Having fallen ill during the Volta a Catalunya, Belgian TT champion Kristof Vandewalle returned to form by taking sixth in today's Circuit Cycliste Sarthe time trial. Earlier in the day his Trek teammate Giacomo Nizzolo had sprinted to 7th in the morning half-stage to continue his solid comeback from a broken collarbone.

The short 88-kilometer morning stage resulted in the predicted bunch sprint and Giacomo Nizzolo placed seventh with the rest of the peloton finishing in the same time. Jonas Ahlstrand (Giant-Shimano) won the stage, taking his first win this season. Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ.fr) continued in the overall lead with a third place finish, as the rest of the GC also remained unchanged.

“Giacomo was not happy – but really only the winner was happy,” said director Alain Gallopin about the morning stage sprint finish. “Sprints are like this, every sprint is different, and today there was a tricky roundabout near the end. The team came to the front and did a great job to help him, so he is a bit disappointed to not give them a better result.”

With little changes in the overall classification after two stages, the afternoon’s short, but technical, 6.8-kilometer time trial proved to be the first test in separating time between riders. Alex Dowsett (Movistar) won the race against the clock in 8:05, and grabbed the leader’s jersey from Bouhanni. Team Garmin Sharp took the next two spots in the TT, and GC, with Rohan Dennis and Ramunas Navardauskas placing second and third.

Krisoff Vandewalle finished in sixth place with a time of 8:17 (+12”) with Giacomo Nizzolo (16th place, +18”) and Fabio Felline (18thplace, +21”) also slotting into the top 20.

“Everyone was good in the TT, but no one was super good I would say,” said Gallopin. “Giacomo had a good time and so did Fabio [Felline].  Kristoff is better for the long TT’s, and this one was technical. It was why Giacomo was able to have a good time.  But Kristoff is happy with his TT, especially since he was sick in Catalunya and is coming back from that. I think he will be good the next two days.”

The four-day race continues with the next two stages expecting to be the deciding factors in the overall classification.

“Tomorrow and the day after are two hard stages so things will be very different,” pointed out Gallopin. “Movistar have a good team to defend the lead, but these two stages every year result in changes. For us, with a team of six riders, it is difficult to control, so we will see. It is a very open race tomorrow.”