van Aert has targeted the green jersey, and presumably will wear that tomorrow, but with an eight-second lead over van der Poel, the closest sprinter, he might be in yellow before long.
Lampaert’s win was a major upset and an upset stomach for Italian fans, whose faint hopes of success at this year’s Tour rested largely on the broad shoulders of the World Champion. But Ganna, a larger rider, struggled in the wet, slippery turns that smaller riders didn’t have to fight quite as much, and in such a tight race you can chalk up the loss to those few seconds. And it might have bothered a few Belgian fans as well, whose hopes are pinned on Van Aert. But Lampaert was the reigning national ITT champ of Belgium as recently as two weeks ago, having just surrendered that title to teammate Remco Evenepoel (not starting the Tour), so it’s hardly an upset to see him do so well here.
Speaking of yellow, third place went to Tadej Pogačar of UAE, here to defend his two Tour titles, and his effort coming in just six seconds in arrears is quite impressive and will start him in the young rider’s white jersey. The Jumbo duo of Jonas Vingegaard and Primož Roglič performed well and ended up eight and nine seconds behind Pogačar,…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Podium Cafe – All Posts…