Great start for Roche, Bennett as UAE & Jumbo Visma crash in Vuelta TTT

Nicolas Roche looks in good form as he heads into the three-week Vuelta; his Team Sunweb squad riding very well in today's opening TTT

On a day when
several teams suffered serious problems on the opening stage of the Vuelta,
Nicolas Roche and Sam Bennett came through with flying colours.

Both avoided any
crashes on the technical 13.4km TTT course in Torrevieja and
their teams placed in the top five.

Roche’s Team Sunweb were 3rd on the stage just five seconds off winner’s Astana and three seconds down on runners-up Deceuninck-QuickStep.

Bennett’s Bora-hansgrohe were also in the hunt, finishing
in 5th place just 13 seconds down on the winners.

While the results for the Irish riders’ teams were
strong, getting through the stage in one piece was more important.

UAE Team Emirates, video below, came down in a high speed
crash. Jumbo-Visma, who were favourites for the stage victory, also crashed.

At the spot where the Dutch team came off water from a
local person hosing their garden ran onto the road.

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The water combined with the technical part of the course to make the conditions dangerous.

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Miguel Angel Lopez carries the race leader’s jersey into tomorrow’s stage 2; a testing 199.6km from Benidorm to Calpe.

There are three climbs, the final one a
steep cat 2 ramp crested with about 20km to go.

At 3.1km and averaging 8.9 per cent it
looks more likely to produce time gaps rather than a bunch sprint.

Indeed, there are plenty of climbs in the
opening week meaning Sam Bennett may have to wait until later in the race for a
chance to sprint for victory.

However, he can climb better than most of
the sprinters and may be in contention on some of the early days depending on
how they are raced.

Roche is a rider who has ridden very well in the Vuelta in the past, winning stage 2 back in 2013 and taking the race lead a few days later.

Astana almost dropped leader Lopez but recovered to win the opening TTT stage

Vuelta stage 1 TTT (13.4km)

  1. Astana Pro Team 0:14:51
  2. Deceuninck-QuickStep 0:00:02
  3. Team Sunweb 0:00:05
  4. EF Education First 0:00:07
  5. Bora-Hansgrohe 0:00:13
  6. CCC Team 0:00:15
  7. Movistar Team 0:00:16
  8. Groupama-FDJ
  9. Mitchelton-Scott 0:00:18
  10. Lotto Soudal 0:00:19
  11. Team Ineos 0:00:25
  12. Bahrain-Merida 0:00:26
  13. Katusha-Alpecin 0:00:33
  14. Dimension Data 0:00:34
  15. Trek-Segafredo 0:00:35
  16. Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 0:00:37
  17. AG2R La Mondiale
  18. Team Jumbo-Visma 0:00:40
  19. Cofidis Solutions Credits 0:00:43
  20. Euskadi Basque Country 0:00:46
  21. UAE Team Emirates 0:01:07
  22. Burgos-BH 0:01:22
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