Greig Leach

The American, Tejay van Garderen (BMC) got out of the saddle and pushed it all of the way home on the final kilometer of today's ITT. Van Garderen is noted for his time trial prowess, but the course or the Tour got the better of him today. He was the faster of his team's co-leaders, but fell behind Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) on the general classification by two seconds. He is now sitting in sixth place overall, but he is only 34 seconds off of the podium in Paris. It seems that today's time trial did little to widen the gaps on the top ten riders of the 2016 Tour de France. It was a day off ups and downs for the riders both literally out on course, and figuratively for those who rode well or not respective of their positions on the general classification. With tomorrow expected to be a day for the sprinters, it should be a day off in the GC battle. However, two days ago that was the expectation, but instead the winds dashed the last hopes of some, there were only four guys that came to the line together, and one of those was Chris Froome (Team Sky). It was a sprinter, Peter Sagan (Tinkoff), who took the day, just not in the predicted bunch sprint.