Team Ineos to get the ball rolling

For the first time in thirty years, a Dutchman will ride in the yellow jersey at the Tour de France and Mike Teunissen might as well retain it as Jumbo-Visma is one of the best teams in that specialty. This year alone, they won the team time trial at the UAE Tour and finished second to Mitchelton-Scott at Tirreno-Adriatico. They’re at the Tour without their driving force Primoz Roglic but their line-up of time trial specialists remains impressive with Tony Martin, Jos van Emden, Wout van Aert, Steven Kruijswijk, Laurens De Plus and Amund Grondahl Jansen. As an historical reference, the Dutch national team won the first ever team time trial at the Tour de France in 1955 in Dieppe. The Ti-Raleigh team won them all from 1978 to 1981 and nine TTT out of eleven from 1976 to 1982. Four of the 22 current teams have already won the TTT at the Tour de France: Astana in 2009, Garmin-Cervélo (now EF Education First) in 2011, Orica-GreenEdge (now Mitchelton-Scott) in 2013, BMC (now CCC) in 2015 and 2018. Interestingly, Team Sky hasn’t won yet but they were always close. Seven of their eight riders who finished second last year are part of the line-up this time again, with only Chris Froome missing and being replaced by Dylan van Baarle who is himself a qualified time trialist too. Team Ineos is an obvious favourite in Brussels on the 27.6km course from the Royal Palace to the Atomium. As they took the last position in the teams classification of stage 1, they’ll be first on the road. Shall they win, Gianni Moscon, their highest ranked rider on stage 1, in eightieth position just one ahead of Egan Bernal, will get the yellow jersey. Bahrain-Merida and Mitchelton-Scott are among the other serious candidates while several GC contenders will be hoping for limiting the damage.