Evenepoel wins Tour time trial, Pogacar grabs yellow
Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step), the Olympic and world time trial champion, covered the 33km around Caen in 36 minutes 42 seconds, 16 seconds ahead of Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates), with Italian Edoardo Affini (Visma-Lease a Bike) rounding out the podium on Wednesday.
Slovenia's Pogacar had moved level with Mathieu van der Poel at the top of the general classification after Tuesday's stage win, but his time trial performance has now given him a significant early lead in the race.
He holds a 42-second lead over Evenepoel, who moved from ninth to second overall, while van der Poel slipped to sixth, one minute 28 seconds down on the Slovenian, who is aiming for his fourth Tour de France victory.
Most significantly though, Pogacar has opened up a one minute and 13 seconds lead over his biggest rival, two-time Tour champion Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), who had been eight seconds down overnight. The Dane was only 13th fastest on the day.
Australian national time trial champ Luke Plapp, riding for Aussie team Jayco AlUla, was a creditable ninth on the day, but one minute 18 seconds down on Evenepoel.
But his teammate Ben O'Connor, who's suffered since crashing on the opening day, could only finish 21st, shipping more valuable time in the general classification, with his hopes already looking doomed in 17th place overall, 4min 7sec behind Pogacar.
Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious) is the next best Aussie in 20th place overall, 4:55 down.
Affini, riding his first Tour de France, set the early pace, and his leading time lasted almost three hours until Evenepoel upped the pace in the second half of the course.
The Belgian was four seconds down on the Italian at the second intermediate checkpoint, but the 25-year-old, who finished third last year on his Tour debut, showed his class and crossed the line 33 seconds faster than Affini.
"I didn't really feel like I could go any faster, so I think in general I'm happy with this result," Evenepoel said.
"I think what we saw in the intermediate, that I was always going up and also still gaining time in the last 7-8 kilometres. So I think I paced it perfectly, and everything was on point."
Pogacar put in an impressive ride, almost losing control when taking a corner near the finish as he pushed to ensure Evenepoel gained as little time as possible overall, and it will be difficult to catch the champion now that he is in top spot.
"To be 16 seconds behind the world champion, Olympic champion, the best time trialist probably right now in the world, I'm super, super happy," Pogacar said. "I lost a little bit to Remco but gained on the others, it's a very good day."
Pogacar now holds the yellow jersey, the green jersey for best sprinter and the polka dot jersey for best climber. It's unclear whether he'll will want to defend the yellow jersey so early in the race before the big mountain stages.
Thursday's stage six is a 201.5km ride from Bayeux to Vire Normandie.
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