BORA – hansgrohe squad finished their first team time trial with this line-up in 12th place.
The second day at the Volta a Catalunya featured a team time trial with start and finish in Banyoles. 40 kilometers on a demanding course waited for the 25 participating teams. BORA – hansgrohe started in the afternoon as one of the last teams. As the sky got darker, it looked like possible rain. Still, at 15:44, when BORA – hansgrohe started, the weather conditions were dry and the squad started their first team time trial this way.
As one of the first teams Trek-Segafredo set a time with 50:10 minutes. Unfortunately, BORA – hansgrohe lost on the hilly and technically demanding parcours two riders pretty early. Still the team clocked with 27:28 just around 30 seconds slower than Trek-Segafredo at the intermediate split.
In the second part, the course had longer flat sections and due to the early loss in man power the team had to pay tribute coming closer to the finish. With a time of 51:22, BORA – hansgrohe was 1:12 behind Trek-Segafredo. This meant the 12th place on the final score board.
BMC and Movistar battled really hard for the stage win. Both teams crossed the finish line with a time under 50 minutes. Movistar was a glimpse faster and took the win with 48:55.
“We were not bad for our first team time trial with this guys. The first ones have a really strong squad here, and they are more kind of TT specialists. We did our best and our performance was good. In the second part, we missed one or two big guys for the flat.” – Rafal Majka
“The boys saved energy yesterday to make a good result today. With a 12th place we can be satisfied. Of course, the gap to the first teams is too big, but teams like Movistar or BMC are also well known for their TTT skills. Compared to Trek-Segafredo our performance was ok. It was a solid result and now the job is to support Rafal in the next days to go for a good result in the GC.” – Enrico Poitschke, sports director
Tomorrow will be the first mountain top finish in this year’s Volta a Catalunya. Start will be in Mataro then the peloton has to cover 188,3 kilometers with two KOM´s before they will climb up to the summit finish on the La Molina, which will be a category 1 climb.
