Following Saturday's adrenaline-fuelled stage 1 opening sprint finish, the battle for the race leader's yellow jersey at the Tour de France continues in Brussels on Sunday with the stage 2 team time trial around the Belgian capital.
The contre la montre par équipes is only 27km long and will be covered in just over half an hour, but there is so much at stake. Some teams will be simply chasing the glory of a prestigious stage victory, while others will be hoping to cancel Mike Teunissen's 10-second lead thanks to his stage 1 victory, and so quickly take the yellow jersey from the Dutchman.
The general classification battle will also play out as the big teams and their big-name team leaders try to gain as much time as possible if they are well drilled in the art of time trialling, or limit their losses if they look at the discipline with fear and dread.
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The Brussels city-centre course is flat and fast – very flat and very fast, making it a battle of speed and technique.
The 27-kilometre course follows a loop to the south-east of Brussels before turning north, crossing over the early kilometres of the route via a flyover and then heading directly towards the Parc de Laeken for the finish in the shadow of the stunning Atomium structure.
It includes a few roundabouts and fast chicanes, but also lots of long, straight sectors on wide roads, where the best teams will push their average speed close to 60kph. If the weather conditions remain warm and dry, we can expect a new record average speed for the Tour de France, bettering the 57.841kph average set by Orica-GreenEdge when they won the 25km TTT in Nice during the 2013 Tour de France.
Every second will count
2019 Tour de France stage 2 TTT - start times
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest Interviews and Features http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/tour-de-france-2019-team-time-trial-preview
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