The Czech champion finishes second and takes the best young rider jersey, whilst Skjelmose and Geoghegan Hart both give excellent performances
In his first-ever Grand Tour stage, Mathias Vacek stunned the field with an incredible performance in Lisbon. He would have been crowned the victor, had it not been for an even better Brandon McNulty, who bested Vacek’s benchmark by two seconds, ejecting the young Czech from the hot seat. With an elite field of established time trialists on the startlist, few predicted Vacek to achieve such a top result, however the 22-year-old was quietly confident after a successful block of altitude training and string of solid TT results this season.
I knew I could do a good time, but I didn't expect it to be that good. I've worked really hard for this and in the end it paid off. I gave it everything and couldn't do any better. I'm really happy with it. I felt really good, I had in mind to just go as fast as possible for the win. - Mathias Vacek
I've worked hard, I did a really nice preparation with the Team at an altitude camp and now we can see it pay off. I'm really happy with my performance and confident for what's to come. - Mathias Vacek
And whilst Vacek was close to the top of the overall standings, Lidl-Trek’s GC hopefuls Mattias Skjelmose (13th at 22″) and Tao Geoghegan Hart (26th at 31″) both turned out strong rides, putting them near the top of the pack amongst their rivals. Speaking as he cooled down, Skjelmose revealed “This is the most power I ever produced on the TT bike. It was a great performance and I’m happy with the result. For now, I don’t think I could have gone any faster. It’s always good to start in a good way. In Denmark we say ‘A good start is half the job finished’, so we did well now, and we just have 20 stages to go.”
