The Olympia`s Tour kicks off with a 5km prologue in Hoofddorp. It`s a pan flat course and is a good chance for the specialists to gain time. That said 5km might be not enough to create bigger gaps already.
Stage favourites are the Oz duo Ford/Olman as also the Brits Tennant and Stannard, Swedes Johansson/Wetterhall or home riders Ligthart, Reus and Elijzen.
Also German Barth and Swiss Schär with outside chances.
So as you see quite a deep time trial field here despite the clashing time trial favouring race in Ukraine.
The above mentioned Schär as one of the earlier starters. His Vontobel team had a nice season so far even though their recent Langkawi trip wasn`t that successful. Here the Swiss belongs to the top10 favourites due to his allround skills against the clock and on the cobbles.
6'32 for him.
Wetterhall next. Similar strong time trialist but weaker elsewhere. So it`s probably more his teammate to shine here for Swedbank.
6'30 for him though and 2s faster than Schär.
Tennant as best Jaguar time trialist. He prefers long time trials but also can perform well on those short parcours.
Today a rather weak result for him. Same time but behind Wetterhall.
6'30
Lagab could be the teams best GC hope. One of the best African allrounders as he can everything a bit. A pretty good PCT cobbler, decent against the clock and pretty well out of smaller groups in a sprint. Only longer mountains don`t suit him too much. But for races like this here, he pretty nicely matches the criteria.
6'31 for him and just 1s slower than his teammate.
Olman the first of the Oz favourites. Both are pure time trialists but belong to the very best there. He might be the weaker but 6'24 sounds pretty nice and much faster than all previous times.
Stannard was part of the Jaguar squad in the last years but was one of the earlierst riders on the transfer market. Being in CT now riding for ASDA, he obviously is kind of top favourite almost in all CT time trials. In PCT races like here he also belongs to the best but must live with riders beating him. So he is provisional 2nd behind Olman as he finishes 2s behind him.
6'26.
Ligthart also a great time trialist. He needs to gain time here in case of losing a bit on the cobbles. Also it`s unlikely to gain time on the flat stages.
Riding at home seems to work well for him as we have the next best time!
6'22.
Time for the top time trialist in this field. Ford can already count several great results in his palmares and also today he sets the new best.
6'16 and just a few riders left to eventually beat him.
Johansson is Swedbanks next card to play. Another pure time trialist and today indeed the team`s strongest. 5th at the moment with 6'27.
Barth also a good time trialist obviously hoping for a good result today but also in the GC.
Against the very best he will lose but provisional 6th with 6'28 sounds okay I guess.
Elijzen is the 2nd top CT time trialist. He will often meet Stannard in C2 races. Here they can also match each other. And today the Brit wins the duel but both are within the same time:
6'26.
Reus is one of the top favourites as strongest Dutch time trialist here. Due to his lack of cobbled or sprint skills he needs the time gain against the clock to have win or podium chances.
His time is good but not the best as Ford is unbeatable. 3s slower than the Aussie Reus comes in 2nd.
6'19
Holloway is the last starter and as one of the better time trialists within the top sprinters, he could have good chances when getting a few podium spots.
+21 though is not that great to be honest and far from best sprinter today.
So here a list of those sprinters:
Coquard +12
Van Poppel +12
Hochmann +14
Lo Cicero +14
Kankovsky +16
Castaneda +19
Kupfernagel +19
Thorsen +21
Holloway +21
Granjel Cabrera +23
Maksimov +28
Rowe +31
Sonnery +35
Renshaw +35
Vantomme +35
Kreder +36
Goss +36
Ciolek +40
Vanoverschelde +44
Bennett +47
