Hushovd on top as Contador struggles
The nine-man team clocked 24 minutes 48 seconds over the 23-kilometre course, with Team Sky, BMC Racing and Leopard Trek all coming in four seconds behind.
Hushovd’s team-mate David Millar is now second overall on the same time, while two-time runners-up Cadel Evans (BMC Racing) and Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) are one and four seconds behind, respectively.
Defending champion Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank-SunGard), meanwhile, compounded a disastrous opening two stages when his Saxo Bank-SunGard team lost 28 seconds on the winners time yesterday and he is now one minute 42 seconds behind the leader ahead of today’s 198km third stage from Olonne-sur-Mer to Redon.
Ireland’s sole rider in the race, Nicolas Roche, started his third Tour in positive fashion, claiming 19th place on Saturday’s opening stage, while yesterday the Ag2R La Mondiale team finished 13th, 53 seconds adrift of winners Garmin-Cervelo.
The result sees Roche — who celebrated his 27th birthday yesterday, slip back to 41st.
Andy Schleck, seen by many as Contador’s main rival for the race said after yesterday’s stage: “I’m satisfied with how the race went (today).
“We proved we are a solid team and that we have good chemistry. This is important when we are fighting to win the Tour.”
Contador, too, was content, despite losing more time. The 28-year-old, who is the subject of a Court of Arbitration for Sport hearing next month into his positive drugs test at last year’s Tour, said: “The team gave everything we had and finished in a good time.
“My opponents are still ahead of me in the GC (general classification) and I might not even be the biggest favourite to win overall anymore. But there’s a long way to Paris and we will do anything to gain time to get back.”
Saturday’s opening stage was one of the most dramatic starts to the Tour in recent times when several of the pre-race favourites got caught behind a high-speed crash on the approach to the finish.
Defending champion Contador was amongst those to lose out while Evans, Andy and Frank Schleck (Leopard Trek), Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) and Ivan Basso (Liquigas) were others to suffer.
The crash occurred in the final 10km when Maxim Iglinskiy (Astana) clipped a spectator who had encroached on the road, forcing him to come down heavily and as he was close to the front, the domino effect wiped out almost 40 others and gave them little chance or catching the front group of 31 riders up ahead who managed to escape.
The day belonged to Gilbert however, as he unleashed a devastating attack in the final 500 metres up to the finish line on Mont des Alouettes ahead of Cadel Evans.
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