The stage 13 individual time trial of the Tour de France was the first opportunity for recently-crowned national champions to wear their national colours with custom skinsuits.
The timing of the majority of the northern hemisphere nations holding their national championships on the last weekend of June means the Tour de France time trial is often the first opportunity to wear the newly won national colours in a race. Team time trial events, as seen on stage 2, do not allow the national champions to wear their colours in the team event.
Of the 166 starting in Pau, 11 national time trial champions took to the start line, while world champion Rohan Dennis (Bahrain-Merida) left the race on the previous day’s stage and so the rainbow jersey of the world champion was not on display.
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Former four-time world champion Tony Martin is the current German champion and as a former world time trial champion, wears rainbow bands on the sleeves of his skinsuit.
Varying levels of designs are used by the 11 national champions at the race from national colours around the chest and cuffs overlaid onto regular team shorts and a white torso. Groupama-FDJ’s Stefan Küng, the Swiss national TT champion, went all out with a full red skinsuit, helmet and bike with the Swiss flag overlaid.
National time trial champions at the 2019 Tour de France
Jonathan Castroviejo (Team Ineos) – Spain
Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck-QuickStep) – Denmark
Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) – Switzerland
Alexey Lutsenko (Astana Pro Team) – Kazakhstan
Tony Martin (Jumbo-Visma) – Germany
Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) – Belgium
Luke Durbridge (Mitchelton-Scott) – Australia
Daryl Impey (Mitchelton-Scott) – South Africa
Rein Taaramäe (Total Direct Energie) – Estonia
Alex Dowsett (Katusha-Alpecin) – Great Britain
Jose Gonçalves (Katusha-Alpecin) – Portugal
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest Interviews and Features http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/tour-de-france-time-trial-national-champions-jerseys-gallery
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