Who could follow in the footsteps of Jack Wolfskin's Cornu and Reus and grab the second edition of Duo Normand?
Anyone really, every team present here having its chance. With more equal riders in terms of time - trials ability, the race is way more difficult to predict than last year, when the difference between the first and the second place was 45 seconds.
Bacardi were the first ones to go, with Bagdonas as the main rider. The Lithuanian Champion had Kocjan there to help him and the two finished the 52 kilometers in 1 hour, 16 minutes and 5 seconds
Bbox were next, but quite surprising the French team is represented by two foreign riders: Leif Hoste and the Portuguese Champion, Paulinho. At the finish line, they became the new leaders beating Bacardi's time by 23 seconds
But they weren't able to hang on to the lead either. EL AL were the next team, with the Uzbek Champion, Serguei Lagutin, teaming up with Ignas Konovalovas to take the lead by 32 seconds
Quicksilver followed, with Miles Olman and the Spanish Champion, Jose Ivan Gutierrez. The Quicksilver duo became the new leaders after finishing the race in 1 hour, 14 minutes and 50 seconds, 20 seconds faster than EL AL
Ovechkin and the Belarus Champion, Vasili Kiryenka were next for Tinkoff. The two grabbed a provisional third place, 32 seconds behind the leaders and 12 seconds behind the second place
Taaramae, the rider of the year in the Continental Division, is riding here for Ikea. Lindgren was the one chose to help the Estonian but they finished only second, 16 seconds behind Quicksilver, 2 seconds in front of EL AL
The 'men in black' were next a.k.a Team Lego were the team that followed Ikea at the finish. They took a provisional fifth place, finishing with the same time as Tinkoff, 32 seconds behind the leaders
From black we move to a lighter color - purple, which means it's time to see how Milka performed here. Hushovd is aging and the victories seem to come only occasionally for the former Festina rider now. With the help of De Gendt though, he brought Milka on a provisional fourth place, 27 seconds away from the first place
Pendleton came here with the best Brit time - trial specialist, David Millar and the current British Champion, Bradley Wiggins. The Brit duo brought Pendleton a place on the provisional podium in the third spot, only 2 seconds away from Ikea's second place
The super druper team, Cilit Bang were the last team to start. Haijun Ma and Gusev weren't able to change the podium though. They brought the pink jersey powered by the Moon X to the fifth place.
