The switch from Team Sky to Team Ineos did nothing to change their luck in Tour de France team time trials but another podium finish without victory saw Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal pick up significant chunks of time on their rivals.
Ineos were first off the ramp for Sunday's 27.6km run around Brussels and sat in the hot seat for almost two hours before watching the final team to start, Jumbo-Visma, beat their time of 29 minutes 18 seconds by 20 seconds to keep Saturday's shock stage winner Mike Teunissen in the yellow jersey.
It was the fifth time that the team known as Team Sky until Sir Jim Radcliffe's buyout in May have finished in the top three of a team time trial at the Tour, but victory continues to elude them.
Under 30 minutes in aero position🔥2 hours in hot seat position📺Missed the first place, but still very happy that everyone gave it all out👍 @TeamINEOS @LeTour 📷 @GettySport pic.twitter.com/9xtkEokWas — Michał Kwiatkowski (@kwiato) July 7, 2019
But while Gianni Moscon – a rider who was almost sacked by then Team Sky 12 months ago when he was disqualified from the Tour for punching Elie Gesbert on stage 15 – was denied the yellow jersey, Thomas and Bernal will welcome the sight of some significant time gaps.
Teunissen's team-mate Steven Kruijswijk is now the best placed of the general classification hopefuls, 20 seconds clear of Ineos' co-leaders, but there is better news further down the standings.
Thomas and Bernal picked up 12 seconds on Groupama-FDJ's Thibaut Pinot, 16 seconds on Bahrain-Merida's Vincenzo Nibali and 21 seconds on both Adam Yates of Mitchelton-Scott and Jakob Fuglsang of Astana, who looked untroubled by the knee injury he suffered in a late spill on Saturday.
It wasn't to be for the stage victory but this has to go down as a great day at #TDF2019. We finish second in the TTT, taking time out of a number of GC rivals in Brussels pic.twitter.com/4l4LxPdQ6j — Team INEOS (@TeamINEOS) July 7, 2019
But others suffered more. Dan Martin's UAE Team Emirates, not noted time triallists, were relatively happy to have only conceded 43 seconds but Nairo Quintana's Movistar gave up 45, Richie Porte's Trek-Segafredo 58 and Romain Bardet's AG2R La Mondiale 59 seconds.
Jumbo-Visma averaged 57.2kmh over the course, beating Ineos' 56.5kmh.
"We wanted to go 57," Thomas said. "I think it's alright and we rode very well and communicated well.
"I think everyone rode strongly so we can't be too disappointed. We got a good speed and we managed to hold onto it. We could have taken some curves faster but that was a minimal loss."
https://twitter.com/LeTour/status/1147894684217425920
Thomas was involved in a late crash of his own on Saturday, an incident which had held up Team Ineos to the point they were last on the team classification at the end of stage one, forcing them to start this stage first and ride without a benchmark to follow.
"Starting early wasn't planned," Thomas added. "It was my tumble and Egan was just behind me so we knew we'd have to start early.
"I had no issues today (after the crash)."
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