Tour de France 2018: Day 3 Results - Greg van Avermaet wins yellow jersey in Stage 3
Since 2015, a team time trial event has been featured on Day 3 of the Tour de France event. The Stage 3 started from Cholet with the teams comprising Michelton-Scott, Team Sky, Movistar, Groupama, BMC Racing, UAE Team Emirates, EF Education First, AG2r La Mondiale, Direct Energie, Lotto Soudal, Team LotoNL-Jumbo, Confidis Solutions Credits, and Bora-Hansgrohe with each containing 8 members.The showdown of the first General Classification began as the teams covered Cholet for the Team time trial event.
With no time bonuses on offer, there were time gaps among the teams. The 35.5 km was split into two parts with the first at 13 Km until the last at 26.5 Km leading to the finish. Losing some of its riders quite early in the trial, Michelton-Scott ended with just 4 riders.
Starting trail as the second team,Team sky finished with just 6 riders giving some momentum for Chris Froome. Movistar ended at 39:39:64 with just 5 riders. Winning the Monday's event, Team BMC, led by Greg van Avermaet, clinched the third stage team win and will be expected to wear yellow on Tuesday.
Bora-Hansgrohe's Peter Sagan who wore yellow on Monday got dropped and lost the yellow jersey. American based BMC has come first after covering a distance of 35.5km route in Cholet.
Michelton- Scott started the race with their members led by Adam Yates. They had a timing of 38:55:15 as they finished at fourth ahead of Team Sunweb who finished at fifth.The Briton-based Team Sky led by Chris Froome came second despite starting after Michelton-Scott and were 4” behind BMC.
Reigning Olympic champion van Avermaet became the first Olympian to wear the yellow jersey from Sagan who won in stage two. Quick-Step Floors finished at third with 38 min 53sec.
Despite the impressive performance from Philippe Gilbert, yellow jersey went to Van Avermaet as he leads the general classification. Tuesday will see the cyclists cover a larger distance of 195km on the mountainous stage from from La Baule to Sarzeau. At 9:08:55 Greg Van Avermaet leads the General Classification Table followed by fellow teammate Tejay van Garderen.