Team Sky 3rd in Tour De France Time Trial

1 Garmin-Cervelo    (24min 48secs)

2 BMC Racing    (+4s)

3 Team Sky    (+4s)

Garmin-Cervelo powered to victory in the team time trial on stage two of the Tour de France to ride Thor Hushovd into the yellow jersey. Team Sky maintained their charge with Geraint Thomas moving up to fourth place and secure a second day in the white jersey.

Bradley Wiggins, Team Sky Rider:

“Today it was about the performance of the team and we discussed it at length beforehand in the bus with Bobby Julich. It was just about getting the maximum from every rider today and everyone played their role.

“My role was to keep the pace in the final when the wind was at its greatest. Everyone played their part today and it was just a fantastic performance. When you come away from a race like that knowing there was nothing else you could have done there is certainly no disappointment there.

“We gained more time on some of the GC guys and it’s been a fantastic start to this year’s Tour, in complete contrast to last year. Edvald has shown today that he has the legs. G you could see was hungry for it. That is the only slight tinge of disappointment that he didn’t get the jersey because he really deserved it.”

Geraint Thomas, Team Sky Rider:

“We attacked it and got stuck in and that was what we had. It was a great effort by everyone in the team, we rode it well. The less strong guys held their speed well and me, Brad and Edvald tried to put a bit more in. Brad was strong as anything.

“Unfortunately we lost four seconds but we’ve got no regrets and we gave it our all. We knew we were up [at the split] but we knew it was barely even a one second advantage.

“We lost two guys quite early but that’s what he had. Obviously we’re a bit disappointed because we really wanted to win that bit in the grand scheme of things Brad’s still right up there in the overall and that’s what matters.”

Sean Yates, Team Sky Sports Director:

“Obviously the results tell the story. From our point of view the boys did the best they could. There were no incidents of any kind so basically they couldn’t have gone any faster, and the fastest team won on the day.

“The only area where there could be some area of debate is the strength of the wind. From when we went off compared to when Garmin went and also BMC. It only takes a little bit of a wind fluctuation and that can make a difference.

“It did seem to be very windy, and the time check would suggest that on the way out there was a stronger tailwind than Garmin so therefore a stronger headwind coming back into the finish. The boys were riding very strongly in that section but it only takes 3k-an-hour less wind to make that difference. But they boys did all they could to get the best possible result.

“A win is a win but we wanted to perform and we did. We knew we had a chance and we weren’t far off. Four seconds is not much over 23km. We knew it would be tight and it was close across the board.

“Tomorrow will be a long slog of a day. We have to be vigilant because things can happen that are slightly unexpected. We’re moving up in the car convoy so we should be in the action and we’ll see what happens.”