The Irish national team at the Tour de l'Avenir came off worst of the strange timing rule applied to today's TTT stage result, which was aimed at limiting the general classification losses of weaker nations.
The Irish team has had to absorb all of the time it lost to the teams finishing ahead of them in the 27.9km TTT. But Ireland's time gains on all of the teams finishing behind them have been limited to just 12 seconds, despite the Irish beating some of those squads by minutes.
The organisers of the race had announced in advance they intended to limit all riders' TTT losses to a maximum of two minutes today. That meant when the times from today's stage were applied to the general classification, the maximum any rider could lose to the riders on the winning TTT team today was two minutes.
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However, rather than working out a formula for the time losses and gains that reflected the efforts of all the teams, the two-minute rule was applied as a blunt cut-off. And because the Irish time finished 1:48 down on the winners, their losses to the faster teams are applied in full in the general classification. But the 12 teams finishing behind them lose on 12 seconds to the Irish in the GC.
The upshot of today's result is that Ireland's main general classification rider, climber Archie Ryan, has slipped 24 places to 41st. He started today's stage just 36 seconds down on the yellow jersey but is now 2:21 down on new race leader, Michel Hessmann of Germany.
The 27.9km TTT from Gueugnon to Saint Vallier was won by the Germans by just two seconds from the Belgians, with Norway in 3rd at 23 seconds. The Great Britain team of yesterday's stage winner, and today's race leader, Thomas Gloag finished 4th at 28 seconds.
The Irish team - Ryan, Darren Rafferty, Dean Harvey, Kevin McCambridge and Adam Ward - effectively finished mid-way down the result today, some 1:48 behind the Germans. They were down a man after Liam Curley crashed twice last Friday and was forced to abandon the race.
While the time lost today means Ryan, who is aiming for a general classification ride, now has a job of work to day, his hopes are still alive. There are some very hard mountains to come and Ryan will hopefully prove to be one of the strongest in the race, if his recent climbing form is anything to go by.
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Tour de l'Avenir also generally finishes with very significant time gaps between the riders, event those in the top five or 10. And that means today's losses may not be as significant in dictating the general classification as they appear at present.
The lumpier terrain begins tomorrow and while the climbs are modest on that 124.6km race into Oyonnax a cat 3 crested just 6.5km from the finish may shake things up a little. After the rest day on Thursday comes a big test on Friday’s stage 7 – some 175.4km from Thonon-les-Bains to Saint-François-Longchamp including the summit finish HC climb of 14.6km averaging 7.6 per cent.
That first big climb will offer the first proper look at the pecking order in this race before another big finish on La Toussuire on Saturday and another hard day in the Alps on Sunday.
