The Irish national U23 team has put in a very solid ride in the stage 2 TTT at Tour de l'Avenir, taking 10th place on the day and limiting their losses well.
While Ben Healy started the stage in 7th place overall, just nine seconds off yellow, the gaps through the general classification are much bigger after today's team test over 26.8km in Laon.
However, though Healy has dropped to 28th, now at 1:20, the Irish team did much better than most of the other teams in the race. The Irish team - Healy, Dillon Corkery, JB Murphy, Adam Ward, Liam Curley and Kevin McCambridge - had the fastest time when they finished their effort.
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They would have gone faster but for bad luck hitting Corkery, who punctured in the opening 1km and so was lost to the team effort for almost the full test. Indeed, Corkery was out of the formation so early in the stage he did a great ride on his own to make it to the finish inside what was a very modest time cut today.
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Though the Irish slipped down the standings to 10th on the stage as other teams finished, that was a solid ride considering there are 29 teams in the field. The stage was won by the Netherlands, in a time of 30:41.
Because the Dutch were 23 seconds up on Spain in 2nd place and 24 seconds up on Norway in 3rd, it is the men from the Netherlands who now occupy the top places in the general classification.
Mick van Dijke (21), the Jumbo Visma rider who won a stage and was 2nd overall at Kreiz Breizh Elites in France last week, holds the yellow jersey after today's stage by five seconds from team mate Casper van Uden. Marijn van den Berg, also of the Netherlands, is now 3rd at seven seconds.
The Irish team lost 1:15 today to the Dutch but finished ahead of nations like Great Britain, Australia, Russia, Colombia and a whole host of others.
Tomorrow's stage 3 takes the riders 153.4km from Château-Thierry to Donnemarie-Dontilly. Though there are no major climbs, the course features four small cat 4 climbs and an uncategorised uphill finish.
Stage 2: Laon-Laon TTT (26.8km)
- Netherlands 30:41 (52.406km per hour)
- Spain 0:23
- Norway 0:24
- Italy 0:38
- Belgium 0:40
- Denmark 0:41
- Germany 0:45
- France 0:49
- Switzerland 1:10
- Ireland 1:15
- Australia 1:23
- Luxembourg 1:28
- Czech Republic 1:36
- Estonia 1:42
- Russia 1:44
- Auvergne Rhone Alpes 1:49
- Slovenia 1:50
- Kazakhstan 1:50
- Mixte Hauts-de-France 1:57
- Canada 2:14
- Ukraine 2:16
- Bourgogne-Franche-Comté 2:20
- Great Britain 2:22
- Centre Mondiale du Cyclisme 2:23
- Colombia 2:43
- Japan 2:50
- Austria 2:50
- Slovakia 3:06
- Ecuador 4:40
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