Home | News

BMC wins Vuelta a España team time trial opener, Dennis in red

American team exorcises Sanchez's ghost with victory in Nîmes

Published August 19, 2017

Team chrono aces BMC earned the best time in Saturday’s Nîmes, France team time trial to kick off the 72nd Vuelta a España, putting Australian Rohan Dennis in the first red leader’s jersey. Like Bardiani-CSF just before this year’s Giro d’Italia and Trek-Segafredo just before July’s Tour de France, BMC had a rider slated for the Vuelta test positive for a banned substance two days ago. Sammy Sanchez tested positive for growth hormone-releasing peptide GHRP-2. The triumph goes a long way to relieve the American team.


The squads faced a 13.7-km route with a little Cat. 3 climb in the middle, and some very tricky bends in the final third.


Irish team Aqua Blue Sport was making history as the first from the Emerald Isle to contest a Grand Tour, but brightly-hued Colombian was also a debutante. The fuschia-clad nontet was the first to start, rolling out of a bullfighting ring to clock 16:51, a time Lotto-Soudal eclipsed immediately with 16:22.
https://twitter.com/AquaBlueSport/status/898934799276154880

Michael Woods’ Cannondale might have been a little disappointed with 16:44, but then again it’s a very young team with no real GC aspirations. Bora-Hansgrohe’s split time at the top of the climb showed it was going well on course, and 16:19 confirmed Rafal Majka and friends’ quality. Sunweb wasn’t having another German-registered team get the better of it, so Warren Barguil, Wilco Kelderman and teammates came in 15-seconds faster than Bora.


GC contender Fabia Aru saw his Astana outfit only make 16:39, while Vincenzo Nibali’s Bahrain-Merida had a slightly better showing with 16:29.

Quick Step tipped Sunweb off the hotbench after posting 16:04. BMC was out on course looking likely to be the first team to break the sixteen-minute mark. It succeeded, hitting 15:58.

Svein Tuft helped to put the Yates twins and Esteban Chaves into good GC position as Orica-Scott marked the fourth best time. Sky knocked Orica down to fifth with a time of 16:07. Romain Bardet’s GC chances suffered a blow when AG2R finished 46-seconds down, with the same time as Cannondale.

The GC Favourites Picture
Froome 16:07
Yates, Yates, Chaves +0:08
Nibali +0:22
Zakarin +0:24
Contador +0:26
Aru +0:32
Bardet +0:37


2017 Vuelta a España Stage 1
1) BMC 15:58
2) Quick Step +0:06
3) Sunweb s.t.

2017 Vuelta a España GC
1) Rohan Dennis (Australia/BMC) 15:58
2) Daniel Oss (Italy/BMC) s.t.
3) Nicolas Roche (Ireland/BMC) s.t.
34) Svein Tuft (Canada/Orica-Scott) +0:23
102) Michael Woods (Canada/Cannondale-Drapac) +0:46
105) Hugo Houle (Canada/AG2R) s.t.

Categories: News |