Sky in control in Trentino team time trial

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Team Sky powered to an emphatic victory in the stage 1b team time trial of the Giro del Trentino in Lienz, while Josef Cerny (CCC Polsat-Polkowice) moved into the leader’s jersey ahead of Maxime Bouet (Ag2r-La Mondiale).

Led by Bradley Wiggins, the will-drilled Sky unit posted the quickest time at the intermediate check point and averaged over 55kph as they cruised around the 14.1km course in a time of 15:20.

As expected, Astana was the closest challenger but Vincenzo Nibali’s men finished all of 13 seconds behind Sky. Lampre-Merida came home in third, a further 3 seconds back, while NetApp-Endura finished 4th, at 24 seconds.

"We expected to go well in this time trial as we’ve come here with around half of the Giro d’Italia squad," said Dario Cataldo, who explained that Sky's Giro squad had completed a two-week training camp in Tenerife.

"We did two weeks of altitude training in Tenerife," he said. "It was very hard work, a big block of work and maybe we expected to pay for those efforts a little bit in the opening couple of stages here as we thought we might be missing a bit of sharpness."

The battle for the race lead was fought out between the riders who had gained almost seven minutes over the peloton as part of the decisive break in the morning leg, a 121km road stage beginning and ending in Lienz.

Maxime Bouet held a slender two-second lead over Josef Cerny coming into the afternoon team time trial and he surrendered the jersey as Cerny’s CCC Polsat squad clocked a time of 16:12, 13 seconds quicker than Bouet and Ag2r-La Mondiale.

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