The Tour de France and its brutal team time trial showed Peter Sagan is not superhuman. The third day has been incredibly hot and the world champion was clearly suffering.
Sagan’s Bora-Hansgrohe was the last octet to roll down the ramp, and the Slovak couldn’t hang on past the second check.
“I’m a little bit tired,” Sagan said. “It was a hard day for me, a little bit of a bad day. I’m sorry for my teammates … It was nice to have the yellow jersey for one day, but it’s not Sunday every day. I tried my best. There’ll be more days. It’s still a long way to Paris. I’m looking forward to the next stages.”
“I couldn’t say it was a bad TTT but it wasn’t our best one either”, said Enrico Poitschke, Bora-hansgrohe Sports Director.
“I think we didn’t show our full potential today. The guys didn’t find their rhythm at the beginning, they did their best and fought to the end. I think everybody was pretty nervous with the first yellow jersey ever in our squad, which is understandable. Peter didn‘t have his best day either but he gave his best to support the team. In the end, we limited our losses and 50“ down in the GC is not bad at all, but we hoped to do a little better.”
BMC took the day’s honours, as they did the last time the Tour held a team chrono in 2015. Among the GC men it was a good day for Tom Dumoulin, Geraint Thomas, Chris Froome, Bob Jungels, Richie Porte and Adam Yates, and a decent result for Rigoberto Uran, Ilnur Zakarin, Jakob Fuglsang, Vincenzo Nibali, Mikel Landa and Alejandro Valverde.
