The Tour of Northern Europe gets underway in a few minutes and the teams start to arrive near the starting gate for what is expected to be a tough cobbled TTT stage.
Favourites
Team
Rank
Team Tinkoff
***
Aker - MOT
***
Grieg - Eftel
**
World Cycling Centre
**
Gazelle
**
Team UBS
**
RBC Pro Cycling
**
Evonik - ELKO
*
eBuddy
*
Moser - Sygic
*
Aegon - Lavazza
*
Netia - Vónin
*
Aegon are the first team off the blocks and set the first time of the day. 18'1" at the first intermediate.
Moser immediately better their time by clocking 17'52".
Desigual go third, 10" down at the first check.
eBuddy, Evonik, Air France and Vesuvio got through the first time check next but they're slower.
Grieg now go through in 3rd, a second better than Desigual's time.
RBC are not close to challenging for the time being.
Netia set the new best time of 17'50".
Porto, Hugo and T-Mobile go through some way slower than the top teams so far.
We have another lead change. UBS are the new leaders at the first check with a time of 17'48".
Tinkoff with a disappointing start, already 27" down on the best time.
Puma match the time set by UBS! They're being shown as the leaders on the leader-board!
Festina, Isostar and Volvo do not worry the leaders.
Aker clocks in 9 seconds slower at the first intermediate.
Bennelong aren't close.
Gazelle are just 4 seconds down as they pass the time check.
Berg are quite a bit slower but World Cycling Center slot into 7th for the moment.
Times after the first intermediate:
Team
Time
Puma
17'48"
UBS
17'48"
Netia
17'50"
Moser
17'52"
Gazelle
17'52"
Aker
17"57"
World Cycling Center
17'58"
Grieg
18'1"
Aegon
18'1"
Desigual
18'2"
Evonik
18'2"
eBuddy
18'7"
RBC
18'11"
Porto
18'11"
Festina
18'11"
Benelong
18'13"
Vesuvio
18'14"
Tinkoff
18'15"
Isostar
18'17"
Volvo
18'18"
Air France
18'19"
Hugo Boss
18'19"
T-Mobile
18'22"
Berg
18'24"
Moser once again better Aegon's early time set in time check 2. The time to beat stands at 34'41".
Evonik go quickest with 34'39"!
Their time beaten by a mere second by Grieg!
Netia immediately set another fastest time. It now stands at 34'29".
UBS go close and stand at 1 second slower than the current leaders.
Puma take the lead with a time of 34'27".
Gazelle are close but not close enough, with a time 7" slower.
We have another new leader. World Cycling Center now lead after the second time-check with a time of 34'24".
Times after the second intermediate:
Team
Time
World Cycling Center
34'24"
Ruma
34'27"
Netia
34'29"
UBS
34'30"
Gazelle
34'34"
Grieg
34'38"
Evonik
34'39"
Moser
34'41"
Aegon
34'44"
Festina
34'47"
Aker
34'47"
Desigual
34'55"
eBuddy
34'54"
Air France
34'57"
Isostar
35'02"
RBC
35'6"
Tinkoff
35'7"
Vesuvio
35'9"
Porto-Prio
35'9"
Benelong
35'13"
Volvo
35'16"
T-Mobile
35'24"
Hugo Boss
35'27"
Berg
35'42"
Aegon keep the best time at the finish - 48'3" - for a while as Moser lose time in the final sector and end up 5 seconds slower.
Conversely, eBuddy make up a lot of time in this sector to be just 3 seconds shy of the best time.
Evonik take the lead again with a time of 47'45".
Grieg take it away from the Latvians, once again, by a mere second.
Netia take back the lead with a time of 47'35".
UBS storms through the final sector and now lead with a time of 47'22".
Puma lose steam and their advantage, and end up 7 seconds slower than UBS.
Gazelle, too, lose momentum in the final sector, and end up 25" slower.
World Cycling Center come agonizingly close to pulling off a major upset as a wildcard team, but miss out on the stage win by just 3 seconds.
Today's winner - Team UBS
Current GC Leader - Michael Schär
Some of the big names dropped by the teams today include Calvin Watson, Clement Koretzky, Sergey Chernetskiy, Kristian Dyrnes and Mikel Landa.
