The team time trial stage with that novel rule change that\u2019s still a team time trial. How much of a lead can Jonas Vingegaard get on Tadej Poga\u010dar today?<\/p>\n
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Remember sprint trains?<\/strong>: first a quick mention of Jonas Gregaard who drew the short straw and went a solo attack but got the mountains jersey for his efforts, helped by his attack on Sunday. With fewer and fewer teams actually being invited to races there\u2019s less onus on them to provide \u201canimation\u201d but Uno-X duly supplied a rider to go up the road for the day, even if they had a contender for the stage in Alexander Kristoff.<\/p>\n Remember sprint trains, when a sprinter could hitch a ride on the back of several team mates and bid their time until the finish? Perhaps it started with the Flandria team in the 1970s, it became the way the Saeco team won in the 1990s and probably reached perfection with the HTC\/Highroad team around 2009. These days teams still have lead outs and riders to guide them through the finish but no one team is able to control the race like times past. You can see it, the front of the peloton is not strung out in a line, nor even in arrow formation but often spread across the road \u2013 which can sometimes be a sign of a go-slow but obviously is quite the opposite with there\u2019s 800m to go in a World Tour race, everyone is trying to get to the front.<\/p>\n Mads Pedersen got the win, helped by a lead-out into the finish from Alex Kirsch, and he just seemed the fastest in the finish and collects the yellow jersey thanks to being third on Sunday\u2019s stage as well.<\/p>\n The Route<\/strong>: 32km around Dampierre-en-Burly, a small town close to the banks of the Loire river and dominated by France\u2019s sixth biggest nuclear power station with its four reactors and their cooling towers which have been in the news of late, partly because of long maintenance saw them being closed just as energy prices were spiking going into winter; and also last summer when the Loire was running dry and they were wondering if the plant could return water used for cooling back to the river of whether this would make what was left in the river too hot to sustain wildlife.<\/p>\n Anyway the course is largely flat with 180m of vertical gain, triangular in shape and it suits big engines who can pull at 60km\/h rather than teams that can plot their way around a technical course. The start and finish are at the base of the triangle, the zone north of this is woodland offering some shelter from the wind and the peak of the triangle is exposed. There seven bends and most of them can be taken at speed in the tri-bars, otherwise it\u2019s long straight sections which often roll up and down. The hardest drag up comes with about 10km to go.<\/p>\n The Rules<\/strong>: the novelty here is the time is taken on the first rider to cross the line and each rider gets credited with the time it takes them to complete the course. This means two things:<\/p>\n You can imagine the tactics with teams in formation for the first part of the course but the closer the finish gets, the more likely they burn up riders who can take pulls that put them into the red while towing their team that bit faster.<\/p>\n Artifice, a gimmick? Perhaps but so is a team time trial based on the time of the fourth rider as well. It probably won\u2019t change too much either although it gives us something to think about on a Tuesday in March. Paris-Nice actually has a long history of innovation and rule changes<\/a>, some like air transfers, prologues and the one\/three kilometre rule all come from this race and are features, others like the \u201cbest descender prize\u201d have not stuck.<\/p>\n The Contenders<\/strong>: Jumbo-Visma<\/strong> have picked a team with this stage in mind and the idea to get Jonas Vingegaard not just in the lead but with a cushion on his rivals including Tadej Poga\u010dar. They have the reigning world TT champ in Tobias Foss, former world champ Rohan Dennis, the wardrobe-sized TT specialist Edoardo Affini and Jonas Vingegaard won a TT in the Gran Camino.<\/p>\n Ineos<\/strong> have a very strong team, although just imagine if they\u2019d brought Filippo Ganna and a couple of others. Next come a sweep of teams who ought to be close but it\u2019d still be a surprise if they won. Soudal-Quickstep<\/strong>. EF Education-Easypost<\/strong> where just pipped in the UAE Tour, although only rider in Marijn van der Berg, is here from that day. Bahrain<\/strong>. Bora-hansgrohe<\/strong>. Jayco-Al Ula<\/strong>.<\/p>\n UAE have their work cut out. Tadej Poga\u010dar has only done one team time trial since turning pro and in the 2019 Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a his UAE team finished 21st out of 22. However this was a day when Jumbo also lost time, a leak of water on the course caused carnage. Still team management are getting the excuses in, saying they didn\u2019t have TT bikes over the winter because of equipment shortages, a reminder that while the heritage fades, it\u2019s still the old Lampre team at times and you can\u2019t imagine other teams having this problem.<\/p>\n Weather<\/strong>: cold and cloudy, 7\u00b0C and a light SW wind.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/64.media.tumblr.com\/0efc3bf84c8326f7980a53a0e71ffea6\/1c5a8c9610c68c84-9f\/s2048x3072\/0540846cc1f477729bbdac26da728a01e948db44.jpg\")
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\n ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/inrng.com\/medias\/images\/threerings.jpg\")
<\/td>\nJumbo-Visma<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/inrng.com\/medias\/images\/tworings.jpg\")
<\/td>\nIneos<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/inrng.com\/medias\/images\/onering.jpg\")
<\/td>\nEF, Quickstep, Bora<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n