Before Sunday’s 9th stage, van Garderen was 13 seconds behind Froome in third place, meaning his BMC team – world champions in the discipline – needed to win the TTT by 14 seconds for the American rider to take the yellow jersey.
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“If you’d said to me at the beginning of this race we’d be in yellow on the first rest day I really wouldn’t have believed you, especially after how things turned out a year ago”, he said, referring to his exit from the race on Stage 5 in the 2014 Tour.
“Potentially we could race defensively from here on”.
Defending champion Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) flattered to deceive yet again, losing another 18 seconds to Quintana and 45 seconds to Froome, with Contador also slipping behind by 28 seconds to the race leader.
“With the team I have and what they have shown so far, we are pretty confident”, Van Garderen said. Teams have to get five riders over the line with the overall time credited to the fifth rider to finish.
“I guess we’re going to have to see how Vincenzo goes up on the long climbs, it hasn’t been a great start for him but things can soon change”, Froome said.
Froome had said before the stage that the key to success would be to have five riders at the foot of the final climb, but with six Sky riders still together at that point, it was clear that Froome at the very least would not lose the yellow jersey.
Nibali lost another 10 seconds to race leader Chris Froome, the 2013 champion, on the short and sharp final climb up Mur de Bretagne, setting off alarm bells in the Italian’s Astana team.
Nairo Quintana’s Movistar were third on the stage at just 4sec and the Colombian climber only gave up three seconds to Froome as he moved up to ninth at 1min 59sec. “The pressure’s certainly not on my shoulders”.
With all the pre-race favourites barring the Briton on the backfoot, Froome tipped Van Garderen, now just 12 seconds back after his BMC’s victory yesterday, as his new biggest rival. It doesn’t mean I’m intimidated by them… “But to actually gain quite substantial amounts of time on quite a lot of contenders has really put us in a fantastic position”. First we have to get to the Pyrenees, the Pyrenees are going to be the test of who’s fit enough to win the Tour and the Alps, who’s got the stamina to make it to end.
“It’s not up to me to do the attacking now – I don’t have to gain time on anyone else”. Although Dennis, who won the stage one individual time trial in the Dutch city of Utrecht, admitted that he feared they went out too hard.
Thousands of fans, many waving the black-and-white flag of the Brittany region, packed the undulating route.
Geraint Thomas will lead Team Sky in a grand tour if he continues to perform as he is at the moment, according to Sir Dave Brailsford, who says the Welshman is “in the mix” as the best bike rider with whom he had ever worked.
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Orica GreenEdge suffered most from the anomalous scheduling having lost Michael Albasini, Simon Gerrans and Daryl Impey to injury in the opening week while their Tour debutant, Michael Matthews, struggles on with damaged ribs that continue to restrict his ability to breathe.
