World champion Thor Hushovd took over the Tour de France yellow jersey from Belgian Philippe Gilbert as Garmin-Cervelo triumphed for the first time on the race’s second stage on Sunday. Hushovd’s Garmin team, one of the favourites for the 23km team time trial, set a winning time of 24min 48sec for the punishing event to beat the BMC team of Australia’s Cadel Evans into second place by 4sec.
British outfit Team Sky, who had been poised to put Welshman Geraint Thomas into the race lead, finished third just behind BMC, also at 4sec. Hushovd, who had finished third at 6sec behind Gilbert on the opening stage, pulls on the race leader’s jersey by virtue of being his team’s best placed rider on Saturday. In the overall standings the Norwegian has the same time as Scottish teammate David Millar, with Evans in third place at 01sec.
Thomas, who had been Sky’s highest placed rider on Saturday, is fourth overall at 4sec with Germany’s Linus Gerdemann of Leopard-Trek fifth at 10. Thomas kept the white jersey for the race’s best placed rider aged 25 and under. While the Omega-Pharma team stuck to the form book, finishing well out of contention and failing to keep Gilbert in the yellow jersey, Garmin celebrated as a team on the podium where they hoisted team manager Jonathan Vaughters into the air.
It is the first victory of any kind on the race for Garmin, who merged with Hushovd’s former team Cervelo at the start of the season.
