Juan Ayuso is the new leader of Paris-Nice after Lidl-Trek’s second-place finish in the team time trial on stage 3.
The German team crossed the line just two and a half seconds behind winners Ineos Grenadiers, whilst third-placed Decathlon CMA CGM finished nine seconds further back.
Lidl-Trek brought a strong time trialling unit to The Race to the Sun. Three national time trial champions were flying their flag in the TTT: Mathias Vacek of Czechia, Jakob Söderqvist of Sweden, and Toms Skujiņš of Latvia. Joining the trio of national champions were Lennard Kämna, Julien Bernard, Søren Kragh Andersen, all aiming to deliver Ayuso as quickly as possible to the finish. Each rider peeled off, spent from their efforts, eventually leaving the big engines of Söderqvist and Vacek, who produced powerful final pulls before Ayuso crossed the line as the team’s last man.
Whilst Lidl-Trek had their ambitions on the stage win, and came incredibly close, there is satisfaction in seeing Ayuso move into the race lead. The result, combined with four bonus seconds claimed on stage 2, was enough to move Ayuso into the overall lead. The yellow jersey puts Lidl-Trek in a strong position, but with bad weather forecast for stage 4 — crosswinds, rain and cold all threatening to break the race apart — holding that advantage will require the same collective effort that earned it.
The wider significance of the result stretches beyond this race. With a team time trial coming up on the opening stage of this year’s Tour de France, today’s result shows that Lidl-Trek are on the right track in the race against the clock.
In Juan’s Words…
I think it's a bit more the first — disappointment to not win the stage. We were really motivated this morning and we really thought it was possible to win. When we're two seconds down it hurts, the guys deserved to win today. It's bike racing and there was just a stronger team out there, congrats to them.
I think we did a really good job, we worked hard in the winter, also before coming to this race we trained a lot together for days like today. I think we have really good chemistry, we knew how to pace every moment in the course, especially on the climbs, and I think the last part we did really well — the team did a really good lead out for me.
It all adds up, those four seconds are a good advantage but here in Paris-Nice things can change quickly, tomorrow I think there will be quite bad weather and it's going to be a really hard stage. On an effort so explosive and short like this one, it's hard to say how the legs are compared to the long stage tomorrow, and for sure it's going to be cold, rain, crosswinds, a bit of everything. It's a quite different type of effort, but I think my shape overall is good.
