Team Sky won the Criterium du Dauphine‘s team time trial on Wednesday, bringing Michal Kwiatkowski back in the overall lead at the warmup race for the Tour de France.
Sky won the 35-kilometer stage in 36 minutes, 33.46 seconds, 37 seconds ahead of closest rival BMC. Lotto Soudal posted the third fastest time, 52 seconds behind Sky.
Sky rider Geraint Thomas said: ”It was fluid and fast. It’s probably one of Team Sky’s best time trials ever. Now we have four hard stages ahead of us and we’ll see how it goes. But we’ll defend the jersey. We’ve got several cards to play but it’ll still be difficult to win.”
Kwiatkowski, who relinquished the leader’s jersey on Tuesday after he crashed on a roundabout toward the end of Stage 2, is back in the lead with a three-second advantage over teammate Gianni Moscon. Another Sky rider, Jonathan Castroviejo, is in third place, nine seconds off the pace.
Kwiatkowski opened a gap on his main rivals, with Adam Yates now trailing more than one minute back and Romain Bardet 1:52 off the pace ahead of four mountain stages.
”I’m so happy that I got no major issue after the crash yesterday,” said Kwiatkowski. ”If I could have picked up one stage win in the Dauphine, I’d like it to be the TTT. It’s a wonderful feeling to win as a team. We rode a perfect stage, technically and tactically, on the entire course.”
Criterium du Dauphine 2018 – stage 3 results (Pont-de-Vaux – Louhans-Châteaurenaud TTT):
| 1 | Team Sky | 36:33 |
| 2 | BMC | +38” |
| 3 | Lotto Soudal | +53” |
| 4 | Mitchelton-Scott | +56” |
| 5 | Quick-Step Floors | +01’02” |
| 6 | Trek-Segafredo | +01’27” |
| 7 | AG2R La Mondiale | +01’30” |
| 8 | Movistar | +01’31” |
| 9 | LottoNL-Jumbo | +01’33” |
| 10 | Groupama-FDJ | +01’34” |
General classification after stage 3:
| 1 | Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) | 9:28:21 |
| 2 | Gianni Moscon (Team Sky) | +03” |
| 3 | Jonathan Castroviejo (Team Sky) | +09” |
| 4 | Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) | +21” |
| 5 | Brent Bookwalter (BMC) | +48” |
| 6 | Damiano Caruso (BMC) | +52” |
| 7 | Joey Rosskopf (BMC) | +53” |
| 8 | Daryl Impey (Mitchelton-Scott) | +54” |
| 9 | Jens Keukeleire (Lotto Soudal) | +01’01” |
| 10 | Bob Jungels (Quick-Step Floors) | +01’08” |
