After 2 sprint stages, it was up to the time trial specialists today. In Ajman, the riders completed a 9-kilometer time trial on a flat course with a U-turn halfway through.
World champion Filippo Ganna was again the top favorite today. In the time trial of the Star of Bessèges and in that of the Tour de Provence, the Italian proved twice that he can also achieve great results on his time trial bike this season.
Early in the race, the fastest time was set by Stefan Bissegger. The EF Education-EasyPost specialist set a top time. In the 1st part he drove at an average speed of 60 km/h.
No one came close to his top time, but Ganna had yet to get out of the starting blocks.
After 4.5 kilometers Ganna was 1 second slower than the Swiss. Bissegger sat on the edge of his seat for a nail-biting 2nd part of the Ineos rider’s time trial.
The world champion was unable to recover in the 2nd part and was finally 7 seconds slower than Bissegger. Tom Dumoulin (3rd out of 14″), Tadej Pogacar (4th out of 18″), João Almeida (5th out of 22″) and Aleksandr Vlasov (8th out of 25″) put in a good result for the general classification, but they couldn’t get Bissegger trump
Jasper Philipsen closed the list today and, in his red leader’s jersey, shot to the 10th best time.
